Nosework class (3/33)

This class is from two weeks ago, I'm still really behind in blogging. Now that the migraines (from being rear-ended) aren't so frequent, I'm hoping to get caught up again (time on the computer makes them worse). We have two trials coming this month, so I'd like to be caught up before then. I'm getting the van put back together, while also doing a deep cleaning. I didn't get the foam pads put back in Gimme's pen yet. She's happy to be up where she can see out the back windows, but not happy to have such a hard surface to lay on. It's on my list for tomorrow.

We were each supposed to bring in a chair for this class. I set two wood chairs out, but then forgot to bring them.  Someone else forgot too, so we didn't have a lot of new props to work with.

Interior 1 video - Gimme went right to the first chair and sourced it reasonably fast. She went by the hide on the blue stool, but then stopped to find a hide on the white step stool. Her work on the lawn chair was very fast; her repeat indications there tended to paws-on. Then her indications on the next hide (brown stool) were all nose. From there Gimme skidded to a halt at the blue stool, I don't agree with what Dorothy said. She thinks staying at the hide for repeat indications results in lots of behavior, i.e. paws-on. Sometimes it seems to, but then other times I see exactly what I want. This is a process with a long history to overcome. I am seeing improvement.

Interior 2 video - For the second search the chairs were moved around. It seems like her indications early in a search are more likely to be paws-on than the later hide indications. Overall she did well. The last hide (wood stool) I missed her first indication. To her credit, even though it must've been frustrating, she still did a nice indication.

Interior 3 video - Again they moved the hides/chairs. Gimme was rock solid on the first two. For the third hide, the blue stool was on top of the lawn chair and the hide was over her head. Gimme went around a couple times trying to source it, until she cleverly decided to put her paws up on the lawn chair so she could get her nose at source on the hide. The hide on the chair stack was inaccessible. Any of the places she put her nose would have been acceptable, but I waited until she made a decision. This time she did paws-on for the chair stack (the fourth hide), then she went back to nose touches for the fifth hide.

This time I studied the videos to see what affect time-to-source had on her indication. I measured this from the moment she started checking a chair until the first indication. Her time-to-source ranged from 1 to 25 seconds on 15 hides. Generally as time-to-source increased the tendency to go paws-on was higher. However, the longest time-to-source (the blue stool on the lawn chair) at 25 seconds, there was no paws-on. Then again she was using her paws on an unstable surface to get her nose to source, a possible explanation for this outlier.