Springing into Action After the Winter of Our Discontent

 

It's been 4 1/2 months since my last post. The reason for that? I blame this past miserably cold and snowy winter - the worst in recent memory. All my energy was pretty much focused on picturing the light at the end of the tunnel, as that tunnel seemed to grow longer and longer, and trying to stay warm in the meantime. My ability to train ANYTHING was severely limited. Too cold to be outside. Too cold to go to the agility building. Even too cold in my basement.

Three of my four dogs didn't seem to mind the cold snowy days so much.










Hokey on the other hand...she and I are kindred spirits when it comes to the winter months. I'm convinced she suffers from a form of Canine Seasonal Affective Disorder. She was miserable for months. She didn't want to go outside AT ALL. Every time, I let the dogs out, it was an ordeal just to get her to take a couple of steps off the screen porch to do her business. She would go right there in front of the screen porch door and immediately turn around and ask to come back in. Inside the house, she spent the bulk of her time leaning up against the heat vents shivering or curled up somewhere glaring and grumping at all the other 4-leggeds. Sometime in late March, as spring FINALLY showed the occasional symptom of appearing, she turned into a different dog. Suddenly she was happy again, bringing me toys to play with and chasing Sprout around.

First storm of the season - I'm not going out there

Different storm - same scene playing out all winter. LET ME IN!!!

Spring is here at last! Time to play and celebrate!

The worst thing that happened this winter was that Sprout developed a case of demodex.

Hair growing back after a few treatments

He'd had something going on since late fall, but the way it presented at first was somewhat atypical for demodex and looked like allergies. For the first couple of months, it was confined to his armpit area, but then in mid-December it started to spread. He was finally diagnosed on New Year's Eve day. Then I ended up spending a good part of New Year's Eve night at the emergency clinic; I very nearly lost him after his first treatment. After that, we switched him to a different treatment, but I was still nervous with each successive one. He was never himself for about 24 hours after each one. His last scraping in early March revealed no more mites and his hair has grown back in most places. However, I still worry about it returning; his hair hasn't grown back in his armpits yet. So I continue to give him medicated baths once or twice a week and I apply Goodwinol ointment to his armpits every night. I watch him like a hawk for any evidence that he might be losing hair again. I'm also worried about an underlying immune issue that may have caused the outbreak in the first place. Skin issues aside, he's as active and happy as ever.

Speaking of which, Sprout has made his official trialing debut and is now a titled agility dog!

Loot from his first trial where he went 3 for 3

We just wrapped up a whirlwind debut tour of 4 trials in 5 weeks - 1 USDAA Intro trial and 3 UKI trials. Our first trial was a last minute decision on my part. I had read an article about USDAA intro only trials and decided to check the events calendar on the off chance there might be one coming up in this area - and there was! Soon. Luckily I had already registered him with USDAA. It's not really worth it for me to travel to a regular USDAA trial to run him in the 1 or 2 intro classes that might be offered in a day, but a trial dedicated to just intro classes is a different story. The only thing I wish was a little different is, unlike UKI where at any level you can decide right then and there to take a toy into the ring and announce that you are running "not for competition", in USDAA Intro you have to pre-enter as an FEO (For Exhibition Only). I wanted to enter at least one run, preferably, the 3rd or 4th, as an FEO so I could bring a toy in the ring and keep things lite and fun for him his first time out. Winter being what it was and having an effect on our contact training and maintenance as a consequence, I decided to pre-enter standard, the 3rd class of the day, as our FEO run. He had some really great runs for his first time out, including a smokin' 51 point snooker run, and Q'd and placed first in the 3 non-standard classes. Unfortunately, I don't have any video of any of those runs. But here we are practicing between this first trial and the UKI trial the following weekend.

The following weekend we started Sprout's UKI career. I really like UKI for him because he only has to jump 8" as his regular jump height (as opposed to 12" in USDAA) and the A-Frame is only 5'3" for the little guys. I also find the courses challenging from a handling perspective, which I really enjoy.


He did really awesome once again - Qing and winning all his beginner classes.  


