Nosework class (1/35)

We always do a lot of container searches during the winter.

Container 1 search video - First hide in 4 seconds! I did have her work the rest of the containers. She did bap the container, but not destructively. She sometimes baps/kicks other containers, so I was pleased she chose to just search and move on.

Container 2 search video - This time it was the same search, but we entered from the other door. Dogs usually see this as a completely different search. Gimme still had the hide in 4½ seconds! And with a nice indication.

Container 3 search video - This search was set up with a lot of different distractors, which Gimme normally does very well with. Dorothy's dog was kenneled in the office and the door was left open, so she saw Gimme and barked throughout Gimme's search. This was a lot of distraction for her, a good training challenge. Gimme gets the first hide quickly (4 seconds again), but then struggles and gets sucked in by one of the distractors (#7, but I don't remember what it was). I think the longer the barking went on the more it bothered her. It probably bothered her more because she's not used to barking in nosework class. She does finally sort out the challenge and gets the second hide. Then we bring her back around to find the first hide again. Gimme does start "just bapping boxes", but then gets serious about it when she finds the hide again. Dorothy apologized for the rude behavior from her dog, but I was happy for the chance to work through it - better in class than at a trial. BTW even with the frustration from the dog barking, Gimme did not revert to crushing boxes. Yayyyyy Gimme!

Container 4 search video - Gimme normally blows by threshold hides, so it was nice to see her nail this one in 2 seconds! Clearly she's recovered from the rude barking. Then she finds the second hide quickly. Taking her around the loop to see the other distractions, she does get interested briefly by one of them. She quickly leaves it and refinds the threshold hide. But then on the tour back down she discovers the tennis ball distraction in a box and is really quite interested in it. Odd, since she's not over the top about tennis balls. It takes a little bit and I have to help her to get her to move on and then we were right onto the second hide again. Nice to have this kind of exercise set up so Gimme can get rewarded after she leaves a distraction.

I was very pleased at how moderated Gimme's indications were. She's always gotten more and more aggressive with repeated container searches, so it's nice to see this.