Nosework class (2/39)

I saw "color" just a couple hours before class started, confirming Gimme is in season. She's not very poofy, but some. Based on her behavior and total lack of focus I think she's further into the season than is apparent. Nosework is normally not affected, except on "the day".

Exterior 1 video - This should have been such an easy search for Gimme, but she walks hides. The first hide was on the mailboxes, which she goes toward, but doesn't investigate further. There's a hide on the second mailbox, which she passes in favor of the fire hydrant on the right. Notice toward the end of the sidewalk she just stops and repeatedly looks at me, as if she's not sure why we are here. She finally catches drift of the hide under the concrete barrier. To get the hide on the blue pole and on the mailboxes, I basically have to move her close to the hide and then encourage her to stay there.

There have been times because of pollen and such where Gimme's nose wasn't working and to someone who doesn't know her, this could look as if her nose wasn't working. But, having seen it, I know Gimme continues trying to work the puzzle, with strong searching behavior. She wasn't searching with persistence here, just kinda doing a la-la-la search, as if her mind wasn't in it.

Exterior 2 video - Here there are five hides in the concrete barriers and on the fire hydrant. Gimme is a little more into it, but doesn't seem to be interested in putting forth the effort for the one with the hide on top. She finds the low hide (from the last search) immediately and she gets right on the second one where it's on top and close to the edge. The third one has the hide on the top and in the middle, but after finding a treat on the ground she just moves on. She normally loves high hides, but not this night. I tried keeping her by the fire hydrant, but she just wasn't going there. She does go back to the last hide and finds it from the other end, so I pay her again. The second time I bring her toward the fire hydrant she gets it easily. Then when I get her back to the one she missed, she starts working it and finally gets it.

From watching her videos, it's like she has divided attention. She wants to play the game and win treats, she just can't concentrate.

Vehicle 1 video - Her attitude was much better for this last search. She finds and alerts on the first hide in 20 seconds. Normally she isn't fooled by odor drifting under a car, but this time she seems to be; though, the instructor says there are fries on the ground under the car, which could be a factor. She hasn't put her feet on a car in years and yet does it here three times. I think she was just throwing stuff out to see if it'd stick. She finally finds the last hide - it took 2 minutes from the first hide!

I'm just not used to her being less than brilliant. I don't know how people with dogs of just-average intelligence stand it.

She was freaked out by getting her collar put on this morning, so I decided a walk was not in our future. Our tracking friend has a conflict, so we won't meet up tomorrow. I plan to go by Game Farm Park again and lay an article circle for Gimme. I think she needs the outlets until she gets back to normal and she always enjoys article circles.

RFE practice (98)

Gimme had so little focus today and really didn't seem to want to work, which is not like her. Since her gait seems a bit off to me, I blamed it on her shoulder. Anyway, later in the day I finally saw "color" and realized she's now in season. I've been seeing some puffiness, but not as much as usual, and this is about a month early. She was unfocused in nosework class too, which isn't usually a problem except for the special day. As she's gotten older her seasons have become lighter and more unpredictable; sometimes she misses them entirely. So, I'm thinking maybe her season started several days ago.

"Away" & "back" video - For the first segment I forgot to bring in the peanut butter. With the peanut butter she does better (though not as great as last time). I really must bring a chair out so I can leave the jar open and save time. It takes a little bit to refresh her mind about standing squared up on the platform. BTW the part with the peanut butter was after the class started (you can hear all the noise in the background), so she was doing better at ignoring it than before. She did get distracted by the puppy squeal in her last repetition, but was able to go back to work.

"Brick" & "pivot" video - Between the first segment of the "away" video and this, Gimme was ready to quit and go back to the van, so I worked on simple stuff. She loves her "brick" and "pivot", so I started there. Coming from "heel" the natural direction to turn isn't for the "pivot", while coming from "side" it is. I think I remember this from last practice.

Sidepasses video - I ran through each of the sidepass variations in heel and side and rewarded a lot to keep her in the game. She's getting better at those.