Here is his jumpers run from that trial:

The following week, we did a small UKI trial on a Friday. Once again, he smoked the beginners courses, Qing and winning all 3 AND finishing his very first agility titles - the UKI beginner titles in both the Speedstakes and International programs.

Here are a couple of his runs from that trial:

And, after a week off, this past Saturday we completed our last UKI trial in this cluster. He's now moved up to the novice level. The courses are the same as beginners, but now refusals count. And in UKI runs have to be clean in order to earn a qualifying run. We Q'd and blued in jumpers, gamblers and standard. Sprout has always made some growly, whiny noises while running due to excitement, but at this trial he graduated to throwing in the occasional bark. Silly. Here is his gamblers run. You can hear one of his barks as he is landing off the jump between the 2nd set of weave poles and the dog walk.

In other news, I'd tried to enter Poppy in a nose work trial the first Saturday in April at the same site where Ollie's was held last September. I was particularly interested in trialing her at this site because of her aversion to golf carts; there aren't any in use at this Gettysburg site. I don't remember when the entries opened, it was months ago. After they closed, she was waitlisted. Since she ended up at number 19 on the waitlist, I'd given up hope for her doing any nose work trials anytime soon and hadn't been practicing much over the winter. Then 3 weeks before the trial, just as Sprout was making his agility debut, I got an email saying Poppy had been pulled off the waitlist and had a slot in the trial. YIKES! I had to cram a lot of practice in. Luckily, it was like riding a bike to her; she wasn't even rusty. So my one "free" weekend in the middle of Sprout's agility trial tour, turned into a nose work trial weekend for me (5 weeks of trialing in a row - I've never done that before!). This being my 3rd nose work trial, having already not passed once with Poppy, and having been to this particular site once before with Ollie, I was much more relaxed. Just like at Ollie's trial, the order was interior, container, vehicles, and exterior. She was insane during her interior search, which was in a less creepy area than Ollie's had been, but still involved A LOT of arcade game machines. I let her off leash this time, since I didn't have to worry about antique furniture, and she spent the first 40 seconds or so bouncing up in people's faces, trying to find a way back out of the search area, and generally running around like a nut. Most of her pictures from that search have some blur to them. And we won't mention the crazed look in her eyes. Finally she settled down and started to work. She found that hide in just over a minute. The first comment on her score sheet was "A LOT of energy". HAHAHA! Understatement! Later in the morning, we did our container search. She buzzed right through that and found it in 9 seconds, which earned her a 2nd place. Then came the heartbreak. Yes, it was SUPER windy out, but that wasn't the reason why we didn't pass vehicles. I am 100% responsible for her not passing. I was too quick to call it when she started lingering on an area and for the first time I heard "I'm sorry, no". Oh well. I pulled it together quick. I had to because we immediately had to move on to the exterior search. Well, apparently I DID really pull it together because she smoked that search - 6.46 seconds! Good enough for first place! So, although her title remained elusive, once again, we didn't go home empty handed. Poppy certainly has her moments of brilliance. I think we're trying for a record - the most placement ribbons at NW1 trials without actually finishing a title. We'll keep trying to get that title ribbon to add to the placements she's racking up. Gotta love that crazy gal!

Now What? I taking a little breather and figuring out the next steps for each dog. I have a

couple of demo days coming up. The first I just show up with a couple of dogs, and do agility with one and nose work with the other. At the second, I'm actually running the nose work station at a dog activity day event, so I'll be giving talks, demos and then offering a short intro to nose work session for anyone interested in trying it out with their dog.

I'm figuring out Sprout's agility trial schedule. I'd like to get in some USDAA here and there, so I think I'm going to enter one day of an upcoming trial at the beginning of May, then take the rest of the month off to focus on training. June looks like a very busy month for UKI and some USDAA and I need to figure out what trials/days, I'm going to be able to do. I probably won't do a lot of trialing in July or August due to the heat, but we'll see what comes up.

