Celebration!

One year ago this weekend, I agreed to take in a deaf Jack Russell as a foster. At first it was only supposed to be temporary - through the holiday weekend. Then it turned into something more long term. Finally, it became permanent. The little diva was here to stay.

Hokey - one year ago

Even then, she was a little cheeky

Hokey one year later - isn't she gorgeous?

To tell the truth, at the beginning of this month, I began to have doubts about where her agility training was going. Suddenly, she seemed not to have much interest in working for me. I began to ponder what I'd done to "ruin" her interest and also wondered if she might be hurting somewhere. As time went on, things got worse and she didn't seem to show a lot of interest in doing much of anything at all. I noticed her stomach was upset nearly every day; she had more interest in eating grass than doing her business every time I let her out in the yard and I found myself giving her pepcid on a nearly daily basis to settle her stomach. But she also seemed lethargic. Then I noticed her nose was running a bit and she seemed to be sneezing even more than usual. She's a sneezer to begin with, so I hadn't  paid much attention at first, but when combined with her other symptoms, I started to suspect spring allergies were afoot. There was a suspicion that she may have been exhibiting allergies when she came to live with me last year. My vet gave me a dosage for OTC allergy meds and Hokey seemed to respond, but it was hard to say for sure whether it was a response to the meds or just something running its course. Given that her symptoms were a milder version of last year, I decided to put her back on the allergy meds to see if they had any effect. I am happy to report that they worked their magic and within a few days she was completely back to her normal terrier self. I was so relieved that her behavior wasn't related to agility training.

Hokey modelling her new harness

Now that the weather is warmer, I'm spending a lot more time on cross-training. This involves playing little games in the backyard which may or may not include some agility elements, trick training, doing exercises for strength and flexibility, and going for lots and lots of walks. She LOVES to go for walks!

Here is an example of one of the little games I made up to play with her using a cheap plastic small patio table:

And here is Hokey showing off one of her newest tricks:

But best of all, I decided to enter her in her first agility trial. While I don't feel like she is quite ready for prime time and I'm still working on getting her contacts trained to where I would like them, I figured a couple of CPE runs at level 1 at a location that we had just been for some training the previous weekend would be a good way to dip our toes into the water, see what we need to work on, and celebrate our first year together. I chose to enter Hokey in jumpers and full house because a) they were scheduled back-to-back first thing in the morning b) I don't have to worry about contact obstacles in jumpers and c) full house is a make-your-own-course point accumulation game so I likely wouldn't have to do contact obstacles and even if I did, I feel like I can probably get a passable A-frame or dog walk out of her at this point (I did end up throwing in one of those "passable" frames since it was kind of on the way to the table that, in that game, stops the clock). I am happy to report that she Q'd and blued in both runs AND because those two level 1 classes are paired, she also finished her first agility title - CL1-F! I couldn't be more proud.

Here is the video of her jumpers run; her first run in a trial ever:

Her full house run didn't go quite as smoothly - she discovered the ring crew and decided to pay a visit both between the 2nd and 3rd obstacle and then again at the end as the buzzer went off and when I needed to get her to the table. However, in both cases I was able to get her back on task and was able to run the entire course I'd mapped out for her and then get her to the table, so it worked out fine. Just something to work on with my social butterfly.  

Hokey's first agility ribbons

Considering that one year ago this weekend, she was slated to be euthanized for being "unadoptable" due to her deafness, we have an awful lot to celebrate!

Gimme a "T"

 

T is for tunnel.

Several months ago I wrote about how, due to her deafness, Hokey was really struggling with reading rear crosses when heading into a tunnel. She would lock onto the tunnel entrance and "tunnel vision" would take over; my motion would become irrelevant. Once inside the tunnel, our visual contact would be broken and since she does not have the ability to pick up auditory clues, she would have no idea where I was and would repeatedly end up turning in the incorrect direction when exiting the tunnel. 