Center pivots video - As always the CCW direction is easier for her, so her accuracy is worse because she wants to go really fast and turn it into "otto". Spitting treats when she's exactly in center continues to be the best approach. She over-pivots, so I spend a lot of time waiting for her to move back to an accurate center position. Sometime I should try just going really fast CCW; it might be really impressive... of course getting her to stop with me might be an issue. She's a little ahead of me going CW, but not enough to get dinged for it.

Sequence video - J'Anna set up some sequences to work on her novice skills title, so I thought we'd try them. Gimme and I played with the first one, which was all the brain she had left. She was unfocused, but still stayed with me when Dana walked along behind us. The second time through she was distracted by the noise Dana made in the other training area raising the doors and then by a squeaky puppy in the class. She needed a lot of help in terms of repeating verbal cues and adding hand/body cues, which she shouldn't need.

I'm glad I didn't push her. At the time I thought it was her shoulder. Even knowing it was a season issue, there would be nothing to gain by pushing and it could affect her attitude long term. I appreciate her efforts to try and work with me. When you see the nosework videos where she's having trouble working, you'll appreciate with me how much she was trying.

Urban Tracking (145) and chiropractor

On Thursday, July 25th, Nadine and I met at Game Farm Park for tracking practice.  Gimme had been really over-sensitive lately and had a meltdown the night before, so I wanted her to have an easy track. Plus I'd already decided to do some article circles to increase the value for articles. So, I asked Nadine to lay an article circle for Gimme. 

Normally I prefer for Gimme to go first on these exercises when all the girls will be running it, because it's a cleaner track. But Nadine had already run one of her girls and was about to run another when I arrived (bad traffic made me late), so Gimme was third to run the track. The track started at the top of the picture, to the left. There was a missing article (light blue dot), which was probably picked up by someone.  Gimme did spend a bit of time looking for it when she got to the middle of the leg, so she clearly knew there was supposed to be something there. 

Gimme was so enthusiastic and having fun, so I asked Nadine to lay an article zig-zag on the way back to the car and we ran it when it was less than ten minutes old. Gimme really raced through it.

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About ten days ago Gimme was lying on the couch beside me, then  squealed, ran out of the room and wouldn't come back. It happened twice. I had no explanation for why she was doing this, so I scheduled a chiropractic appointment. I planned to schedule one as a follow-up for the atlas vertebrae, so I just made the appointment earlier. By the time of our appointment, Gimme had two unexplained episodes of over-reaction during training. One was the time when she got upset during our RFE practice and the other was the meltdown the night before.

As it turned out, during the chiropractic treatment, Gimme screamed in pain when Dr. Powell extended her right shoulder. This has never been an issue before, so we were all taken by surprise. Gimme has a very long history with Doc; she gets a steady stream of peanut butter from her go toob the whole time he's working on her, so she's pretty certain he's the best person on the planet. Thus, she didn't hold it against him.  She was completely happy with his exam and treatment of the rest of her body. When he came back to the shoulder, her eyes got very big, but she was willing to let him do it. Fortunately the stuck shoulder had popped out during the stretch, so there was no more discomfort.

I made another appointment for next week, to recheck the shoulder, the atlas and the two toes. Sheesh - I've never seen her have stuff going on one right after another. She seemed fine on the shoulder up until today and now I notice her gait seems a little off. I'll see how it looks tomorrow, plus J'Anna will also be able to observe her. The chiropractor appointment isn't for another 8 days.

Anyway, this stuck shoulder certainly explains the phantom pains and her over-sensitivity lately. I hate this, since she doesn't know what causes it and so is afraid of the invisible boogey monster. I just want my girl to be comfortable, confident and happy again.

Nosework class (1/39)

It was hot out, so they set up some interior searches.

Interior 1 video - This is a blind interior search and we weren't told how many hides there were. Gimme finds the area of the hide really quickly (23 seconds) and then is just all over the spot trying to get to it. I was waiting for her to make a decision and tell me, "this is as close as I can get." The hide was under the lip of the tub, between the tub and the wall.

After everyone ran the search, Dorothy talked about whether waiting on the dog to make a decision is a good strategy. She believes it is not - instead we want the dog to continue trying to get to source, while we read their behavior, conclude it's an inaccessible hide and make the call. If we encourage the dog to make the decision, then they are likely to also make the close-as-I-can-get decision when faced with pooling or residual odor, leading to a false alert.

