….are for the birds! With no access to a good instructor, I’ve had a rough road of training my dogs in nosework. A lot of my practices last year involved multiple hides and the practices would go on forever. Since starting SOTMC, and after our converging odors class, I have really worked on keeping practices short, simple, and successful. I’m just super pleased with how things are paying off!
Today we set up in one of my favorite outside areas – in a busy shopping center in town. The area is out of the way enough to allow for successful searches but there is still plenty of traffic and people in the area. There are also some challenging smells in the area.
Last weekend I found a bunch of baskets made out of really thick felt with stuffed animal faces (penguin and moose). They were only a dollar so I picked up a dozen or so. We set them up today with some ORT-style boxes mixed in for variety. The hotbox (or basket) aged for about half an hour in place. Wind was picking up and starting to gust around 20 mph or so. We started about 10 feet back from the random group and the hotbox was to our right. Both dogs went right to it.
I moved the basket to the center of the group and we went off to search a couple of bobcats parked in the area. After about 15 minutes we came back to search the containers. By this time the wind had really picked up and was moving the little baskets all over. The hot basket got blown into a container. I didn’t really notice until Cooper was already searching. There was clearly odor all over the cardboard box….he spent some time on it then decided to hit the hot basket. What a good boy! Scout trotted right in and, whammo, said here it is!
I’m still working on slowing Scout down as she enters a search area. Even though there is still a fair amount of tension on the leash when we start, she is now (most of the time) actually working as she enters the area….as opposed to just charging into the search area and continuing well beyond it.
I’m really pleased with the results I’m seeing just from participating in SOTMC. It’s super valuable to read about other people’s set up and experiences. Keeps me motivated and on task! 🙂
Kimberly Buchanan.
Kimberly Buchanan.
Carolyn Murray
Carolyn Murray
Linda Bath
Kimberly Buchanan