Nosework class (3/40)

Class consisted of two container and one exterior searches. Gimme got a manicure just before we drove to class, so I was interested to see how it would affect her (getting her nails done is stressful). She was fine during her searches, but when we got home she crashed on the bed for 90 minutes.

Container 1 search video - Gimme drives down the line to alert on the first hide in 8 seconds. When I called alert the second time, it was my mistake. Gimme looks toward me, but not at me, which is her way of alerting (when she's not in pawing mode). She was much more definite at the container with the green tissue. She looks strongly at me and then when I don't call it, she baps it with her foot.

Exterior search video - She drove down the left side and directly to the first hide at the base of the column in 13 seconds. I distracted her when I got the treat out of my bag. I need to develop the habit to get the treat out right away as we leave the start line or the prior hide. Because I distracted her I have to wait for her to indicate source, which she does. As we clear the large area behind where the second hide was on the dumpster, Gimme isn't very interested, though she did note the flat, dead rat in the middle. Then we cleared the rest of the area and I called finish.

Container 2 search video - Several distractions were added, but they don't fool her. Note she goes to the nearest container where she last found a hide - she never forgets - and looks toward me (not exactly alerting), then moves on. After she finds a hide in the far corner, when she comes back to this hide, she gets serious about alerting. Then we move through several distractions to a last hide by the door.

She did a good job despite the stressful manicure 2 hours earlier.

Urban Tracking (149) & Field (57)

On Saturday, September 14th, I laid a short track at Mom's. I usually lay them at Flaming Geyser park on Mom weekends, but it was raining hard when I got to the turn, so I headed straight to Mom's. When I got there the rain had stopped and the sun was coming out. There was no breeze and the temp was 69º. I aged the track for 90 minutes.

Gimme had no problem on the track and found all the articles readily. Mom's property is in a very rural area and there's often wildlife passing through. Recently a bobcat tried to take-out Mom's cat, just 4-feet from the house. Gimme showed no sign of noting or caring about any wildlife smells. The track through the dense woods was all on needles and very dark - Gimme breezed through and easily found the article there. After the wood was a turn on the blacktop and curve around some trees to the final article. I thought the track might be more challenging; clearly I thought wrong.

On Thursday, September 19th, Nadine and I met at Flaming Geyser. It was a cool day with no breeze. I asked her to lay a reverse of the last track, which she was already doing when I arrived. I went to the far end of the park and laid tracks for Cricket and Sugar in the picnic area, which is all mown grass. This area is also close to the river, so it presents some interesting challenges. 

The temp was 70º when we ran our track after 2-hours-15-minutes. Gimme had some difficulty with the first corner. It was in a low area and close to the river, so the scent was doing strange things and she had to work it out. From there she turned, found an article, crossed the road, turned, found an article, turned up the path through the woods - all without a hitch. When we came out of the woods she was determined to go straight ahead, instead of turning left. If I hadn't known the track turned left here, she might have sucked me into the field ahead and might not have gotten back. Once we did make the turn, she crossed another road and made the turn toward the end. Just as she had the last time we tracked here, Gimme was drawn out toward the field in the same area where the incoming road T'd against the other road. I'm not sure what the air is doing here, but her response was consistent with the last time, two weeks earlier. Once she got past this area, she drove quickly to the final article.

I'm so glad to be out of pollen time. I'm sure Gimme is happier too.

Nosework class (2/40)

We had two interior searches. Gimme was on fire.

Interior 1 video - There were three stuffed toys on the floor, which provided plenty of distraction and wasted a lot of time. I like to let her work through them, so she'll have it in her experience bank in case we ever run into toys on the floor at a trial. Since she was a little stuck on the one toy, I put my foot on it and reminded her to go to work. So she goes to one of the others and touches it, as if to remind me she could play with a toy if she really wanted to. She goes back to the one she'd been stuck on and needed another reminder to get to work. And get to work she did.