Since then, Hokey has become more experienced with the information being given to her through my handling. I've also worked on getting her to look for me as she exits the tunnel. Last weekend I took her to a little group training session/informal class at a place we've never been and one of the compliments I received on her training is that she was looking for me at the exit of the tunnel to tell her where to go next. I was curious to see how far she'd actually come in the past few months, so a couple of days ago I set up an exercise with a jump on either side of a slightly curved tunnel in order to see how well she could predict which way to turn as she exited the tunnel. I kept it simple at first.

Then I mixed it up just a little bit in order to see if she could still follow the information I was giving her regarding which direction to turn when exiting the tunnel.

 

  

I was still curious if Hokey's ability to read a rear cross on a straight tunnel (i.e. "puppy cannon") had improved, so I set that up today. It still needs some work. We did have a few instances of "missed communication". I noticed these were more apt to happen during a more straight on approach to the tunnel then if we had a more angled approach.

But overall, she is making progress. Months ago, she almost never turned the correct way out of a straight tunnel when I executed a rear cross. Even repeating it several times didn't seem to clue her in. Now her "hits" definitely exceed her misses. Here she is turning the correct way several times.

I finished off with the big exam - an exercise that mixed things up between rear crosses and non-rear crosses. She did excellent!

T is for Teeter
In my last blog post, I explained the process I was using to train the teeter, but didn't have any video clips to demonstrate. I've rectified that.

We play two different teeter games. The first is the "bang game" where I line Hokey up parallel with the slightly elevated end of the teeter and have her hop on. This teaches her how to use her body to push the end down and stay balanced. It also teaches her the 4-on end behavior I'll be looking for. We work on her staying in position until I release her. In most dogs, the "bang game" also helps to acclimate them to the noise the teeter makes when it hits the ground, but since Hokey is deaf, maybe calling it the "push it down" game would be more appropriate.

Next, I work on getting her to run across a low teeter, encouraging speed, but also getting her to stick her 4-on end behavior no matter what my motion is until I release her. In previous weeks, I had someone else restrain and release her. This past week I restrained her then raced her to the end where she would stop, but I would keep going. Here she is on a very low set teeter.

And then one set a little higher:

It appears she has a pretty good grasp of the end behavior criteria because the one time she overshot and came off the end, she tried to fix herself without any prompting on my part.

And here is Hokey running a little mini-course that incorporates all of the contact obstacles. Her A-Frame and teeter are coming along nicely. I haven't spent much time training the dog walk yet, so we still need to tackle that more seriously.

T is for Table that needs to be Trained
I also need to spend some time training the "down on the table" behavior in the hopes of getting a faster down and better duration. The table is often considered a bit of a no-brainer obstacle that doesn't need much training time compared to other obstacles, but when you have a dog that doesn't like to go into the down position in the first place, it's something that requires some dedicated training time. Out of all the many things I've trained this dog to do over the past several months, I would have to say that "down" was the thing I struggled with the most. Even now, she displays some resistance to going into the down position and has a tendency to slightly rise back up with her elbows hovering just above the ground - you can see both of these habits on display in the above video. She loves jumping on the table itself. But going and staying down? That's another matter. I've tried to find ways of making "down" into a fun and highly rewarding game for her, but so far I've struck out.

So that's my Terrific Testimony on Training Three T obsTacles.

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

I hate to speak too soon, but it looks like as of today, springtime may have finally arrived. In anticipation of warmer temps that have been MIA for the past several weeks, the dogs and I have been swinging into full gear. Hence, the hodgepodge that follows.

Hocus Pocus - Agility Training

1. Weave training: Hokey's weave training has continued to move forward. The day after my last blog post, she actually had her first real test: her first exposure to a set of 24" weaves (the 2x2s I've been using, as well as my own set of weave poles, are older & narrower) in a different location. As you can see, she had no problem generalizing the behavior.