Hokey heeling along

I'm planning to train Hokey for rally/obedience in the hopes that she'll like it enough for
me to enter her in those classes at this year's JRTCA Nationals. She seems to like heel work and she's 100% food motivated and the rules will allow me to bring food into the ring in my pocket. So we'll see how that comes along. In the meantime, now that it's warm enough again, I'm starting to bring her along to the building with Sprout so she can do a little agility once again.
 
Hokey is loving nose work. I think mainly it's because she gets an instant payoff. I have her working on odor only now and think she'll be ready for an ORT sometime in the near future. Ollie and Poppy will continue to practice nose work. I'll be interested in seeing how the element specialty trials play out. I'm really interested in doing some of those. And, of course, I want Poppy to finally get that NW1 title! I got involved in nose work specifically for her sake and Ollie (AKA Mr. Perfect) swooped in late to the game and got his title first time out. Out of all my dogs, Poppy is the dog I've struggled with the most and I really want this title for her.


The warmth of Spring is finally here.  Time to get BUSY!!

 

The ORT Experience

This past Saturday, Ollie and Poppy participated in their first official nose work event. It's called the Odor Recognition Test or ORT. ORTs are sanctioned through the National Association of Canine Scent Work (NACSW) and are the first step toward competing in nose work trials. NACSW trials have 3 levels and each level adds a new odor for the dog to learn. In order to verify that the dog knows the odor it will be searching for in competition, it must pass the ORT on that odor prior to being allowed to enter a nose work trial. For nose work level 1 trials, that odor is birch. My January post on nose work shows Ollie and Poppy working searches on birch odor. The ORT not only demonstrates that the dog is able to recognize the target odor for which it is being tested, it also tests the communication between handler and dog - i.e. the dog displays some sort of behavior to indicate where the odor is hidden and the handler is able to read the dog and and say "there it is". Or, actually, the official verbal statement that must be given in an ORT is the word "alert".

First, it it important to understand that, unlike agility, nose work is NOT a spectator sport. In fact, it is the opposite. Because of the sensitive nature of the location of the hidden odor, every effort is made to keep that information from leaking out. The only people in the building when the test is running are the judge, the NACSW certifying official and the few people working the trial: the timer, gate steward, ring stewards (at least one to reset any non-odor boxes moved by the dog being tested and another that only resets the box containing odor if needed), etc. Competitors are told to primarily stay in their vehicles while they await their turn and after they go through the test they are told only to let people know if they passed or not with a thumbs up or a thumbs down. They should not discuss anything about the test conditions themselves.

When you check in, you give the ORT secretary the dog's official NACSW scorebook for the results to be recorded. Then there is a briefing giving you all the basic information on what to expect.

Poppy & Ollie's scorebooks

Like in agility, there is a gate sheet with a running order. There is also a "warm up" area where a small number of boxes are put out, one containing odor. You can practice on these shortly before going in for your test so that your dog understands what it's there to do. You may also use them for "recovery" purposes after the test, but warm-up teams have priority.

The gate steward calls you into the building when it is your turn. You are allowed to bring one person with you to record your test. If you have such a person, they are actually escorted into the building ahead of you and seated before you are allowed to go in. This is to minimize the distraction to the dog being tested. When called, or once your guest is situated, the gate steward escorts you into the building and takes your coat and anything else you don't want on your person or dog while testing, then asks you if you have any questions. After that, it is EXTREMELY quiet in the building. You walk to the startline where you may pause for a maximum of 10 seconds. No one will tell you to "go". Like I said, it is quiet. And purposely so. It's about you and your dog concentrating on the work without a lot of other distractions. The time starts as soon as the dog's nose crosses the startline or after the 10 seconds at the startline runs out.

The test itself consists of 12 identical boxes set a minimum of 48" apart. They may be set in a pattern of 2 rows of 6 or in one long row. One box contains 3 cotton swabs with the target odor (in this case, birch). It remains in the same location for all dogs being tested on that odor so that it is concentrated in one spot for the entire test. As a verification of the test, a "dog in white", i.e. a dog who has already passed the ORT on the odor being tested, is brought in for a trial run before the dogs being tested are run.