It took her a little bit to decide on the high hide, which are usually her favorites. Still, finding high hides is hard and even more so with tempting toy distractions. Since I called it a little early, you'll see she spends a little more time working it, after getting her chicken nugget. I think this shows she has a really strong interest in solving puzzles and it's not just about the reward. The next hide was also inaccessible, between the red cart (behind the white cart) and the garage door. Then she has to go to the toy again - she really thinks she should get to keep the toy for finding hides. The look she gives me when she finds the file cabinet hide is priceless, truly a "holy cow" moment. She gets caught up again in the high hide and I have to help her move away, and then she is able to find the hide under the chair. Over 5½ minutes is a long time for four hides, but three of them were inaccessible and the toy distraction made it more challenging.

The comments about a "ring" is from our discussion about when to call alert and the answer was to wait for commitment. Which begged the next question, how much commitment - do they need to get married or just put a ring on it?

Interior 2 video - Since Gimme was so interested in the toys, I decided to bring our own toy to reward her with. Three hides were moved to make them more accessible. The only accessible hide was now made harder, though still accessible. She finds the filing cabinet hide quickly. From there she goes around checking all the top surfaces near where the stool had been on the table, before leaving to go find the hide on the red cart at the other end of the room. She needed me to move into the area before finding the hide on the stool, now upside down against the back wall. It takes Gimme a bit to find the chair hide, but once she gets close to it, she sources it quickly.

BTW remember the toy I brought for a reward - she was totally uninterested in it, despite having played wildly with it earlier at RFE practice. Apparently it was of no value -whatsoever- in the presence of someone else's toys. Everyone got a great laugh at my expense.

RFE practice (101)

Did you notice the title?  This practice is number 101 - appropriate for a spotty-dottie girl.  My main goal for this practice was to get the remaining video segments I need to submit for a novice skills title with RallyFrEe.

Tug for reward video - I brought some toys to use for rewards and it made a big difference. It works well for Gimme - it's a lot more work for me. I started by rewarding with treats as we warmed up, then would do a couple without treats. When I got one or two good enough to use in the skills test video, I rewarded them with a play session.

Interesting, related note: In nosework class later, there were toys in the search area, which Gimme found very distracting. Basically I put my foot on the edge of the toy, so she can't make it play. For her second search I brought in one of Gimme's toys. I threw it for her after she found all the hides and her response was complete disgust. The same toy she loved in the morning was now old-hat and couldn't possible measure up to the allure of someone else's toys. Everyone got a good laugh at her response and my feeble efforts to encourage her to want it.

Warm-up video - This is the same as we've done before. Gimme is getting better about getting to work. I've started putting the go-sniff on the cue "explore". I want her to know when we are approaching the ring perimeter as a reward to sniff vs. when we approach it as a distraction to resist. I like how this is working out.

Eye contact game video - When we came back in for the second session, the class in the ring next to us had started and was very distracting. So I moved closer to them and we played eye contact game until she was able to be done with them. It only took 33 seconds before she was able to focus. Nice job Gimme...

Prop weaves video - I included this because I thought Gimme was so funny. She remembered which toy had a squeaker in it. It took two tries for her to remember to ignore them while we weave through them. I thought her response to my exploding-toys reward was cute.

This session was definitely the best we've had since early June. It feels good to know Gimme was having fun again. Toys are definitely a big plus for this girl.

Nosework class (1/40)

This may be our last set of exterior hides for awhile, since the weather is turning to Fall, which for us means lots of rain.

Exterior 1 video - This search had 6 hides, three sets of two. Gimme went quickly to the first hide, and then quickly sources the other in the set. In the next set, there's a hide at the bottom of the utility box, but Gimme shows no sign of noticing it as she goes by. She finds the hide in the stock water tank easily and very obviously. I didn't get any signs from her about the utility box hide and in a trial I think we'd have missed it. She finds it only because I took her back that way, though she was willing to go there. You'll see she quickly shows signs of knowing it's a high hide. She finds the hide on the pallets almost immediately, once she travels back there - which she did in a hurry. She almost gets whiplash turning back to the last hide. It was a 3:45 search, for a very large search area and 6 hides. Nice job Gimme...