Interior 2 video - This time the tub was turned so the hide was toward the front. The point for us handlers is to compare what it looks like when the hide is inaccessible to what it looks like when it is accessible. Gimme finds and indicates in 17 seconds. It's cute how she realizes I can't see her, so she backs up to look at me for her indications. She's such a smarty.

Interior 3 video - This time the tub is moved to the opposite wall with the hide side exposed. However, its between two seated people with their legs crossed and a foot sticking out. Gimme checks the tub in the middle of the room and then goes over to where she found the hide during the first two searches. Note how she trots right by the first time as she comes up the line of chairs, because the feet sticking out cause her to take a line a little further out. When she comes by the second time, she dips in to find the hide and indicates quickly.

Good class, easy stuff for Gimme, as usual. I am doing the most learning, also, as usual.

Tracking (54)

On Saturday, July 20th, I laid a track at Flaming Geyser. It was 79º with a light, variable direction, breeze when we ran the track. The variable direction breeze was most noticeable on the first leg, where the breeze direction changed 3 times. Because I've noticed a little difficulty in tracking (not in nosework) I've been trying for less age, so this was only 1-hour-20-minutes. It took me 11 minutes to lay the track and 18 minutes for Gimme to run it.

Gimme was slow at the start. It just seemed to take her a bit to figure out which way the track went. I even had to re-scent her from the sock I'd already put in my pocket. I sent an email to Sil asking for clarification about what constitutes a re-start.

She was generally slow on the first leg, but picked up speed after finding the first article. She did a good job on the first turn and found the second article nicely. Her course up the hill and the next turn were good. The arcing dotted blue line shows the area in shade, due to the hill blocking the setting sun. Gimme picks up speed on the third leg and actually overruns the article (a half sock), but finds it when I hold her back (light blue dot). She has a little difficulty with the last turn and last leg (out of the shade), so I re-scented her. She gets back to it and finishes nicely.

Gimme has missed more articles this summer than she has in the whole rest of her tracking career - so I plan to make an article circle for her this coming weekend so I can rebuild value in finding articles. I may do a bunch of these - they are a good exercise during the heat and pollen season.

I mentioned above Gimme is demonstrating issues with pollen in tracking, but not in nosework. I think scentwork with her nose down in the grass or in parking lots is going to be more of an issue when pollen is high; unlike in nosework where there could be less pollen exposure (except for exterior searches) and certainly shorter search times.

Gimme is doing better this year than last year. I got her started on bee pollen earlier and it seems to help. I'd been taking it myself until just recently and it was helping me too. However I stopped this week to get more from my honey-guy and he said he won't have any more until next March. Something about losing 80 hives last year, so he's rebuilding hives and can't take pollen from the bees. So, I've stopped taking any of the pollen to make sure Gimme has it as long as possible.

Us Moms sacrifice for our kids, eh...

Nosework class (6/38)

It was pretty hot and we'd already done RFE practice in the morning. Fortunately Gimme is good with working two things in one day.

Interior video - This was just a chance to search off leash, unknown number of hides, for 1½ minutes. Gimme went around searching, but nothing held her interest. She repeatedly went back to the things in the middle of the room, probably because they have a history of being hide locations. I was pretty certain there were no hides, but encouraged her to search the bathroom - which pushed us over time. She was only in there 11 seconds. In a trial we would have gotten a 30-second warning. I have no internal sense of time, so I rely on the 30-second warnings.

Exterior video - This was a very large exterior area with 4 hides. We were supposed to just follow them around as if they weren't on leash, so I didn't understand the comment about me running. In any case Gimme did well. Dorothy went around dropping colored plastic disks whenever the dog showed a change of behavior (each dog had their own color - we had green). At the end of the search area when Gimme (first dog to search) went behind the stuff, she flushed a bunny and tried to follow it. Some of the construction stuff has sharp edges, so I was glad she didn't get caught on any of it. Her first really obvious change of behavior was at 1:29 and within 12 seconds she indicates the high hide on the pylon. You can see she is thinking she should be rewarded for her find by another chance at the bunny. It's interesting how she catches the scent of the second hide on the hose, goes right past the hide, then wheels back to it as she starts to leave the scent. She does the same thing for the third hide, finding scent on the curb, going past the hide, then wheels back as she starts to leave the scent. The fourth crack hide proves the most challenging. Remembering how she acted when she first came in the area and how she searched here at the end, I think the breeze was kind of diffusing the scent and she needed to go around and find the edges before she could triangulate the final location.