A few days after that, I decided to add a 2nd set of 6, for a total of 12. I introduced it the same way I introduced the 3rd set of 2x2s to the 4 poles - I set them a few feet apart and gradually moved them together. Hokey picked it up quickly and within a few minutes was weaving 12 poles! Here she is on that first day of 12 poles:

From here, I will continue to do some around-the-clock entry work with the set of 6 poles and incorporate handling/motion into the mix with sets of both 6 and 12 as well as building the weaves into sequencing.

2. Sequencing: And speaking of sequencing, we've been doing more of that recently. Here is a short clip showing some examples, including the first one where she does a serpentine-backside-threadle combo.

I thought it would be interesting to have both Hokey and Poppy run a short sequence to compare. They both do a great job considering Hokey had only been truly weaving for a couple of days before this and Poppy rarely does agility anymore. You can see the difference between the green and velcro dog vs. the experienced one who is confident with distance.

3. Contact Training: Hokey and I have been working on all 3 contact obstacles. Living in the city with only a small yard, I don't have any contact equipment of my own, so I try to make the most of my once-a-week training sessions that give me access to the equipment. I don't have any recent video of her teeter training, but we've been working on her end behavior, which, due to her weighing 12 lbs or less, will be a 4-on-run-to-the-end-and-ride-it-down behavior. I do this by propping up the "down end" of the teeter with a short jump standard so that the "up end" then becomes the "down end".  I then place her parallel to the teeter end and let her hop up sideways and ride it down a few inches. I start with just a small drop and gradually increasing the drop, by placing foam tiles under the end and removing 3 or so at a time, until there are none. After working the end behavior from both sides, I drop the teeter low and, with the help of an assistant, do some restrained recalls running the entire length of the board, while holding the end behavior we'd just practiced.

Hokey's running A-Frame is slowly coming along. Since I was having some issues with her scrambling between the apex and the box, I lowered the frame more so that I could set some bars on each side of the frame to help her stride rather than scramble.

After a couple of weeks of that, this past week I set it a little higher and removed the jump bars (except the one I lay at the apex). At the end of our session, I decided to see what would happen if Hokey approached the frame with some momentum rather than a sit/stay. This is the result:

For the first time, she gave me a 2-hit descent (2nd example in clip), which was wonderful. However, I've decided not to be picky about that. I'm fine with her giving me a 3 hit descent as long as she is moving forward at a good clip and not scrambling between the apex and the box and also hitting the yellow well. In fact, when she gives the 2-hit here, she isn't hitting as deeply into the box as she tends to when she does a 3-hit descent, so I actually prefer the look of things at 3.

Because I've been concentrating on the A-frame and teeter, I haven't had much time to incorporate the dogwalk into our training. I really need to get a 12' plank to practice running her across at home (if I can figure out how to get a 12' board to my yard from Lowes or Home Depot) and also build her a little arch hoop to run through to encourage her to run all the way down to the end instead of leaping. Here is what little I've done with restraining her and letting her run down the plank to a reward.

Hocus Pocus - Conditioning:


I decided that Hokey needs more conditioning in certain muscles that she will be using when descending the A-frame and dogwalk and riding the teeter down as it drops. I decided to use stairs for a couple of different exercises in order to help with this. One exercise will involve her walking backwards up a few stairs. I decided to train her the same way I trained Ollie and Poppy to reach back with their hind legs to walk up various objects backwards (see previous post Back Up That Booty for details). Since Hokey is small and the stairs are relatively high, I felt I needed to start with something a little lower. Here she is backing up onto a box:

I used the box to transition her to the stairs, by placing it in front of the bottom stair, then having her back up onto the box, then onto the bottom stair. Then I removed the box and had her just backing onto the bottom stair.

Then I added a second stair to the mix. This is a little trickier because she actually has to move her front end up and back first and then move her rear end. She does have a tendency to curl her body instead of keeping it straight, but she's getting better.

And finally, I started to add a third stair:

Now that the weather is starting to get warmer, I'm able to get her out for walks more often. This helps build both her muscles and her stamina. There are also a couple of places in my neighborhood that have concrete steps. We stop and do our backing up exercise as part of our travels. The lesson seems to have transferred well to other locations.

