Question – effects if "cook time" for a hide

[Deb (De) FrostParticipant]

OK, I would like some input on the importance (or not) of cook time for a hide.

I like to vary things up when I’m setting up hides for myself at home where I have plenty of time. I know at a trial, the hide could be out anywhere from an hour to 3-4 hours and possibly longer. BUT, in a class/practice scenario it just is not always (even often) possible to set up hides this far in advance.

I’m curious not only in how long any of you “usually” cook a hide, but how the results differ for you when a hide is out for multiple hours vs. a hide that is set out maybe 15-20 minutes (or less). What length of time gets the quickest results for your dog? Does it make a difference?

What do you think is the least amount of time to cook a hide if you want to work pooling odor? Can this scenario be artificially set up in less time? How?

Stuff like that! 🙂

[Carolyn MurrayParticipant]

If I set hides around my house/yard, I can set hours in advance (set them at lunch then run them when I get home from work). For the most part I set hides up to half an hour ahead of start time – for classes and practices.

If I’m in a pinch for time, I might add a fresh qtip or two, but I don’t always remember to do that.

How important is the age of a hide in a humid versus an arid environment??

[Deb (De) FrostParticipant]

I know that the amount of time a hide cooks makes a DIFFERENCE in the search (for better or worse), but I’d like some examples. I’m fuzzy on when/why it would be most valuable to cook a hide for several hours – what do you hope to gain vs. letting the dog hunt after 20 minutes? When might shorter actually be better?

What are some of the disadvantages of a long cook time? For example; a really HOT day, you’ve set an elevated hide 3′ up on a window sill. 4 hours later, where do you expect the dog to pick up odor? Where might s/he alert?

Another question: with a long cook time vs. a short one, do you use a different number of q-tips? Why or why not?

Thanks for your responses! ?

[Kimberly BuchananKeymaster]

I’ll let others respond with their thoughts but I wanted to interject that this is a case of giving the dog lots of EXPOSURE to different scenarios; Strong odor, weak odor, newly placed, aged, near lingering, pooling, high wind, no wind, hot, cold, dry, damp, tins, tubes, vials, boxes, misc. containers, etc. You get the picture. The idea is to help the dog understand how to work odor no matter the conditions. We cannot always predict how odor will work at a trial or in what running order we’ll be assigned. It shouldn’t matter as long as your dog has been exposed to all types of hide vessels and worked problems with different odor strengths and aging and weather. You keep practicing with your dog so they can earn a PhD in Scent Detection and you can trust they have the answers to the questions. 🙂

Kimberly Buchanan
Joyride K9 Dog Training

[Kathryn DobynsParticipant]

I think I do not have any consistent pattern to how long hides are cooked. I may set them at home in the morning to be run several hours later, or I might set them in the evening at the office and run just 15 minutes later. I think as a “general” observation, Hunter has an easier time sourcing a hide that has not had time to disperse all over the search area. So when I want to have a quick, motivating search, I may set two accessible hides for less than 30 minutes. More complicated problems – particularly converging and blowing odor problems – get cooked for 1 – 2 hours on average. Sometimes I will run the same problem 3 or so times over several hours, just varying the start line and maybe adding or subtracting a hide to see what happens. Every day is a new search!

[Kimberly BuchananKeymaster]

I cannot give dogs long cook times in my weekly classes but I can for the classes I hold once/month because I essentially have possession of the property for the whole weekend so some hides remain from 7am on Saturday until 6pm on Sunday and depending on the hide and level of class students may/may not work it. For those of you who teach at a location with others you could join efforts to give everyone the opportunity to work a hide that’s been cooking for a long time.

I will caution against leaving hides in public areas for a long amount of time. Amy and I have discussed getting flags made to indicate that K9NW odors are in the area so if someone from the public walks into the area they’re not pulling their NW dog off of odor and degrading their own training. But we have never gotten to that point of having products made. 🙂

Kimberly Buchanan
Joyride K9 Dog Training

[Deb (De) FrostParticipant]

I think the flag idea would be REALLY helpful. 🙁

[Terry Wright and KaiParticipant]

Kathryn,
I like this idea… thanks for sharing it.

“Sometimes I will run the same problem 3 or so times over several hours, just varying the start line and maybe adding or subtracting a hide to see what happens.”

Would this be like exterior hides? Or….

Terry Wright

[Kathryn DobynsParticipant]

Terry, I will do this anywhere I have access to a space for much of the day – that means interiors and containers at home and often exteriors and interiors at work. I don’t usually get the chance to leave vehicle searches out that long, but sometimes I will do just my car in my driveway a few times during the day.

[Terry Wright and KaiParticipant]

thanks Kathryn sometimes I get into a rut and don’t think of new ways of doing things 🙂 I really like this idea.

Terry Wright

[Sarah WoodruffParticipant]

when I was preparing for our recent trial my goal was to condition my dog working in the heat and exposing her to problems that have cooked in the heat. I would leave my house around 11am, set hides, then we would take a 45min to 1 hr walk on a shaded bike path but still warm and humid. Then we would run the hides. So the the hides had time to cook and spread out in the search area, and my dog got the experience of searching for hides after being hot and tired. Tried to simulate staging and walking up to a search in heat.

I have also set hides in the afternoon and ran them. Then left them out knowing a rain storm or some other major weather change would happen over night and then went the next morning to run again.

I also teach 3 classes in a row on Sundays and have seen major weather changes within 3 hours effect the hides. One time it was amount of wind and direction. Another time, a storm can thru and dropped a ton of rain in about 5 minutes, so humidity and moisture changes. Even though these were unplanned hide placement and environmental changes it was extremely educational. I shared with all my students sample videos from each class and explained the difference in the environment from hour to hour and how the problems worked differently with each class.

Some examples I can think of off the top of my head. On a windy day, place a hide in wheel well of car upwind of another car. See how dog works blank car or even opposite wheel well where the odor is blowing into. Do they indicate on the opposite wheel well or work it back to source? You can do this at a variety of time intervals (5 min, 1 hr, 4 hr cook time).
Placing a low hide at the bottom of a post or fence on a hot day, let it sit 10-30 min. I’ve had it happen where my dog indicates high instead of working it back to the ground.
Put a hide in a crack on concrete, see how they work that. Then put the same hide out before or during a rain storm. Let it site for up to an hour and see how the dogs use puddles or mini rivers of water to track back to source.
Containers are a great example. Can set up a container search and if you let it sit for some time you could see pooling or fringing on containers close to the source. I like to set up interior and container searches in our training studio with the AC on. We try and point out what is happening with the odor or what could be causing problems. Then I’ll turn the AC off and we see a whole different search. You can do the same with a fan. For interiors I like to do this when I have set up multiple converging odor problems. for vehicles I’ll set a hide on my car at night (when i put the trash out) and then when I take my dog out in the morning to potty I’ll have her search my car. That really shows how the odor has been trapping and pooling on the garage door, flower pots, driveway, etc etc.

[Kimberly BuchananKeymaster]

Great examples, thanks Sarah! 🙂

Kimberly Buchanan
Joyride K9 Dog Training

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