She is such a brilliant girl; I love watching her solve scent puzzles.

Urban (144) and Tracking (53)

On Friday, July 12th, Nadine and I met at Auburn Cinema. When I arrived she had a very large article circle set up using the entire south parking lot. Gimme was a little distracted to start but did well, especially since several cars drove through the area right before we started.

Then Nadine laid a simple track around the building for Gimme. We ran it when it was 45 minutes old. It was about 60º and no real breeze. Gimme started out well, crossed the road easily, but was completely distracted by the family of four that were coming to the theater and crossed her track right at the front of the building and just as we got there. Imagine a friendly wiggle-butt "Hello, I'm the Empress of the Cosmos." Once they passed she got back to work and did well around the rest of the front and side of the building. The corner at the back of the building (low right on picture) was kind of challenging. It took her several tries to figure it out. She overran the last 45-degree turn and had to work her way back to find it. Once she decided where it went, she had no problem crossing the parking lot and finding the last glove behind the bush in the landscaping island.

On Thursday, July 18th, Nadine and I met at Flaming Geyser. My intent was to keep the time short, since Gimme seems to be having a little trouble with the pollen right now, but the track ended up being 90 minutes old. They've been mowing and bushwhacking the underbrush, so we thought we'd try tracking up under the trees. It had rained recently, so the ground was damp. It was in the low 60's and we had an intermittant breeze (from the left side of the picture).

Nadine started the track heading up under the trees, but quickly discovered it was all prickly ground since it had been blackberry vines. They took away the vines, but there was still a lot of pokey stuff on the ground. Nadine quickly turned right to get out of the area. Gimme started well, but then got stuck in the prickly ground (pink dotted circle, lower right of picture). She really had trouble deciding where to go, since it all hurt her feet. I was about to have Nadine put a new start sock out for us, take her out and restart her, when she was able to pick up the track and get out of there. I was sure glad there was an article soon thereafter to reward her persistence.

She did very well on the whole next leg, but then really struggled with the turn. It was an acute angle turn, really sharp and nothing we'd see in a test. Unfortunately the breeze was coming from the left side of the picture and this part of the track is where the breeze was strongest. Gimme picked up several lines (the dotted fan lines at the top) and wanted to go in those directions. A couple of them could have been confusion from the breeze direction and the sharp turn, but mostly I think she couldn't figure out what to do and was inclined to take me on a walkabout. I kept restraining her from the walkabout solution and she finally found the track and then was quickly rewarded with an article. We would have flunked this, but fortunately we'd never see a turn this sharp in a test.

Shortly after the article, Gimme turned about thirty degrees to the left and was really strong. After about 40 yards Nadine called to me and said Gimme was too far left and going further because the track was headed toward the apple tree and there was an article in the open area to our right (dotted red line and circle). I pulled Gimme over and asked her to search in the area Nadine indicated. She dutifully searched it, but I noticed she gave me stink-eye a couple of times. As we expanded the search in the general area, Gimme managed to get over to the actual track which she'd been on and indicated an article in the long grass - it had been about 30 feet in front of her when I pulled her over to the area Nadine indicated. Bless her persistent little heart. She got a LOT of treats and praise for persisting despite my obstinate interference.

From there to the end of the track was easy peasy by comparison. After her persistence-success, it was almost an after-thought. This is the second time this summer she has insisted she was right in the face of my disbelief (first time was the track with Sil in early June).

I am really just thrilled to see her so willing to keep working in the face of such strong interference. I'd love to get her into a TDX this Fall, and she'll need to be able to overcome these handler-induced obstacles to be successful.