Then the real test begins. As the handler has no idea which box is the one containing odor, it is up to the dog to indicate the correct box to the handler, at which point the handler calls out "alert" stopping the time. You are given up to 3 minutes to call the alert. If you call the alert on the correct box, you will be told "yes" immediately by the judge and then quickly reward your dog with food or a toy. Then you go to the judges table for your booklet, which will be marked with a "pass" and signed by both the judge and the NACSW certifying official. Lastly, you are met by the gate steward to collect whatever belongings you left with them and are escorted out of the building to give the thumbs up to anyone who cares to know your joy.

If you call out alert on the wrong box, say if you have trouble reading your dog and incorrectly think they are indicating when they aren't or if the dog gives you a false positive, you are told "no" then told which box is the correct one. You are to go directly to that box and reward your dog there. Then you go to the judges table to get your booklet where the result is recorded as a "miss" and must try again some other day.

Unfortunately, I did not bring anyone with me to tape Ollie and Poppy's ORT runs. However, my friend Marilyn was gracious enough to let me use some clips of her sheltie, Mia, doing some practice runs at an ORT run-thru that the club hosting this past weekend's test had held a couple of weeks before. I thought it would be useful to show these in order to demonstrate the basic set up of an ORT. Note that the background, although relatively quiet, is still much busier and noisier than it would be in an actual ORT situation, where you can pretty much hear a pin drop. Here are 2 clips of successful practice runs. Notice the indication behavior:

 

And here is another practice run, but this time Mia presents a false positive by indicating the wrong box for whatever mysterious reason. In an actual ORT, Marilyn would have been told which box was the correct one and would have had to immediately proceed to it. But, because this is just practice, she continues to search until Mia indicates on the correct box.

My own experience with the ORT started to really fall into place a few days before. I've been crazy-busy at work and have been putting in some overtime and just didn't think I could manage to make it out to a store to buy a red bandana for Ollie. A red bandana is the conventional signal in nose work to let others know that the dog is reactive and they should keep their distance. I sent a plea for help out to my co-workers asking if anyone had a red bandana I could borrow for the weekend. I quickly received 2 replies, so that was covered and one thing I could check off my list. (I found out at the ORT that the host club also had some extra bandanas available for our use if needed). Then it looked like Ollie's replacement harness (I had returned one for a bigger size) wouldn't arrive from Clean Run in time, so I was faced with either working him in the cheap one I've been using that makes him walk like he's in a straight jacket or risking his embarrassment by having to share Poppy's hot pink harness which would have clashed with his red bandana. By some miracle, the replacement harness was waiting for me when I arrived home from work on Friday.

A surprise to me - despite the significant height difference they actually wear the same size harness. Does Ollie look embarrassed trying on Poppy's pink harness?

Ollie lookin' sharp sporting his new harness & red reactive dog bandana

Their ORT practices had been going well. Even Ollie, who has 8 years or so of heavy reinforcement for 101 Things To Do with a Box and so has a tendency to goof around offering behaviors on boxes instead of using his sniffer, was giving me excellent search results.

Friday night, Poppy was so excited about something happening the next day, she kept waking me up as though she was saying "Is it time to leave yet?".

Obviously, since the odor box being used in the test does not move and I would know where it was after running my first dog, I could not test both Ollie and Poppy in the same ORT. Luckily, this club offered an AM test and a separate PM test. Ollie was 3rd dog on the line in the morning test. What was supposed to be a nice, sunny day turned out to be a cold and blustery one with occasional snow spitting from the sky. I had brought some birch odor with me and put it in a small box. I let him sniff it a few times while rewarding him with food, but he started to nose target rather than actually sniff, so I stopped that. I brought him to the warm up area and ran him through twice. The result was iffy; he was really offering behaviors rather than truly using his nose. So I hoped for the best and went to wait my turn in the freezing cold wind.