Poppy & Ollie - Nose work:

Poppy howls for nose work

After a month-long hiatus, nose work class has started back up. Now that they have both passed their ORT, Ollie and Poppy are preparing for their first nose work trial at some future point yet to be determined. With the weather getting warmer, we are now able to more comfortably practice exterior searches and vehicle searches. Here is a clip of Ollie practicing a couple of exterior searches. The tin contains 3 Qtips of birch odor.

And Poppy as well.

A friend gave me a couple of plastic vials for exterior search practice. Because they are

somewhat pointy on the bottom, you can place a Qtip inside, close the lid and drive it down into the ground anywhere in the yard, then open the top back up so that it is hardly visible. Today was the first day I tried using them and both dogs did amazingly well at finding them even though I only had one swab of odor in the container and it was windy out. I also taped the vial to things like the branches of my lilac bush, lawn furniture, and weave poles, so the dogs would get practice searching for odor at different heights and not just at ground level.

FUN!

I will wrap this up with a quick video of Hokey and I after one of our backyard agility training sessions. I hope it makes you smile. Always remember to play with your dog and share joy together! That's what it's all about.

Time to put this blog post to bed.

Weaves 102x2 (or 6)

So two days ago I wrote a blog post with video clips detailing all the steps I've taken in Hokey's weave training starting from the very beginning all the way up to the point where I was ready to add the 3rd set of 2x2s for a total of 6 weave poles. Then the WORST happened! It snowed.

Okay...so it wasn't the worst thing in the world. Despite my lamenting the ceaseless winter, it actually melted quickly and I was out there the very next day (yesterday) to resume our training. And that meant adding the 3rd set of 2x2s.

I introduced the new set by placing it a few feet in front of the set of 4 poles. Then I ran her through a couple of times from both sides. Gradually I moved the new set closer and closer to the other 4 poles.

Eventually I joined the new set with the old set of 4 poles and that's when the magic happened. Suddenly I had a dog that was weaving 6 poles!

So now that I have a weaving dog, what's next? Well, I want her to have independent obstacle performance regardless of my position or motion (or lack thereof). So we will continue to do some exercises with me sending her from various locations. For example, one thing I'm working on for independence is to send her ahead of me. We struggled a little with this at first; she would do the first 3 or 4 weaves then stop and look at me because she was unsure. Most dogs, particularly green ones, find lack of handler motion a bit perplexing. But being deaf, Hokey is probably a little more reliant than the average dog on my motion and/or keeping me in visual range. But we worked through it. Here she is sending ahead of me to complete the weaves. The fact that she is willing to go on ahead of me to complete them is a huge step. The confidence will come.

I will continue to do some Around-the-Clock exercises to work on difficult angles of entry, as seen here:

I will also be introducing motion and handling into the picture at this stage. Once Hokey is confidently performing 6 weaves independently with and without motion and consistently hitting her entries from all angles of approach, I will introduce a 2nd set of 6 poles and work up to the full set of 12.

Weaves 101 (or 2x2)

Searching for spring

I had put off training Hokey's weaves for several months because of winter. In my opinion, to properly train weaves and progress quickly, you need to be able to work a little bit each day. Winter brings cold temps and the possibility of varying amounts of snow and, since I don't have the space in my house to set up 6 weaves, never mind a full set of 12, I decided to put it off until early March thinking I'd be safe weather-wise by then. After all, last year by mid-March, it was 80 degrees and I was mowing my yard. Looking out my window today on the 25th, with the snow coming down and a couple of inches already on the ground, I'm questioning the wisdom of my decision. However, I've already invested a little over 2 1/2 weeks into the process. Hopefully this will melt quickly and not affect our momentum and the progress we've achieved thus far. And I guess if I can't be out there training, I can at least write about it.

I had great success using the 2x2 method of weave training with Poppy a couple of years ago, so decided to use it again to train Hokey. However, with Poppy, I had used the "older" method where the 2x2s are set at angles and gradually moved to the straight position -- like channel weaves. This time, I decided to use Mary Ellen Barry's 2x2 method instead. An article outlining her method was published in the April 2009 issue of Clean Run and can be found, here, on the KineticDog website. This method puts the emphasis on teaching correct entries from multiple angles of approach. The sequence of screen capture snapshots below show Hokey approaching and entering the weaves from a sharp angle that requires her to wrap around the 1st pole, thereby demonstrating her understanding of what constitutes a correct entry even at this early stage in her training:

I wanted to document our progress, not only for the sake of this blog, but should I be in the position to be training another dog sometime in the future, it will be there to help guide me through the steps again. I suspect Hokey's progress, although not slow by any means, may be slightly slower than the average dog due to her deafness. I don't really want her looking at me as I want her focus to be on driving forward. Yet she is unable to receive any kind of auditory feedback, so she must rely on learning more by trial and error than a dog that can hear would. She does have a fairly low threshold for frustration though, often expressed with a loud snort, which requires us to take a break and do something else.

I believe I started Hokey with step 1 on March 6th or 7th and I did not document this step with video. It simply consists of shaping the dog to pass through the poles of a set of 2x2s by standing at one end and tossing treats for the dog whenever it passes through the 2 poles. Direction doesn't matter at this point. You simply want the dog to understand the value of passing between the 2 poles. However, you want to move quickly to the next step once the behavior has been established.

Step 2 begins by establishing direction - i.e. the dog learns that from now on the correct way to enter the weaves is with its left shoulder passing the 1st pole. At this point you always want to have your dog approaching the 2x2s from one direction; you do not want to turn around and come at them again from the direction you just came (i.e. "back weave"). Because of cold rainy weather, I began the 1st couple of steps in my basement, which is plenty big enough for the first couple of steps, but unfortunately appears to have been last decorated circa 1978.

Once direction is well-established and your dog is consistently hitting the entry you can move on to part B of step 2 which teaches your dog to wrap around the 1st pole at increasingly sharper angles of approach by gradually moving the 2x2s from a straight on approach to a perpendicular approach. Here is Hokey demonstrating this step:

Once the dog is successfully hitting the entry to the 2x2s at the above stage, you can start to move on to the Around-the-Clock work. The first stage consists of you and your dog moving around the set of 2x2s as if they were set with the 1st pole pointing toward 6 on a clock and the last pole pointing toward 12. You and your dog work all angles of approach in an arc from 6 - 11 clockwise and 6 - 1 counterclockwise. At this point you always have your dog by your side and may do a restrain and release.

The next step is to work Around-the-Clock positions where you are stationary but releasing the dog from various positions that don't require any actual handling. The following video shows me working Hokey on both sides from ONE of these positions. I had trouble with my spare camera battery dying on me, so was not able to capture some of the other positions, but the Clean Run article mentioned above shows the positions to work on.  

Once the dog is hitting the entry well from the various positions, it's time to add another set of 2x2s. To do this, first place the 2nd set in line a few feet from the 1st. Send the dog through the first set and reward immediately after. Then send the dog through the second set.

Quickly fade the reward between the two sets then reward the dog for  performing both sets together. Even though the dog is performing both sets at once, they should still be considered two separate obstacles, so you are actually moving with your dog to the 2nd set instead of remaining stationary.

Once the dog is moving through both sets of 2x2s, start all of your Around-the-Clock work again both with the dog at your side and then releasing from various positions.

Next, gradually start to move the 2nd set closer to the first and repeat the steps above.

Eventually the 2 sets of 2x2s come together and you start to see something that looks like weaving! Continue to work the various positions like here:

And here:

So that's where Hokey's training stands as of now. I believe I am ready to introduce the 3rd set of 2x2s into the mix so we will have 6 poles. That is, IF it stops snowing and it all melts away. 

Internationalization: Raising the Bar or Building Barriers?

This is my second contribution for a Dog Agility Blog Action Day and the topic this time is internationalization. That is, the increasing influence of European style course designs and the increased adoption and execution of new, somewhat complex, handling maneuvers. I've been thinking long and hard about what I wanted to write and when it came down to it, I really struggled with what to say. The truth is, I have very mixed feelings on the internationalization of the sport.

On the one hand, I love to learn new things and challenge myself. Admittedly, I'm not the most graceful handler in the world and sometimes feel like a dancer with two left feet (and two left arms) when learning some of these fancy moves and attempting to put them into action. I have to break them down into pieces and slowly put them together again before spending time working on my timing with my dog in order to be able to successfully execute them. The truth is, I'm unlikely to incorporate some of these moves into my repertoire in a trial setting at this time. Keeping it simple tends to work best for me. But I never say never and who knows? When Hokey and I come together as a team in the future, I might be out there tossing in Ketschers left and right.
  
I admire and appreciate watching teams successfully maneuver their way through a highly technical course. With Ollie by my side, I've enjoyed tackling the more difficult courses. I'd much rather run him on a technical course than one built for flow and speed. I admit, it's a rush to make it through a challenging course clean and be one of the few to earn a Q. And I'm looking forward to seeing what Hokey will do on such courses someday. She's building a good foundation in backsides and other maneuvers that will translate into some tight turns and being able to respond to some pretty fancy handling moves.

On the other hand, I do see some negative consequences resulting from the increase of international influences. Not the least of which, they are not necessarily right for every dog/handler/team. I happen to have a dog like that. Poppy. I know she is capable of executing technical courses and responding properly to some of the newer, complex handling moves. A couple of months ago, we took a brief class focusing on just that and she did beautifully. We Jaakko'd and Ketschered and blinded and back-sided our butts off. Put her in a trial situation however, and it would be a different story. Because her environmental sensitivities go haywire in a trial setting, the more flowing the course and the less handling I have to do, the better off she is. Too much technicality in the course or too much handling required on my part results in a stressy, disconnected dog. She is not the only dog like this. For some dogs, the optimal course is a flowing, forward moving one where they can hit a rhythm instead of constantly and rapidly having to switch back and forth between extension and collection and making a bunch of tight turns.  Yes, I am fortunate that, should I ever decide to get her going in agility again, I have a range of venues to select from and can choose one where I would encounter more flowing courses. Not everyone lives in a venue rich area like I do, however. I worry that as the international elements become the norm, some handlers with dogs who are not motivated by these types of courses and have a tendency to shut down when encountered with them, will become discouraged and will no longer want to participate in the sport.

Which brings me to another, more general, concern. Will the increasing influence of internationalization of the sport create a schism between the serious competitors with eyes toward big achievements in the realm of national and international competitions and those who simply participate for the love playing the game with their dog and who have smaller goals and aspirations? Will certain venues cater more to those serious competitors by continuing to incorporate international course design elements to the point where they become known as venues for elite teams only? Will the newer or more casual competitors feel alienated as a result? I don't know. I hope not. But I fear I may have already witnessed this slowly creeping into the sport. I understand that, in part, this is just the natural evolution of the sport. However, I would hate to see agility completely lose touch with its roots and become a sport only for elite handlers and their dogs.

Lastly, I worry about the physical effects on our dogs as we ask them to perform more and tighter turns while pushing for greater speeds. Are there more injuries occurring as these elements become more common? No handler is 100% perfect. With more severe angles on course and tighter turns required, a slight misjudgement in timing has the potential of causing harm. Just because it can be done, does that mean it should be? What is fair and reasonable to ask of a dog in this sport?

In sum, I truly have mixed feelings about the increasing influence of internationalization in dog agility. I, myself, love to run the more difficult courses and learn the new handling moves, but, at the same time, I am concerned about alienating and discouraging teams from participating in the sport and also about the physical effects the demands of these courses are placing on our dogs.

To read what others have to say on the subject of internationalization in agility, please visit the Dog Agility Blog Events page on the subject.

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