Exterior 2 video - This search had just one hide in a very large area. Gimme was quick to find it. She would have been faster doing the perimeter in the other direction, but I can't fault her strategy. She didn't dawdle anywhere.

It's nice to see her having so much fun again.

Tracking (55 & 56)

On Saturday, August 31st, I laid a track for Gimme at Flaming Geyser. By the time we ran it, it was 1:45 old, and the temps were 77º. There was no breeze to speak of. The grounds were very dry. I put flags out for every corner and every article.

I man with a small dog went by the start just minutes before I laid the track. Gimme paid no attention. She really did a great job on the track and nailed all the articles. The pink dotted line is where I saw a couple walk their dog across our track as we were running it. We had just passed the second article and were approaching the road when I saw them, so it was just minutes before we got there. Gimme was interested in the contamination, but left it on her own after she checked it out. It was fortunate that she got another article and all the rewards for it just after leaving the contamination. She aced the rest of the track.

I was going to lay another track for Gimme on Sunday, but it was just too dang hot.

On Thursday, September 5th, Nadine and I met at Flaming Geyser. Nadine wants to do mostly field tracking for awhile - so she can get Sugar ready for a TD test. We'll do field:parking-lot in a ratio of about 3:1. I laid 2 tracks, one each for Cricket and Sugar and then both dogs ran theirs. Sugar does really well, especially given how little experience she has. We just started training her a few months ago. She is very steady and while she's much more vermin oriented at home, when she is working, she's more focused than Cricket.

I told her this was the track I wanted and she was just finishing it when I arrived after horrid traffic (2 accidents). By the time we ran Gimme's track it was 2:45 old, 75 degrees and breezy.

Overall Gimme did a great job. I'm not sure why she was drawn out to the left at the end of the first leg. I'm thinking there may have been a breeze curling down the road off the clump of trees and pushing scent to the left. Once she got back to the track she actually cut the corner and got up the track easily. She crossed the road like it wasn't there. She did great with the rest of the track, except the last leg.

She took the turn, but didn't get the exact angle. There may have been some contamination we didn't know about. At one point she tried to angle over to the correct leg, but Nadine said I didn't cooperate. So Gimme came back to where she'd been and went a tiny bit further, then indicated loss of scent. We did some "search for it" circles and in doing so she was able to drag me over to the final glove.

Overall she did a lovely job and Nadine was suitably impressed. I told Gimme what a great job she did and about Nadine being amazed. Gimme said, "she should be..." She could be less boastful, but I love her 'tude, just the way she is.

Nosework class (6/39)

Tonight's class was a series of exterior hides. They are trying to get in as many exterior searches as possible, before the weather turns rainy for winter - which could happen any minute now. There are three hides - all on chairs.

Exterior 1 video - Gimme had the first hide right from the startline. I don't see what Dorothy commented on that indicated Gimme didn't have another hide "in her radar" when she left the first hide. She went by the chair against the garage door, but came back to it quickly. The other dogs had a much harder time with it. It took her a little longer to find the third hide because of the wind direction, but she gets it quickly.

Exterior 2 video - Gimme is really fast with these hides. She has all of them, including the time to get rewarded, in under a minute.

There were a lot of dogs in class, so we only got the two searches. Gimme was the fastest, by far, so it seemed like a very short class for us. It is so nice to see her nose is back.

She's been getting better and better about her anxiety, until the invisible monster bit her this morning. Just one day short of three weeks from the last time. She got off, then back on the bed and under the covers. She laid down and two seconds later, squealed and ran for her life. She wants to hide in the basement, but I won't let her. I just scheduled another chiropractic appointment for her this Thursday. Poor baby is scared again...

We are going off for a long walk as soon as I finish paying bills. Hopefully she'll be more relaxed afterward.