Our turn came and we were called in to the building. I handed my coat to the gate steward and headed across the floor to where the startline was set up. Once there, I paused, took a deep breath, made sure Ollie was looking at the 2 rows of boxes in front of us and then said "find it". As soon as I saw him sniff the first box and head for the second, I could tell he was actually working, so I relaxed a bit. When he came to the 3rd box, as he started to bypass it, he suddenly pivoted back around, put his paw on the box, looked up at me, then dipped his nose in for a target. I felt that was a pretty clear indication so I called it. The answer was YES!!! I was so elated and proud of my dog! He got a big reward. It had happened so quickly, either the NACSW official or the judge asked the timer how long it had been. The answer: 5 SECONDS!! Amazing. I collected my booklet with the "pass" and signatures and my coat and walked out the door. Someone helping outside of the test gave me a questioning look with a thumbs up and I smiled and nodded. Then ran back to my car to lavish praise and treats on Ollie-Ollie-Good-Dog.

After spending about 3 hours trying to stay warm in my vehicle, it was Miss Poppy's turn to show her stuff. She was first dog on the line in the afternoon test. I was a lot more nervous when it came to her. Poppy is the better nose work dog of the two, however, she suffers from severe environmental sensitivity. She gets very anxious in new settings and then loses her ability to focus. I had no idea what to expect. Her behavior in the warm up area did not encourage me. Instead of working, she just wanted to paw and knock the boxes around. Any boxes. Odor or not. Then when I went to the gate to wait to be called, she was very unfocused and doing a lot of stress sniffing on the ground. She was still not herself when we were called into the building. Normally when we do nose work, she can hardly contain her excitement. She barks loud and a lot. She strains at her harness and leaps around in the air. This Poppy was quiet, unfocused, and sniffing at the ground. When I got to the startline, she wasn't even looking at the boxes in front of her. I paused a few seconds until she was facing forward then gave her the "Find It!" command and she started off down one of the rows of boxes. I was encouraged that she was sniffing each box as she worked down the row, but still worried. When she came to the 5th box in that row, she started shoving it across the floor then placed a paw on it. I called the alert. The answer: "YES". Woo-Hoo! They were impressed with her speed and, just as with Ollie, asked for the time. She had alerted in just over 7 seconds! Another amazing run.

I couldn't be more pleased or proud of my dogs. And relieved!

 

Booklets showing the "pass" on ORT for both dogs

Now that they are both eligible to enter Nose Work 1 trials, we will get busy refining our work on the 4 elements tested in a trial: container, vehicle, interior and exterior searches. Stay tuned for more nose work fun in the future.

Ollie was super happy about passing his birch ORT with flying colors

Sniffer Workout

Since I haven't posted anything about nose work since last summer, it's time to catch up on how the dogs have been coming along with training their sniffers. We've made lots of progress! But first I should mention that I decided to focus on Hokey's agility training and not continue to train her in nose work at the moment. Since I unofficially retired Ollie from agility in November, it was time to step up his nose work training as a second career. He and Poppy are now both attending formal nose work class and sharing the time by alternating weeks.

Ollie's nose leading him to the target odor

Our last session of classes started out with vehicle searches using food. Then we moved inside to start introducing the dogs to working on searching odor. Then our class went on hiatus from December until mid-January. For the majority of that time, I was focusing on doing agility with both of the girls, but as the date for nose work class approached, I got my ass back into gear and stepped up my practice sessions to several times a week. Scent work is so natural for most dogs, it doesn't take long for them to get back in the swing of things after a break, but I definitely see a huge difference in their abilities when I can practice more often.

Poppy using the wall to help her pinpoint the location of the scent

Cotton swab with birch oil

The first scent introduced to the dogs is birch (essential oil of sweet birch, aka Betula lenta). The odor is prepared by cutting up Qtips and applying the oil to the cotton tip. Preparing many swabs at one time and then storing them in an airtight small jar, such as a baby food jar, helps retain the scent for a long time and prevents the odor from contaminating the area while not in use.

The main thing to keep in mind when working with odor is that you want to be careful when handling the oil or anything that comes in contact with the oil. You do not want to confuse your dog by contaminating areas of your house, or other places your dog may frequent, with birch scent. Disposable gloves are essential. You may want to use a set of tweezers to handle the Qtips when taking them out of the jar and placing them in the hide container and vice versa. Do your prep in an area with access to hot water and hand soap and wash your hands thoroughly, even when gloved, after handling the odor article. Dispose of gloves and anything else not to be put back in storage by placing them in a ziplock bag and throwing them in an outside garbage can in an area your dog does not have regular access to or by placing them in the freezer until trash day.

Supplies for preparing odor search: disposable gloves, odor-treated cotton swabs, a search container & hand soap

2 Containers: tube with hole in cap & metal tin

The Qtips treated with scent should be placed inside some sort of container as to not contaminate the search area. At this point in my dogs' training, I place 3 - 5 swabs in the container. Some examples of containers that can be used: a small screw top tin with holes in the lid, an empty chapstick container with a hole in the top, taping the swabs to a piece of cardboard then folding it over and taping the edges down to prevent direct access to the swabs, a plastic fast food ketchup container with a lid taped down and small holes punched in the lid, etc. You want to mix it up and use different types of containers so that the dog will learn to search for the birch scent and not "birch scent mixed with the metal scent of the tin" or "birch scent mixed with plastic and tape adhesive". 

My personal favorite container is the screw top tin. It has a powerful little magnet inside so I can stick the container to anything metal - door hinges, heating grates, appliances, dog crates, etc. I love it!

metal tin with holes in lid

magnet & swabs in tin bottom

Magnetic tin stuck to heating grate

We started the transition to working with odor by going back and working with searches in cardboard boxes and pairing the odor with food. The food was placed just in front of  the container holding the odor, so that when the dog found the food it would take in a whiff of the odor at the same time and start to associate the birch odor with the food reward. When rewarding the dog with additional treats upon the find, those treats would be thrown in the box as close to the odor as possible or by offering the treats to the dog by placing your partially closed hand directly in front of the container so that the dog is taking large whiffs while getting the reward. Once the dog associates the odor with the reward, you can start placing a hide or two using odor only and not pairing with food at the very end of your practice sessions. You need to be VERY quick in delivering your rewards for finds at this stage. Once you are getting good response to the odor only searches, you can start doing less pairing and more odor only searches.

Poppy locked in on the odor with her nose

 Right now, Poppy and Ollie are no longer using boxes to do odor searches. I just pick a floor of the house to work and place the hides in random places. I start out the sessions by doing 2 or 3 searches paired with food as a warm up, then switch over to pure odor searches. They are doing amazingly well and are proving to me that they now "get it" when working odor only.

Here is Ollie doing some odor only searches with the magnetic tin:

And Poppy doing the same:

Here is Poppy again, showing some real nose work sleuth work when trying to locate the odor underneath a blanket draped over the metal chair that the magnet is stuck to:

I hadn't ventured outside for any odor searches yet, but decided at the end of Poppy's session last Saturday to give it a try just to see how she'd do. There was a breeze, which made it somewhat challenging. It took her a little longer than the interior searches we've been working on, but she did succeed!

As you can tell from their enthusiasm while working and the smiles on their faces, Poppy and Ollie both love nose work. I strongly encourage anyone to give this activity a try with their dog. It is immensely rewarding to see your dog hone its strongest innate ability and work at something with so much joy!

We started back up with class tonight by doing some mock odor recognition test (ORT) runs on closed containers. So look for more nose work posts in the future as we work toward the ORT and then getting ready to compete in nose work trials.

Training the Sniffer

I recently embarked on a new activity with my dogs. Nosework. I highly recommend it to anyone with a dog. Unlike agility, it doesn't require hours and hours of training. Nor does it require lots of expensive equipment or the need to learn any fancy handling moves. In my experience so far, dogs LOVE this activity. And just about any dog can be trained to do it: young, old, big, small, even so-called special needs dogs - deaf, blind, deaf AND blind, even those in a doggy "wheel chair" - can participate. Nosework is a completely dogcentric activity where you are simply fine tuning your dog's primary sense and learning how to read his body language.

I came to nosework after it was recommended to me as a way to help Poppy build some confidence. She has a lot of issues with stress and anxiety and these are sometimes amplified in agility, particularly in a trial setting where she feels the increased tension in the general atmosphere around the ring and where her sound-sensitivities kick into a high gear. Nosework is a low-pressure and rewarding activity for her. It's also a quiet, one-dog-out-at-a-time activity. Although it is not physically demanding activity, the mental stimulation and focus required helps to burn off the over-abundance of energy contained within Poppy's body even better than agility ever did. She sleeps soundly in her crate on the drive home after every class.

Nosework is an activity completely led by the dog's sniffer

As it stands now, Poppy is the only one of my dogs that actually goes to formal nosework class, but, since it's easy to train at home, Ollie and Hokey are being home-schooled right along side of her. Ollie has been doing this since I started taking Poppy to nosework class. Here is a video I made of Poppy and Ollie doing their nosework homework roughly 3 weeks after I started taking Poppy to class.

 

The primary focus of our level 1 nosework class was merely to build enthusiasm for the game. Building enthusiasm for the game was NOT exactly hard to do in Poppy's case. She gets so rev'd up over it, she starts barking as soon as we pull onto the highway near the veterinary hospital where we go for class and, other than when she's actually doing the search itself, doesn't shut up until I put the vehicle in drive to head home. It's all I can do not to have her launch herself down the stairs to get to the basement where the class is currently held.

 

We started out using ordinary open cardboard boxes where the dogs would search for food (the object of the search is called "the hide" in nosework) and then self-reward when they found it. I would then swoop in with additional treats to throw in the location of where they found the hide to reinforce the behavior. Later searches involved adding objects other than boxes to the search field (e.g. plastic pots, buckets, toys, tunnels - just about anything that was handy) and adding elevation, but no higher than the dog's nose level (e.g. putting the hide on a chair or low shelf). The hide would not always be contained in something, but might lie next to an object. Toward the end of the 6-week session, the dogs were starting to learn to push through minor barriers such as box flaps and carpet remnants to get to the hide.

Currently we are part way through level 2 class. In this class we no longer use boxes. The hides are done in more "real world" settings, such as in various locations around a storage room - on shelves, behind objects, etc. We are varying the rooms in which we work in, gradually working in tighter spaces, which can make locating the scent a little more tricky for the dog since the scent may fill the entire enclosed space. This allows the dog to hone its skill by narrowing the possibilities down to the area of highest scent concentration. The second half of level 2 class will focus on the other extreme; we will start doing searches outside where there is wide open space for the scent to dissipate, surfaces that affect the scent differently than those found indoors, and, of course, different air currents that carry the scent away from the hide. So far Poppy is a superstar in class - she works diligently and fast - and I'm looking forward to seeing how she does when it comes to the outside searches.

Poppy stylin' in the new harness I bought her specifically to do nosework in

Right now the dogs find food rewards, which is very motivating while they are being taught to build enthusiasm for the game. However, nosework titles require dogs to be trained on specific scents. The 3 scents used are sweet birch, anise & clove. When we get to level 3 class, the first of these odors (birch) will be introduced. I will write more about that down the road as we train for it. The National Association of Canine Scent Work  sanctions both odor recognition tests where you dog can be certified in recognition for the scents listed above and nosework trials where the dog can earn titles. Local organizations/clubs may also hold mock trials for the purpose of practicing under trial-like conditions. Each trial has 4 components that a dog must pass: container search, exterior search, interior search and vehicle search. Obviously, my dogs are in the very early stages of training and scent trials are far off in our future yet. However, it's nice to have a good idea of what we're working toward.

Here are videos showing each dog doing nosework. Forgive the somewhat gravelly narration - I've been struggling with a bad case of bronchitis for the past few days.

First up is Hokey. I started her on nosework later than the other two dogs, but she is showing a lot of promise with it. Today was the first time I've ever worked her without any boxes, so she wasn't quite as fast as she can be, but she did an excellent job!

 And Ollie:

And finally, Poppy, my speed demon who needs to be challenged: