tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581126499121918332024-03-15T18:09:58.425-07:00K9 Nose Work®The official blog for the activity and sport of K9 Nose Work®. Topics and discussion will focus on understanding and applying the philosophy and practice of K9 Nose Work® to maximize the benefit for our dogs. And, above all, to have fun!Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-12168100380677189532016-08-25T22:14:00.001-07:002016-08-25T22:14:38.777-07:00Recruit Your Glutes!<b>"Any dog can do it."</b> That's what everyone always says about nose work, and it is true, any dog can detect odor - they do it all the time just for kicks or because of biological imperatives; and, sometimes, they use their noses for survival. Many dogs become truly amazing detectors of specific target odors that we have made important to them to find for reward. These dogs often excel at the sport of nose work. <b>"Nose work is easy."</b> That's what some people say. Well, yes and no. Nose work is often very easy for dogs, getting harder the more we humans get involved. Most people can manage to handle a dog doing nose work, some can really skillfully partner with a nose work dog. When everything is going right and the dog is fully focused and on task, it's not terribly hard for the team to get out there and search well. Sometimes, there are challenges facing the dog and he can't be at the top of his game, likewise, there can be challenges facing the human - like, being a human - and the team may have a tough time searching. If you've ever searched where both dog and human are challenged, you know nose work is not easy, and sometimes it's downright humbling. Consistently doing well in nose work requires a dog at the top of his game and a handler at the top of her game, working together, like peanut butter and chocolate work together to become a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Two awesome things making a third, even more awesome thing. Only science can tell us which is the dog - peanut butter or chocolate - and which is the handler, and just because you have the raw ingredients, doesn't mean you have the finished product. It turns out, combining a dog and handler to make a nose work peanut butter cup is more art than science, and may just require unicorns and rainbows - or glutes. That's not a typo. I said glutes. Derrière muscles. Butt biceps. Yes, the key to greatness has been right behind you all this time. Don't turn around... no, it's still right behind you. Ok, now you're chasing your tail... Stop it. Sit down.<br />
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Stay with me now, people.<br />
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A while back, my wife convinced me to attend a BodyPump class at the local YMCA. BodyPump is an instructor led, group workout class, focusing on strength training. Over the course of one hour, various muscle groups are targeted with specific workout routines timed to the beat of catchy dance songs. Let me repeat, my wife convinced me to try this.<br />
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I'm no stranger to working out. I learned all about it in high school playing baseball and football. You put way too much weight on a bar, grunt and snort a lot and you throw your back into it or whatever it takes to prove you can lift that weight at least once ("maxing out" is what we used to call it). High fives from your bros. Done. Did it for years. I lifted weights to music: AC/DC, Mettalica, ABBA - you name it, I'll do a seated overhead tricep press to it. I lifted weights in front of a mirror. Bend at the elbow, lift up, resist on the way down. Suck in that gut, puff out that chest. Looks good. I worked out next to other people - we looked very similar, working against gravity to keep heavy things from crashing back down to earth's surface. Walking back and forth, "gettin' loose" and stretching out, sneakily pulling at pesky sweaty workout wedgies and pretend kissing our biceps so we could sniff test for B.O. We've all done it. Point is, I know what I'm doing. No need for an instructor or a group class.<br />
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So, when I arrive at this BodyPump class, I have to descend from my metaphorical pedestal of strength training superiority to enter the so-called "workout space", but instead of passing through the double doors like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, I shuffle in like a pebble, awash in a mixture of fear and anger, or "fanger". Fear, because, <i>what if I don't actually know what I'm doing, </i>and anger, because, <i>I don't actually know what I'm doing</i>. I don't know what to expect, I don't know what good BodyPumping is, I don't know what the instructor will think of me, I don't know if the 60 year old lady next to me will put me to shame; I just know I don't want to fail.<br />
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The instructor, a bubbly, super fit, smile-talking elementary school teacher (clearly she lifts the kids all day long and loves it) singles me out as the new guy and warns me to go light on the weight (challenge understood and accepted). Long gone are the days of me and a bunch of muscle heads listening to AC/DC, slinging weights until our forehead veins pop. Now, it's me and a bunch of people who look like they belong at a town hall meeting, listening to pop/dance tunes with our step/benches, purple foam coated dumbbells and microban infused yoga mats. I am out of my element.<br />
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The class begins. The instructor cues a song and calls for everyone to perform a sequence of lifts with the weight bar. She's counting reps and reminding everyone to follow her lead. We're mere moments into this class, and my fangery feelings are frustratingly high. I'm not struggling to lift the weight bar, but I am displaying - for all to see - a staggeringly sad and amusing lack of musicality and rhythm. I am unable to move in unison with the rest of the class. And I am alone in this struggle, save for the few people around me who are taxed with ignoring my awful timing and remaining on the beat of the song. Let me be clear, I can march to the beat of my own drum (assuming I'm not responsible for keeping a beat or using a drum or actually marching), but keeping in sync with a bunch of strangers in a public setting, I can not do; and, besides, that kind of conformism is a slippery slope to flash mobs, or worse, doing the wave at sporting events, so I could really consider this my strength and everyone else's weakness. As the first song finishes, I entertain the possibility that the next song and exercises will be better. The music starts. Things do not improve. My up is still everyone else's down. In the face of total failure, and unable to pick up the beat no matter how many times I speed up or slow down, or stop and restart, I choose to load up on weight - obviously, one can't be bothered to be rhythmic when hoisting the equivalent of a Chevy Nova above one's shoulders. For the rest of the class, I show an uncanny ability to be in direct opposition to the beat set by the instructor, the beat the entire rest of the class follows. I fail to get my timing right even once, even accidentally. What's worse, I struggle to perform the exercises - surprise, I'm using too much weight. And this instructor explicitly says, no throwing your back into these lifts. Crap. I'm on the ropes. All engines are flaming out. I'm in crisis mode.<br />
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By the end of this class, I'm down to just a weight bar, which is like, 5 pounds, and I'm flitting in and out of consciousness as the instructor happily calls out, "just 16 more!" Just 16 more lunges. Kill me now. I have to give up. My wife looks over at me with pity and concern - and I think a veiled smirk, for which I cannot judge her. I see my own face in the mirror smirking at my own body, whatever it is I am now doing demands to be met with smirking and pity. This is not exercise. I'm actually good at exercising. Something is wrong with this class and all of these people. I briefly consider staging a walkout, but I'm only partially conscious and I can barely move my legs after the lunges. The class finishes with a cool down, but for me it's more of a hot, itchy, shame spiral. The 60 year old lady next to me offers to carry my weights back to the storage rack. I don't have the heart (or the grip strength) to turn her down, after all, I wouldn't want her to think she's no longer a valued member of society.<br />
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Because I have no shame, and I hate to lose, I agree to return to a second BodyPump class two days later. On my way out of the YMCA, I realize something is terribly wrong with my body. Over the next two days, the extreme soreness in my legs results in one fall down the stairs and one failed attempt to get out of a chair and move across a room to stop a decorative partition wall from falling on my nephew (don't worry, a normal person got up and walked to his rescue, no one was harmed). I question wether I am indeed still an able-bodied, relatively young human being or if the government has secretly stolen my youthfulness and replaced my innards with margarine. No clear answer presents itself, so I resolve to show up to the second BodyPump class and hope for a miraculously different outcome.<br />
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At this second class, I feel a little less fangery and I work a little harder to listen to the instructor to get the timing of the exercises down, and I go easy on the weights. It's still tough as hell. Even though there are 20+ people in the class, I feel like the instructor is talking about me when she says things like, "loosen your grip on the bar" and, "drive those heels into the ground". Either way, I incorporate these tips and they seem benign enough. Fifteen minutes into the class, we start the song to work squats and lunges - the exercises that almost turned my lights out last time. I struggle to stay upright and conscious as she pushes us to go extra deep with squats. I'm feeling like this is the end of my foray into BodyPump, but I can't give up. That's when the instructor, super happy, smiling, not a drop of sweat on her face, chirps out, "Recruit your glutes!"<br />
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The last thing I need to hear bubbling forth all sing-songy and fresh from the smiling mouth of my way too fit Body Pump instructor while I struggle to stay upright and conscious as we power through extra deep squats with extended pauses is, "Recruit your glutes!"<br />
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How exactly do I recruit my glutes? Is this a gr-ass roots movement I've not yet heard about? Can I get their support with robocalls? I need more than a cheeky phrase shouted over a Jason Derulo track while I try to come out of a deep lunge without tipping over and skewering the person next to me with my weight bar.<br />
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As if reading my mind - more likely witnessing my physical ineptitude - the instructor guides us through exactly how to recruit our glutes. Surprisingly, I immediately feel reinforcements coming in from the rear. The next few lunges are easier and my body is no longer a rep away from a Chernobyl style meltdown. I'm considering more weight for the next song, and most of my fanger is gone, replaced with cautious optimism, or cauptimism.<br />
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Learning to use my glutes was a turning point for me, and made future BodyPump classes useful, and - unexpectedly - fun. It made me think of how I could recruit other parts of my body in other exercises to increase my stamina and strength. I still remained perfectly out of sync with the rest of the class, but my weight load increased and I finally felt like all the parts of my body were working together to reach peanut butter cup perfection - so, I treated myself to a bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (which I packed away in double-fisted, polyrhythmic style).<br />
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Many teams in nose work could take advantage of their "glutes" to reach their full potential. Here are some key ideas to help you and your dog maximize your search performance:<br />
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<b>Get Help Identifying Your Team's "Glutes": </b>In<b> </b>nose work, "glutes" are those underutilized, overlooked attributes in disguise that every team has, but few teams actually take advantage of to help them reach success. It can be as simple as changing leash length, or as complex as learning how to move your dog through a search area with your body pressure and position, while letting him stay in control of finding the hides. It's very difficult to self-evaluate and identify your own team's hidden attributes, which is where an outside observer comes in handy. In addition to a sharp, third-party evaluation, getting outside of your comfort zone is a key step towards activating your nose work "glutes". Be willing to do things that don't come naturally, that haven't become habit, and you'll begin to see a clearer picture of what your team is doing well, what you're struggling with, and how you and your dog could do better.<br />
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<b>Start Working All of Your Team's Nose Work Muscle Groups More Often: </b>Most teams are faced with opportunities to improve their performance and achieve more success (a lightbulb moment in class reveals your dog is cueing on your hand moving to your bait pouch), but often, it requires hard work and dedication. It's easier to explain why I can't do something than it is to put in the work that will eventually result in me doing that something. If I avoid working on my dog's "stickiness" to odor because I don't know where to start or it's hard for me to see progress, we won't grow as a team. If I accept that my dog is just "methodical" and loves to sniff everything before finding the hide, I may be missing out on some major opportunities for increasing my dog's efficiency and joy for the task of searching for a valuable scent. If I become accustomed to playing the clueless handler, I may never be confident enough to call finish in a search without making my dog re-check everything three times over. Working on different skills in nose work means taking a more deliberate approach to training, not just doing what feels easy and explaining away your dogs' and your shortcomings as a result of outside forces acting on your team. If I'm utilizing environment for learning (placing threshold hides every time I train) or maybe I'm honing my reward timing and criteria (paying for drive to odor), I should see results from my deliberate use of different nose work muscle groups. If I'm not seeing results, maybe I need to work on my understanding of the concepts and my use of the tools for learning. Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice - or even good practice - makes perfect.<br />
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<b>Set Goals, But Have Fun on the Path to Success: </b>Progress and growth do not mean slogging through a checklist of training tasks. If your team is healthy, able, and willing, then reaching your goals should be challenging, but fun. I could have chosen to brute force my way through BodyPump with way too much weight on my bar and a sour, pained look on my face; instead, I reduced the weight load, listened to the advice of the instructor and focused on feeling good and building upon my skills (remember, I had strength training experience and athleticism prior to the class, but that wasn't enough). I accepted that the challenges of the class were going to require a different approach, using my abilities in ways I'd never considered. The challenges of nose work require the dog to use his natural abilities for a specific purpose: find a target odor or odors under time pressure in varying environments. This is not easy for all dogs. Handlers also need to develop skills - mostly so they don't make the search extra hard for the dog, but ultimately so they can actually provide some support that helps the team reach success. Handlers and dogs should feel comfortable, eager, and confident when searching. If you or your dog is not having fun and achieving success, take a step back and figure out how to make it happen. There should always be more gain than pain.<br />
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<b>Find Your Team's Rhythm in Nose Work: </b>As you identify dormant nose work training muscles that can be activated to increase your team's success and enjoyment, you also need to understand that every team is unique and every team walks their own path to success. When trying to find your unique path to success, think of it as a spirograph of ever increasing size. You will always be walking forward, but you will sometimes return to the beginning of your journey, you will gain knowledge and increase skills, but you will often re-learn things as if for the first time, you will reach new horizons viewed with wonderment, but just as often you will find yourself on familiar ground that appears new as viewed through wiser eyes, you will experience the same searches, but in different ways. As your spirograph increases in size you gain more clarity, but face more complexity. If your spirograph is not expanding or if you are not on such a path, you will experience lack of growth, lack of stimulation, and an increasing weight on your team to perform in order to have fun. Fun is the key. Performance improves when the task is fun and engaging.<br />
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<b>Remember That Your Team's Story is Still Being Written: </b>Sometimes a nose work team is destined for greatness and it's undeniable from the first time the dog sniffs out primary reward. Just as often a team surprises everyone and goes from worst to first or a dog changes from a scaredy cat searcher to a brave and confident sniffer and it's unbelievably awesome. In order to become great, you need to believe that anything is possible. You can't feed a narrative that limits the growth of your team ("my dog can't focus on searching when he's outside because he loves critters too much"). And, even though it's important to get to know your dog, it's vital to expect your dog to surprise you ("I never knew my slow moving searcher was actually just moving at the pace I set, and was more than happy to search with more pep in his step when I started moving faster"). Good stories have twists and turns and surprise endings, but not by accident. You are largely in control of your dog's training experiences, so make sure when you're doing new and different things, that you help your dog close out each chapter with confidence, motivation, and clarity for the task of seeking out target odors.<br />
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After my situation with BodyPump improved and I was having fun and reaching my goals, my wife convinced me to try BodyStep (basically a repackaging of Jazzercise), and I did... once. It was like a mixture of River Dance and the torture scene from Braveheart. My glutes were powerless to help. I vowed never to go back, but recently, a friend was telling me how I could use my hips to make the steps easier. Hmm. Recruit my hips or stick to rhythm based strength training and nose work. Maybe I'll ponder this over a few peanut butter cups.<br />
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Happy Sniffing!<br />
<br />Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-86921354867699616872015-04-28T10:27:00.001-07:002015-04-28T10:27:38.921-07:00Engelbart's Law & K9 Nose Work®<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">"<span style="color: #363636; line-height: 24.3199996948242px;">The best design may be the one that gives us a clear path to learning </span><i style="color: #363636; line-height: 24.3199996948242px;">if </i><span style="color: #363636; line-height: 24.3199996948242px;">we choose to. Put another way, designs that helps us transition from tricycle-riding to bicycle-riding, so that if we want, we can choose to go up some really big hills." - </span></span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 24.3199996948242px;">Roman Mars; 99% Invisible Podcast; episode 149: Of Mice and Men</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Check out the complete <i>99% Invisible</i> podcast <a href="http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/of-mice-and-men/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Doug Engelbart is not a well known name outside of certain circles, but his ideas and inventions are inescapably well known. Just take the computer mouse as an example, but don't think that his genius stopped there. For a more complete understanding of the contributions Doug Engelbart made to modern technology and productivity, visit his wikipedia page <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart" target="_blank">here</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Engelbart held many compelling beliefs regarding technology, intelligence, and the progress of societies, some of which form the tenants of Engelbart's Law. The law states</span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> that the </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">proliferation of technology in modern society and humankind's response to that technology can either exponentially increase humankind's collective IQ and problem-solving ability or it can reduce our problem-solving effectiveness and ultimately lead to our demise.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">According to Engelbart, h</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">umans are limited in their problem-solving ability by the simplicity of the tools with which they approach problem-solving. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It's not enough to have people making technology that is affordable and widely available, we need to have large numbers of people making new and complex technology, improving upon that technology, and doing so rapidly. Think about not just one Elon Musk, but one thousand or one million Elon Musks making high capacity batteries and more efficient rockets. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Engelbart's Law places no limitations on the human's capacity for getting better at getting better, it's a matter of technology, intelligence, desire and commitment. Even 60 years ago, Engelbart knew that if humankind were to advance, computers would have to go from punch card readers to more </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">complex systems, and humans would have to put in the time and effort to learn how to interface with these systems. He also knew that if humans learned new and complex technology it would increase their problem-solving ability and spawn even better technology. Engelbart would not have been impressed with intuitive devices that toddlers can operate, like iPhones or iPads, rather, he'd have worried for the adults who use technology that requires no more skill than that possessed of a two year old. Taking Engelbart's philosophy and applying it to the world of K9 Nose Work, the nose work dog can either be a punch card computer from WWII era or a cognitive computing marvel like IBM's Watson, it's all in how much effort the handler wants to invest in understanding and handling the dog as a complex system.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Let's say that the main goal of a competitive nose work team is to find the hide(s). This is sometimes simple and sometimes maddeningly complex. When working together in a search, the dog is like a super-computing sniffer and, often, the handler is a technologically clueless operator, requiring communication to be distilled down to the lowest common denominator. We could argue that the simplest, iPad-like interface with the dog to achieve the goal of finding the hide is the final response or indication behavior the dog gives after finding the hide, and upon desiring reward. I could probably hand my 2 year old daughter the leash with Muriel attached and ask her to tell me when Muriel was performing a sit. Simple. Or is it? If understanding the final response is the extent of the handler's problem-solving ability, what happens when the dog does not perform the sit or the dog sits, but not with certainty, or not with accuracy to source? What if we imagine a more complex interface with the dog, one where the handler may understand final response behavior, but that is just a piece of the information exchange happening in a search. This handler has the ability to understand the dog, support the dog, and navigate challenging search scenarios with efficiency and success. This handler is a highly intelligent problem-solver interfacing with a complex system and getting better at getting better.</span><br />
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Accepting that the dog is a perfectly designed, complex system for us to learn from, how do we access what the dog has to offer and use it to become better handlers?<br />
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<b>Build Observation Skills: T</b>he beauty of having a dog hunt for primary reward (food or toy) is that it affords the handler plenty of time to develop useful observation skills to gain a deeper understanding of the dog's behavior when searching, of how odor moves, and how environment affects odor and the dog. All of this will serve the handler well as the dog transitions to a target odor.<br />
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<b>Focus on Timing: </b>When we do introduce a target odor, timing of reward is everything. If you understand the dog and what he is doing in the search, you will understand when to deliver reward so the dog develops a clear connection between odor and reward. This is hard for many people. It's well worth the effort to become confident and effective with your reward timing.<br />
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<b>Record and Review: </b>As you develop the skills to read your dog and understand search environments, and you provide your dog with consistently well-timed reward at odor source, it will become valuable to you to video some or all of your searches and review them for a deeper understanding of what your dog is doing in the search and how you might be affecting the outcome of the search positively or negatively.<br />
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<b>Develop Decision Making Skills: </b>Observations skills help a handler know when the dog is working scent and finding the odor source, but until the handler is working searches with an unknown number, those observation skills are rarely put into play to help a handler decide there are no more odor sources to be found and the search should be finished. Start looking for how the dog tells you if an area has an odor source(s) or not. Look for the various behaviors he exhibits under a variety of search scenarios. Hold yourself accountable for missed hides or false alerts. If you're doing your job correctly, the dog should have access to all parts of the search area and freedom to work a space and move on. Even in the most difficult search scenarios, the dog is providing useful information about the search, it's just that we may not always be able to react appropriately in the moment and do our part to finish the search successfully.<br />
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<b>Optimize the Dog & Handler Relationship: </b>Once you've worked on the above skills, you want to look at how you can get even better at working with the dog. Think about learning a second language, and going from basic sentence construction and simple conversation to slang, colloquialisms, jargon, regional dialect, secret handshakes, etc. Do not limit yourself in your quest to become a better and better handler. An ORT, an NW3, a National Invitational - these are all human constructed challenges for a team, they are not the peak of the mountain, or the surface of Mars; they should not limit you in your training. As you feel more capable and confident in facing these challenges, get creative in your training and stretch yourself beyond those challenges. Your dog is capable of amazing things, but he's also happy to go along with with the limits you impose on the team. It's up to you to reach for the hides in the sky.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Regardless of where you are in your nose work journey, ask yourself if you've been working with the iPad version of your dog or the super-computing version. Having a dog that anyone could handle and read is a great concept, but it creates a false sense of confidence for the novice handler (and it takes a very specific kind of dog to be reliably "handler proof"). It removes most of the handler's desire to better understand the dog and the environment. And, when adversity and failure rear their ugly heads, it is much harder for the handler with a limited understanding of the dog to overcome challenges and emerge stronger and better. A handler who is skilled in reading and understanding the dog will not be deterred by failure, rather, it will be another opportunity to learn from the dog and increase handling skills.</span><br />
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Become a native speaker of the language of dog! Happy Sniffing!</div>
Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-82405287489764727442014-10-24T14:35:00.001-07:002014-10-25T16:10:39.723-07:00TED Talks & K9 Nose Work®: How Jazz & Computers in the Slums of India can Make You a Better Partner to Your DogIf you're like me, you can't help but draw connections between your everyday life experiences and working with dogs. My kids are a constant source of inspiration for how I structure lessons or approach working with a particular dog - they are especially influential when it comes to how I exercise patience. When I watch sports practices, the way the coaches work with the athletes to develop skills and master them can give me a fresh perspective on how to help a nose work team. Recently, I listened to a few very inspiring TED Talks curated for the TED Radio Hour, and - even though the subjects were a bit removed from working with dogs or training for a sport - I instantly recognized a connection between the messages in those talks and the path to success in K9 Nose Work. As you continue on your own nose work journey, remember that inspiration and the keys to success are often found in unexpected places, so keep your feet on the path, but let your mind wander. <br />
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<a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/04/25/179010396/unstoppable-learning?showDate=2014-08-29" target="_blank">Unstoppable Learning</a></div>
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This compilation of related TED Talks had a segment from speaker, <a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/06/21/179015266/how-much-can-children-teach-themselves" target="_blank">Sugata Mitra</a>, which embodied the philosophy of K9 Nose Work. The talk focused on poor children in the slums of New Delhi, and Sugata Mitra's experiments with "self-supervised learning", also called the "Hole in the Wall" project, so named for the hole he and some colleagues dug out of a wall to install an internet connected computer for use by the children in the slum. What Mitra discovered was that the children taught themselves and each other how to use the computer - accessing the internet, and learning keystroke commands so they could open the computer's paint application and create images, all this without a mouse. Mitra knew, and proved through experimentation and observation, that the children just needed an environment conducive to learning - a slum with an internet connected computer - and that their curiosity would fuel their growth and understanding of the environment.</div>
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This idea of unsupervised or unstoppable learning, in a structured environment (if you can call a computer in a hole structure) is at the core of K9 Nose Work. Imagine that the computer in the wall is, instead, a collection of boxes, and the boxes are arranged in the environment for the dog to explore with minimal human interaction, such that the dog's curiosity and success drive his learning. When a dog is hunting for a primary/self-reward (like food or toy), the physical presence of the human is most essential to the dog's learning and success as it relates to keeping the environment rich for learning - we move boxes around and place the reward back in the environment, that's it, we otherwise are not needed for the dog to build an understanding of the environment and to learn. Mitra was not physically present in the slums with the children, but he was observing remotely via a net op host application connecting his monitor to the output from the slum computer. Observation is key if we hope to interact meaningfully with the dogs at some point in the future. The early stages of K9 Nose Work are all about the human observing the dogs and better understanding how they learn to hunt through the olfaction process. This is an invaluable skill that deserves plenty of time to be developed and honed for every human involved in K9 Nose Work. Knowing your role in these early stages can maximize the learning potential for both dog and human.</div>
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At later stages of K9 Nose Work, even when target odors are introduced and the human is controlling the reward, it is still imperative to the team's success that the human recognize the value of controlling the environment and allowing the dog to learn from the environment. For example, if a dog is having trouble focusing on the task of finding a target odor in a search area, the answer is not typically found through telling the dog repeatedly to "find it", directing the dog around on leash, pointing out parts of the environment for the dog to search, etc.; the answer is found in structuring the environment such that the dog can go out and learn that focusing on finding a target odor in the search area is rewarding - setting up threshold hides and using boxes come to mind as a couple of ways to provide the dog with a positive learning experience through controlling the environment. Any time your dog is facing a challenge in nose work, first think of how you could create an environment in which he can learn to overcome that challenge, and, if you find it necessary to control the dog in some way, consider that a temporary bridge as you work on using environment to teach the dog.</div>
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Mitra's talk also brings to mind the human tendency to let ego confuse us as to how we are integral to the success of activities we are involved in, such as teaching kids to be computer literate or teaching dogs K9 Nose Work. In both cases, we are integral not because we directly control the students in their learning, but because we structure the environment and observe the learning that takes place. Imagine if Mitra had felt it was necessary to gather a group of children around a computer in a classroom and to directly control how they learned to use that computer; the outcome for the children most certainly would have been very different, and arguably not as powerful as curiosity driven, self-directed learning. K9 Nose Work is curiosity driven, self-directed learning. Think about that when you ask your dog to sit before a search or when you command him to search, or when you attempt to directly control your dog in any way to reach a defined goal. Could it be different? Could it be that you're not thinking about the amazing power of unstoppable learning? The possibilities are exciting and the results are amazing when you set up your nose work version of the "Hole in the Wall" project and structure an environment rich with learning opportunity for your dog, and filled with observational potential for you.</div>
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<a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/03/11/174030515/making-mistakes?showDate=2014-08-22" target="_blank">Making Mistakes</a></div>
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Where the previous TED Talk spoke to the core philosophy of K9 Nose Work and how we can teach dogs to be motivated, focused, and fulfilled searchers, this segment featuring jazz artist, <a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/08/23/174035745/are-there-mistakes-in-jazz" target="_blank">Stefon Harris</a>, from the Making Mistakes TED Talk compilation resonated with the human end of the leash, and how we can interpret mistakes and perhaps avoid them in the future.</div>
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Harris approaches making mistakes from a unique point of view, he considers them to be opportunities that were missed. In his opinion, there are no mistakes in jazz, just a failure to perceive and react to what is going on around you, specifically, what notes are being played by the other musicians. Perhaps, there are no mistakes in K9 Nose Work handling, rather, there are failures to perceive and react to what is going on around you; missed opportunities. Watch 30 or 40 competitors do a search at a trial and you'll see how many missed opportunities stand in the way of success for the teams (or nearly stand in the way).</div>
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During his talk, Harris again posits that there are no mistakes in jazz, and this time he explains that a mistake is just a lack of awareness of your fellow band members and a failure to accept their creativity. Substitute dog for band member and this statement could shift the way you work with your dog. Think about the way dogs work odor in an environment, and how musical their movements can be, how creative and unexpected, and as their band members, how influential we can be if we're not prepared to react to their creativity. Let's say you've set your dog up to face a doorway at the start of a search and he tries to turn away from the doorway, so you face him back, and propel him into the search area, only to find that he was working odor from a threshold hide and now you may have missed your opportunity to work that hide and be successful. It's all in how we perceive and react. How about the dog who heads toward a search boundary in an exterior search and keeps on going right out of that search area, unimpeded by the handler, only to chase odor right back to the corner of the search area and make the find. That's some smooth jazz. It's all in how we perceive and react.</div>
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So what about ideas for becoming more perceptive, more accepting of creativity and reacting better to your band member, er, dog? Well, Harris says it does not happen by dictating to the band, or imposing your ideas onto the other members of the band. It happens through listening. He says jazz is the science of listening. This guy should handle a nose work dog. K9 Nose Work is all about listening to your dog, becoming a student of your dog, and reacting to your dog. Try setting up several threshold hides for your dog (a hide just inside of the start of a search area, such as a doorway to a room) and standing patiently a few feet back from the threshold to the search and just observe your dog. Does he wait patiently for you to do something, does he wriggle his butt with enthusiasm to fly into the room, does he thoughtfully sniff the air? Listen to your dog. Become more perceptive of his behavior. Learn to react to the behavior that he gives when he is ready and focused to search.</div>
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When you succeed at being a listener, and you become skilled at reacting to your dog, you will, in Harris' words, "engage and inspire the other musicians and they give more, and gradually it builds..." This is where Harris and the other musicians effortlessly wow with a lively display of jazz, and this is where you and your dog, with the right mix of self-directed learning, observation, perception and creativity, will wow us, too.</div>
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Happy Sniffing! </div>
Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-63351313799482094992014-08-05T08:19:00.000-07:002014-08-05T08:19:17.386-07:00The First 20 Seconds: Who's in Control in a K9NW Search?In the activity and sport of K9 Nose Work, the dog needs to be a leader and the handler must be supportive of the dog's independent, odor driven efforts. What you do from the time you get your dog from the crate through the first 20 seconds of a nose work search may determine the outcome for that search, and may even have a lasting effect on your dog's desire to express his independence to hunt in future searches. Giving careful thought to the cumulative effect of every interaction you have with your dog in the context of nose work searching will help you better understand and appreciate the roles that dog and human should fulfill in a successful nose work search.<br />
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<b>The Pre-Search Routine -</b> Success in nose work really starts before the sniffing. If your dog is going to be a leader, make independent decisions, and stay focused and motivated, he needs to have a way to prepare himself to put these skills into action.<br />
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No two pre-search routines need be alike to be effective, but most routines include the following:<br />
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<u>Interaction/Excitement </u>- You're about to get your dog out of his crate to do something fun! Let him know this with your body language, vocal intonations, petting or play. If your dog is eager and excited to leave the crate to search, you're on the right track.<br />
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<u>Special Gear</u> - Many handlers use specific collars, harnesses, and leashes for the different activities they enjoy with their dogs. For most dogs, this is a very effective way to cue the dog to prepare to do a specific task. If you're going to use special gear for nose work, just remember to remove the gear when you want your dog to relax and be done searching or expecting to search.<br />
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<u>Maintaining Readiness from Point A to B... or D</u> - You've got your dog excited, happy and suited up with the proper gear, and now you may have to wait at one or more points on the way to the search area. Having a plan to keep your dog's energy level from spiking too high or flattening out is crucial if you want your dog to give his all once he crosses that start line. Think of an idling car in traffic - the engine isn't off, and it's ready to rev up at the push of the pedal. Can you picture how you'd keep your dog idling while waiting to search?!<br />
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<b>At the Start Line - </b>Every dog is different, but in general, a dog with an effective pre-search routine is expectantly searching long before we ever 'ask' him to search. And this is a good thing. A confident dog in control of his environment isn't going to wait for his handler to start sniffing in the presence of odor.<br />
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So, with a confident, eager dog at the start line of a search, who should be in control and how should you enter the search area?<br />
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Like so many things in the nose work world, it depends. If your goal is to facilitate your dog's ability to be a leader in the search, then you'll seek out ways to do this and evaluate the effectiveness of those ways based on how focused and successful your dog is from the start line. Jason Heng, CNWI, wrote a great piece regarding start lines and how we consider them in relation to the dog's understanding of when a search starts. <a href="http://www.hengtenk9.blogspot.com/2014/07/question-where-do-we-start.html" target="_blank">Click here to read that post</a>.<br />
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<u>Deciding to Cross the Start Line</u> - You should use your dog as the determining factor for when to start a search. If your dog appears to be in a focused, ready state, it's time to search. This could mean you wait 10 seconds at the start line, or it could mean as you approach the search area, you keep right on walking over that start line.<br />
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While it's easy to develop a start line routine, think about being flexible and observing your dog. Routine is very helpful away from the search area, but once you approach the place where there's odor to be found, your dog should hold final say over the best course of action.<br />
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<u>Search Commands</u> - Think about the above paragraphs and how a command fits into an activity where the dog is in the leadership role. If your command is reinforcing what the dog already plans to do independently, then it can be quite helpful, but if your routine has always been that your dog seems a bit lacking in focus and purpose and you use a command to get him going, then it might be necessary to work on your dog's independence as well as the pre-search routine.<br />
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And, for probably 99% of the nose work population, there really is little need for your dog to be in an obedient position and/or focusing on you when you give your command. Again, considering the task at hand, it should be more desirable to have a dog obedient to odor and focused on the environment, than to have focus on the handler.<br />
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<u>Entering the Search Area as Handler</u> - You've approached the search area, done whatever you think best supports your dog's readiness to focus on finding odor, you've released your dog to search and now the clock is ticking.<br />
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In the first seconds of the search, you can choose to remain still and stay at the start line, follow your dog's path and match his pace, or take your own path at your own pace. A few factors will limit your options for any given search:<br />
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<u>On/Off-Leash & Leash Length</u> - If your dog is off-leash, you have much more freedom to stay put or move, and similarly, your dog has much more freedom to work the environment. If your dog is on-leash, the length of the leash determines how much freedom the two of you have to move independently.<br />
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<u>Lines of Sight Within the Environment</u> - If your dog disappears from your view within seconds of starting the search, you'll most likely have to follow him, or risk missing his alert behavior.<br />
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<u>Distance Between Start Line and Searchable Items</u> - For vehicle and container searches, your searchable items may be set back from the start line, in which case, you must move on with your dog. As to how closely you follow your dog, that's still in your control. <br />
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<b>The First 20 Seconds of A Search -</b> You've worked your way from crate to start line and the dog has crossed that start line, maybe you have, too. Already, seconds have passed. Have you noticed your dog's nose curve back toward his shoulder as he trots forward and you trot right along behind him? Did his nose drop to the base of a signpost in the grass and start investigating - and did your "pee alarm" go off, prompting you to move him on? Did your dog seem like he chose his path to the vehicles or containers, and picked which way to go, or were you employing a "let's start with this one" strategy?<br />
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So many things can happen in the first seconds of a search that will impact the likelihood of a team's success, and most of them can be evaluated for their impact on the dog's ability to remain in control of the search.<br />
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Think about a dog searching off-leash for primary reward in a controlled environment, and picture the confidence, independence, and leadership that dog exhibits as he seeks out what is his to possess and consume or play with. The dog is in control. The dog uses the environment to solve the odor problem and locate the source.<br />
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Now think about a dog searching on-leash at his first Odor Recognition Test (ORT). The environment is somewhat controlled. The dog is confident and independent. The search begins. Within a few seconds the dog decides to move off to the right, beyond the two rows of boxes, and the handler uses the leash to direct the dog back onto the boxes. Something profound happened here. The dog had control of the search, then the handler took control. What happens with each subsequent effort on the dog's part to take back control? Will the dog continue to assert his independence and seek out his answers from the environment, or will he turn his focus to the handler and try to figure out what it is that the handler wants from him in the search?<br />
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The dog's independence and confidence in the search are not infinite. It's more like fuel tanks that can be depleted through extended efforts to problem solve in the environment. When the handler does not recognize and support the dog's independent decision making in the search, this is like springing a leak in the confidence fuel tank. Remember, the dog wants to do what he believes will bring a reward. While the dog may have strong odor obedience, that may not trump a difficult search challenge and a handler who is not supporting the dog's odor driven agenda. If the dog is getting feedback from the handler that essentially tells him, "no, not that way" or "I don't believe you", then it's likely the dog will do something that seems more in line with what he thinks the handler wants.<br />
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<u>Watch for Key Signals From the Dog</u> - Within the first 20 seconds of a search, if you've got proper distance from your dog and can see him well, you can often spot subtle signs revealing his odor driven intentions in the search.<br />
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The sniffing a dog does at the start line indicates the presence of odor or the dog's expectation that checking in the environment will reveal the presence of odor.<br />
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Once the dog starts moving, dropping or turning the head, or changing pace and/or direction rapidly are signs that the dog is encountering odor. Do not be so quick to move the team on from an area if the dog begins to show these signs.<br />
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<u>Let the Dog Decide to Change His Mind</u> - Some dogs are contemplative at the start of a search, some are explosive with a "run to there first, sniff for answers later" attitude. No matter what type of searcher you have, as the handler, you can choose to stay out of the way right from the start - especially at the start. Many dogs will recognize the presence of odor, process it, and want to respond to it with a behavior change. If the human gets in the way of the dog during this sequence of events, it can affect the dog's ability to act on the information he's taken from the environment. If the handler hangs back for even a few seconds, a dog who needs to make an abrupt stop and turn back towards the threshold can do so unimpeded by the handler - and, the handler is in a great position to see the dog's behavior changing, which should reinforce for the handler that the dog is in control.<br />
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If a handler moves quickly with the dog, often, the handler senses the dog is choosing a particular path, and now becomes mentally committed to that path and will not see the subtle signs from the dog that he is being compelled to change direction by odor in the environment. Even for dogs with strong odor obedience, it can be difficult to override a handler who is taking control.<br />
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Just the physical presence of the handler can be tough for the dog to work through if the handler is not supporting the dog's odor driven behavior. A handler too close to a dog who would prefer to double back and work in the opposite direction may have no clue that she is preventing the dog from exactly what she's asking the dog to do! A handler who is too far from the dog or fixed in one place too long can also create trouble in odor paradise. The dog really needs the handler to be supportive at all times.<br />
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<u>Let the Dog Search the Environment at Least for a Few Seconds</u> - If your dog understands the task at hand and knows to search for an odor source, you owe it to him to trust that he's focused on his job.<br />
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Container and vehicle searches are often hardest for the handler to support the dog's odor driven behavior. Handlers hate to have their dogs turn their focus away from the items that have been designated searchable. Dogs search for odor. That odor could be moving away from a container or vehicle and pooling on something that could not contain an odor source for this type of search, but that doesn't mean the dog can't search it, process the information, and navigate his way confidently back to the source of the odor. Give your dog control, be supportive, and let him do his job. He's very good at it and understands the environment in ways you never will.<br />
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In cases where the dog is given control and freedom to search his environment, but doesn't seem to stay focused on the task of finding source odor, you must determine if the dog has had the proper exposure to this type of environment, if a different approach to your training sessions is required to help the dog maintain focus, or if this was an isolated event that doesn't normally occur.<br />
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<b>After the First 20 Seconds - </b>While it is always important to trust your dog and give him control in the search, it is especially crucial that he feels supported by you during the early part of the search as he asserts his independence in hunting down the source odor.<br />
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If, at any time in the search, it appears to you that your dog is not staying focused on the task of finding source odor, then supporting your dog can mean taking control. For example, a dog who goes beyond the boundaries of the search area and does not appear to be working odor and actively returning to the search area, needs to be guided back to the searchable area. A dog who switches over to crittering (smelling non-target odors in the environment), may need the handler to take control - but, beware of how you handle this situation, the dog could be very near odor and corrective action could impact his desire to return to that area to find source odor.<br />
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Some search areas have lots of complexity - corners, alcoves, three dimensional objects, slopes, elevation, etc. - and the dog may be focused on finding odor, but need some assistance accessing and searching the different parts of the search area with thoroughness. Just remember, once you take control to assist the dog, it can be hard to know when to relinquish control back to the dog. Lots of practice is needed to be successful sharing control with your dog in a variety of search scenarios.<br />
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<b>When Success is Out of the Team's Control - </b>There will be some searches where you are supportive of the dog's independence from the start, the dog seems to be focused and driven, and everything is going well, but success will still elude the team. Every search is a learning experience, and no one search is reflective of your team's abilities.<br />
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<u>Team Heads to a Deodorized Zone</u> - You and your dog are in sync from moment one of searching, but for whatever reason, you end up in a part of the search area where the dog cannot catch scent. Most dogs will not fare well the longer it takes for them to catch scent. Some dogs lose focus quickly and some will continue to work hard, but become less confident in their searching.<br />
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<u>Conditions Create Unintended Challenges</u> - Some hides can become drastically harder as conditions change. Heat and wind are typical factors affecting the difficulty of a search, but many other things can throw the team an odor curveball. If odor becomes very hard to source due to changing conditions, don't get down on your team, just think of ways you might replicate the conditions and the hide placement to give your dog more opportunities to master the odor problem.<br />
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<u>Distractions are Just too Distracting</u> - You can't plan for everything. A marching band, a firing range, a parade, kids playing whiffle ball, ATVs, a dead animal, a live animal, and the list of possible distractions during a search goes on. Again, if you run into a challenge that bests you and your dog, try to turn it into a learning experience and future training experiences.<br />
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The first 20 seconds of a search won't always be make-or-break time for the team, but it's certainly time that can be well-spent to make any search more successful. With proper training and lots of experience, your dog will go to great lengths to override your bad behavior in the search! And, you will become a better teammate thanks to your dog's confident searching and clear behavior in odor. No matter where you and your dog are in training, just remember, if you want your dog to sniff to the best of his abilities, you have to respect his superior skills and do your best to be a supportive handler.<br />
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Happy Sniffing!<br />
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p.s. - video of teams from this year's NACSW K9NW National Invitational coming soon, as well as updates to the Shiba Experiment!Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-79106562707592905192014-06-08T01:18:00.000-07:002014-06-08T01:18:17.654-07:00While We Wait For 2014 NACSW K9 Nose Work National Invitational VideosThe 2014 NACSW K9NW National Invitational took place earlier this month in Santa Rosa, CA and was a thoroughly enjoyable event with great weather and fun searches, all taking place among a great community of nose work enthusiasts. Like last year, the founders of the sport have graciously promised video of the searches to all 31 competitors (34 teams actually qualified)! We each get whatever video is available of our own searches, and we are free to do as we please with this video (as long as it's not commercial use), which is a rare opportunity to let the general public get a look at the ups and downs of competitive nose work searches. These are not your average searches, either, these are some of the most challenging scenarios a team will come across at any nose work event. So, while we wait for the video to become available, I'll share some thoughts on my own experience at the Invitational this year.<br />
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Friday May 9th - Day 1 of the 2014 National Invitational</div>
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This year I drove from Minneapolis, MN to Santa Rosa, CA - with the help of my dad - and I was much happier about Muriel's well-being than last year when I flew her in the cargo hold of a plane. Muriel is something of a road warrior (see the <a href="http://k9noseworkblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-k9-nose-work-road-trip.html" target="_blank">A K9 Nose Work Road Trip</a> post), so she jumped out of the back of the car at the hotel on Thursday night looking ready as ever to do some nose work.</div>
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For day 1 of the National Invitational, the 31 competing teams had four searches. Our group of competitors searched a vehicle search and an interior first, then an exterior search and a container search the second part of the day.<br />
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Day 1 Vehicle Search:<br />
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posted # of hides: unknown<br />
actual # of hides: 4<br />
search time: 3:30<br />
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layout: 4 vehicles in a line from search area start line to far end of search area. There was a 4-door car, a Prius, a pickup truck, and a conversion van. The vehicles were separated by cones.<br />
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clever twist: if your dog left the area around vehicle #1 as marked by cones and moved to vehicle #2, you could not return to search vehicle #1 again.<br />
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outcome: many teams succeeded at this search. Vehicles 1 & 4 each had 1 hide, vehicle 3, the pickup truck, had 2 hides. The Prius, the zero emissions vehicle, was also a zero hide vehicle.<br />
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If you looked at this search rationally during the walk-through, it was like doing several 1-vehicle searches in a row; but, if you were actually searching, with the way the wind was blowing, it seemed highly likely that your dog would be enticed to leave odor on the vehicle he was working for the promise of odor on the next vehicle.<br />
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For me, as a first search, it left me guessing as to how many hides we'd left behind, even though we pushed to the 30 second warning. I was not feeling like a superstar handler going into the next search!<br />
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Day 1 Interior Search:<br />
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posted # of hides: 6<br />
search time: 3:30<br />
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layout: this search area was a female jockey locker room with multiple adjoining rooms. The locker area was the largest room, with open faced wooden lockers along three of the walls, a few chairs and a mop bucket were also in this room. The other rooms were a sauna with wooden benches, a shower room, and a large bathroom. Between the locker room and the other three rooms was a short hall with a bench against one wall.<br />
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outcome: Another successful search for many teams. As it turns out, knowing how many hides are in a search area doesn't really make it any easier to keep track of how many your dog has found! Here is the hide breakdown:<br />
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2 hides in the locker room; one in a mop bucket and one under a chair in the opposite corner of the room<br />
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1 hide in the small hall under the bench (the hide was actually in a spigot on the wall)<br />
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1 hide in the sauna under a bench seat where the leg meets the seat<br />
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2 hides in the bathroom; one under a sink at the back left corner closest to the wall and one in a bathroom stall inside either a toilet seat cover dispenser or the toilet paper dispenser - hard to remember!<br />
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More than a few teams got to the 5th or 6th find (me included) and spun around feebly attempting to tally up the hides found!<br />
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For me, this search was much more in my comfort zone. Muriel was driven from hide to hide, all I had to do was stay out of her way and make sure she didn't completely miss an area. Speaking of search area coverage, the shower room was blank and Muriel had little interest in searching it, but I made her search a bit more thoroughly - typical trust your dog learning moment.<br />
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Day 1 Exterior Search:<br />
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posted # of hides: 1 to 4<br />
actual # of hides: 4<br />
search time: 3:00 (i think)<br />
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layout: standing at the start line, a building with a large overhang forms the left perimeter of the search area, to the right of the building, forming the bulk of the search area, is a large grassy plot of land. The perimeter opposite the building is formed by a road that also forms the perimeter along the front of the area where the start line is. Within the area there are several plastic wheeled trash bins, some concrete planters, a fire hydrant, a few irrigation pipes & maintenance boxes in the grass, and some trees.<br />
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outcome: This was the first search with some near impossible challenges. First off, there were 4 hides. No team found all 4 and no team found this one hide in particular: maybe 15 feet from the start line and about 9ft up (maybe higher) under the overhang of the building where a pipe running up the wall meets the ceiling of the overhang.<br />
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The other 3 hides were very doable, two were ground hides straight ahead from the start line on the concrete walkway under the building overhang. These were maybe 20ft apart (guessing). The third hide was out in the grass area where some irrigation pipes and a maintenance/access box was located.<br />
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I know a number of teams reported noticing their dogs working up the posts supporting the overhang or even working up the building wall, but no one had enough time to see the dogs interest through to an alert call. Muriel found the two in-line ground hides pretty quickly, then we spent a great deal of time wandering the rest of the search area and not really having much success. She came near the overhang at one point and worked up a post to a hand sanitizer dispenser, but we ended up calling finish at only 2 hides found. Wah wah waaaaaaah.<br />
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Day 1 Container Search:<br />
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posted # of hides: 2<br />
search time: 2:00(?)<br />
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layout: the infamous hanging boxes search! A very cool setup with twenty white ORT-style boxes suspended from EZ Up tent frames on dirt and a bit of straw in the middle of a sheep barn. Everything about this search was fun. It was in a sheep barn, the boxes were hanging, the number of hides was known.<br />
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outcome: Most teams did just fine with this search. We found out there were no distractions, just two boxes with odor, the rest of the boxes were blank. One odor box was near the front of the search area, and one near the back. Muriel decided to take the perimeter of the sheep ring instead of going toward the boxes, I didn't fight her and so we made our way to the back side of the search area where she picked up odor and worked to her first find of the search. From here it gets pretty messy! Now that Muriel finds the hanging boxes valuable, she starts working through the middle of the area and tracing up the legs of the tent frames. I misread her behavior and call not one, not two, but three false alerts! Finally, we make our way to the beginning of the search area and I call her on the second odor box. Torturous search for me. Muriel is very honest in container searches, but, this was something we had never done before and that clearly made us both a little silly.<br />
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This is the kind of search I didn't agonize over failing at because it was just too damn fun!<br />
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Day 2 Large Exterior Search<br />
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posted # of hides: 1 to 5<br />
actual # of hides: 5<br />
search time: 4:30<br />
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layout: a large grassy exterior with picnic tables, an asphalt patch (10ft wide x 10ft long??), trees, and some utilities pipes on a concrete slab. This area was quite large for the time allotted to search, and there was a strong wind - which helped when you worked it right. Three of the hides were all the way to the back of the search area. One in a knot hole at the base of a large oak tree, one on a picnic table where an angled board supporting the table top meets the center of a horizontal board connecting the bench seats, and one under the edge of the concrete slab with utilities pipes on it. The other two were about midway into the search area, one off to the left side in a crack in the asphalt patch, and one more to the right side on a picnic table in the middle of the table top (i think). <br />
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outcome: a fun, challenging search. Two dogs managed to find all 5 hides, and a number of dogs found 4, with many teams running beyond the 30 second warning. The wind was at our backs from the start line, but gusting back and forth at times. Some teams reported critter interest - especially the far right side of the search area, I guess there were a bunch of gopher holes! A few teams had trouble with dogs peeing, but mostly it was just a large area to manage with time pressure. Muriel raced to the back of the search area and found the 3 hides without wasting too much time (she did spend a lot of time on the picnic table hide at the back of the search area, but I could have called it sooner). After finding 3 hides, we wasted a bunch of time working in unproductive parts of the search area and ultimately falsed, then timed out. I over-handled and failed to read her working near the asphalt crack hide, and we didn't even really give the second picnic table hide a chance. This was the third search where I felt very disappointed with my handling, and this made me dearly miss Amy Herot's weekly instruction. Those of you with an instructor you value, thank them, hug them, and never let them go!<br />
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Day 2 Banquet Hall Interior Search<br />
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posted # of hides: unkown<br />
actual # of hides: 6<br />
search time: 5:00<br />
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layout: a large banquet hall with tables and chairs filling the center of the room, a bar/galley area to the right about midway into the search, some chairs stacked on large push carts off to the left near the start, a trash can in the front right corner, and spectators all the way in the back.<br />
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outcome: what an interesting search this was. A handful of teams found all 6 hides with no falses or time-outs, many teams found 4 or 5, and the majority of teams worked beyond the 30 second warning.<br />
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1 hide was in the caster of a wheel on a push cart holding chairs off to the left of the search area and closest to the start<br />
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1 hide was in the trash can handle off to the right of the start<br />
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1 hide was on a table and 1 on a chair - do not ask me to remember which table and chair!<br />
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1 hide in the bar/galley area<br />
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1 hide in a panel (?) on a wall, left side of the search area beyond the chairs on push carts - I think. It's a blur!<br />
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Muriel was a goof in this search and spent what felt like 45 seconds doing the Wiley Coyote around the start of the search area before the tables and chairs started. She seemed to be running into scent plumes and frantically adjusting course as if there were 100 hides out there! She finally started working and I could not tell you the order in which we found the panel hide, the chair, the table, and the bar/galley hide. I can tell you that within the 30 second warning she worked the trash can, but showed no commitment, and as I was calling finish, she found the hide on the caster. I probably could have done better at keeping the pace and not wasting so much time in the beginning, turned out we could have used an extra 30-45 seconds!<br />
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Day 2 90's Style TV Interior Search<br />
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posted # of hides: unknown<br />
actual # of hides: 5<br />
search time: 4:00<br />
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layout: a long rectangular search area with a gaggle of old cathode ray tube (90's style) TVs on the floor just ahead of and to the right of the start line, to the left were freestanding wood shelving and metal bunk beds in a line from front to back of the search area, at the back of the search area was a sink, soap dispenser on the wall, an old-fashioned upright scale, on the right of the area was a chair (or two) in the back right corner, and open-faced lockers lining the right wall - and the TVs.<br />
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outcome: Another fun search. Challenging for the human, which made it challenging for the dogs. I think a lot of people enjoyed the number of challenges packed into one search, even though a lot of people found 3 or fewer hides. It just goes to show that if the challenge is fair and well-thought out, a team doesn't need to have found everything to have had a fun search.<br />
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2 hides in lockers - both high up in the open-faced lockers, can't remember how many lockers separated the two hides<br />
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1 hide in the neck of the upright scale<br />
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1 hide in the frame of a metal bunk bed closest to the back wall of the search area<br />
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1 hide on wood shelving - can't remember if it was the second or third freestanding shelving unit from the front<br />
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Muriel liked this search. If memory serves me, we found the wood shelving hide and one of the locker hides on a first pass, then we found the metal bunk bed frame and the scale hides on a second pass... then we wasted time on the TV area. Nothing there, duh. I don't recall seeing interest in the second locker hide, but then I don't recall being much of a help in any search that weekend! I was very proud of Muriel for climbing into a locker and getting as high as she could, and for sourcing the scale hide, as it appeared to be tricky for her with the sink, a trash can, and wall-mounted hand dispenser nearby.<br />
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Day 2 Small Exterior Search<br />
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posted # of hides: 1-4<br />
actual # of hides: 4<br />
search time: 3:00<br />
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layout: a rectangular space at the end of a sheep barn. The start line was an opening/entry a bit left of center on one of the long sides of the search area. The left end of the search area was open, the right end was closed. To the right of the start line was a slatted wood wall and to the right of that was an opening/entry to the barn. Across from the start line was a walkway into the barn and to the right of that was a small shack (maybe a bathroom??) with a drinking fountain mounted to the wall facing the start line.<br />
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outcome: This was a tight search area with a lot of wind whipping through it, and some interestingly placed spectators! Many teams found all 4 hides and many did so before the 30 second warning. There was a hide under the drinking fountain, a hide at the open end of the area off to the left - maybe in an aluminum fence post, a hide behind a pipe in the slatted wood wall between the start line and the other opening/entry. The fourth hide eludes me... maybe it was in the wood wall at the right end of the search area.<br />
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I think this was the kind of search that every team felt was 100% doable. The only hide that caused Muriel any trouble was the drinking fountain, the wind was whipping around and she started low where the source was, then chased hight to a hand sanitizer dispenser, and that's where I called it. I knew I shouldn't have even as I was calling it. The other hides all seemed very straightforward. I really enjoyed working the left end of the search area where Muriel tangled the photographer up in the leash - whoever it was, great job of getting untangled so we could find the hide!<br />
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Day 3 - Finals<br />
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I will hold off on details of the 4 searches that the top 12 competitors participated in until I get an account or two of the day from a top competitor. As a spectator, I enjoyed watching the teams search, but I wasn't really retaining information regarding hide location, number of hides, search times, etc.!<br />
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What I do remember is that the teams searching on day 3 really kept their stamina up and finished strong. The 10 minute exterior search tested stamina levels for some teams, but even teams that were pushed seemed to bounce back for the other searches. It also was clear to me that the teams competing in the day 3 searches were just thrilled to have made it and were searching with less stress than they had the previous two days. The last thing I noted was that after day 1&2 the spread from first place to twelfth place was 4 points, after day 3 the pointed spread from first to twelfth place was 7. I think that shows how much teams rise and fall in the standings each day. Who knows what the competition would have looked like with a second day of top 12 searches?!<br />
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I have to give special acknowledgement to Dana Zinn and Kudos as the winners of this year's National Invitational. What I got to watch of their searching on Sunday was magical. I have seen them search before, competed with them, and practiced with them, and this was the most effortless partnership I've ever seen displayed by any team. The two of them were so relaxed and in the zone. Awesome nose work, Dana!<br />
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It's already nearly a month since Nationals, but it feels like yesterday. What a great time spent with nose work friends old and new, with students ( I counted 5 of my & Penny Scott-Fox's students competing!), and with our dogs! K9 Nose Work is simply the best activity & sport for dogs and their people.<br />
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Happy Sniffing! </div>
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Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-17119009016944775902014-04-24T15:38:00.003-07:002014-04-24T15:38:54.024-07:00Is Your K9 Nose Work Dog Working You?Here is a link to a study done with the goal of testing the influence of handler beliefs on dog detection outcomes: <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3078300/">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3078300/</a><br />
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Here is a link to a study done with the same goal in mind: <a href="http://rogerabrantes.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/handler-beliefs-do-not-affect-police-dog-detection-outcomes/">http://rogerabrantes.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/handler-beliefs-do-not-affect-police-dog-detection-outcomes/</a></div>
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In case you aren't compelled to comb through these studies, I'll share with you the major differences in their findings: the first study found that handler beliefs influence dog detection outcomes in a way that produces false alerts (a handler interpreting dog's behavior or trained response as a positive sign of the presence of a trained scent), the second study found that "the dogs indicated the target scents independently of handler beliefs and decoy scents." The second study noted that handler beliefs do seem to increase false alerts, but not in a statistically significant way.</div>
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I'm not taking a position on the topic of the studies in this post, rather, I want to spark some thinking on the part of nose work handlers as to how we interact with our dogs in searches, how we get to know our dogs, and how we learn to trust our dogs and be great teammates. </div>
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This happened the other night in one of my classes during a practice run with 10 white ORT-style boxes, one containing a target scent. The location of the odor box was known to the handler.</div>
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<i>Handler and dog stand at the start of the search.</i></div>
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Handler: Which box is it in?</div>
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Me: Third box on the left.</div>
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<i>The team begins the search. The dog, an earnest, hard-working black lab, works boxes and the environment in a search for odor. As they work, the handler ends up turned around and facing the start line, watching her dog work back towards the start of the search. There's a strong head turn as he passes by the odor box, followed by a head drop and intense sniffing of the odor box, punctuated by continued sniffing of the odor box as the lab pushes it across the floor.</i></div>
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Me: (gentle urgency) Reward. Uh, get in and reward!</div>
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<i>Handler dutifully - yet confusedly - rewards dog.</i></div>
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Handler: That's it?! I thought you said the third one on the left (points to third box on right)?</div>
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In this scenario, the dog actually found the odor despite the handler's belief that odor was not present in the box the dog was indicating. This was not a double blind study, not a blind search, just an example of a good dog doing his job despite unintentional handler interference.</div>
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What I like about this example is how well it worked out for the dog in terms of being able to focus on his task and show clear behavior indicating the source odor box. Without intending to do so, the handler turned down the background noise for the dog as he searched, allowing him to search, find, and be rewarded. When I say noise, I mean the various cues that a handler gives - sometimes subconsciously - during a search.</div>
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When thinking about handler beliefs influencing the dog, don't forget to think about the training the dog is receiving, and how that is affecting the outcome of the search. Well-timed reward for the dog finding source odor is a major factor affecting the outcome of the search. If your training is leading the dog to believe his reward will come for something other than finding source odor, then you've got a problem that won't necessarily get better with improved handling.</div>
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If your training is sound, and the dog is getting rewarded for being at source, then handler beliefs, and handler cues, could be holding up the success of the team. For our purposes, we'll consider handler beliefs to cause most handler cues. For example, thinking odor is or is not present in an area based upon factors other than your dog's behavior (the classic belief, "they would never hide it in the trash can") is a handling belief that may change your body language or facial expressions, producing a cue that your dog reads that interferes with his ability to find source odor.</div>
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Here are some handler cues that can make it difficult for the dog to be clear in his task:</div>
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- hand in the treat pouch in the moments leading to your dog finding source odor</div>
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- stopping and facing the odor source at the slightest behavior change from your dog</div>
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- guiding your dog to an odor source other than as part of a specific training exercise</div>
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- moving quickly and in a disinterested way through parts of a search area you know contain no source odor to get to parts of the area you know are productive</div>
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- verbally marking your dog's behavior at the odor source</div>
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- rewarding your dog away from source after he's found source odor and given an indication behavior</div>
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Here's why these can be challenging cues for the dog: these cues almost never occur in training when odor is not present, and most of these cues typically precede a reward delivery. In the case of moving through known unproductive parts of a search area, the reverse is true, the handler almost never acts as if odor is present in those areas, but almost always leads the dog to a productive part of the search in a more direct manner. As handlers, we are being studied by our dogs just as much as they are being studied by us, only, our dogs are much more skilled at picking up on our behavior and giving us what we're asking for - whether we're aware it's what we're asking for or not! </div>
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What can you do to minimize handler influence on the dog's indication of source odor? Here are some biggies in my opinion:</div>
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<b>Spend more time building independence in your dog through self-reward searches</b> - this is huge for pet dogs. Think of all the independence you build as your dog solves problems in your presence with no need to seek help from you. Also, think about your dog's daily life outside of nose work; how often his independence is denied ("don't sniff about while we're on a walk") and how often you are his solution to a problem by way of your dog responding to your commands and controls to produce a reward from you.</div>
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<b>Watch as many dogs & handlers do nose work searches as possible to build your observation skills</b> - you learn a little from handling your own dog in a group class. You learn more from watching a few other teams in your class do searches. You learn a lot watching 25-50 teams coming from all over a region do searches. Start dedicating some time to watching teams work. Volunteering at events is a great way to get your observation fix, and it supports the sport!</div>
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<b>Practice being a neutral observer when handling your dog, and when you do choose to interact with your dog in the search, be more of a responsive handler</b> - a neutral observer allows the working dog the freedom to work and practices movement in the search that neither traps the dog in one area, or draws the dog away from an area without good cause. A responsive handler makes choices based on the dog's behavior (good cause), to support the dog's independent searching. Great teamwork can play out in many different ways, but it's ultimately the result of a very observant handler who trusts and knows his dog.</div>
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Remember, the handler doesn't necessarily have to be interfering in the search in an unusual way, other factors can create a difficult challenge that makes the dog more susceptible to handler cues that the dog would otherwise ignore in favor of doing his job. If you can identify these factors, you can set up training scenarios for your dog to learn from and hopefully overcome the same challenges in future searches. Every search should be a learning opportunity.</div>
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<b>Create training scenarios for your dog that challenge his expectations and promote problem-solving to find odor</b> - it's simply not enough for a nose work dog to think odor is equal to food. As one of the studies above mentions, companion dogs lack the independent problem-solving skills of working dogs, in fact, companion dogs often look to humans for help in a way working dogs do not. It is this understanding of companion dogs that makes it most important to create a learning environment for the dogs that allows them to build their problem-solving skills. What is a problem for a dog? Confronting change in their environment (it was here and now it's not), challenging their expectations (it was in the corners and on the perimeter of this room the last 10 searches, now it's not), and overcoming environment (how do I get through this narrow space/how do I walk on this wobbly floor/how do I navigate this rubble pile/how do I work with that noise in the background?). Make the dog a problem-solving, hunting machine, and odor importance will be easy.</div>
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If handlers can be such a drag on the dog, why be involved in the game at all? Well, as inferior as a handler can be when compared to his dog, the human end of the leash is actually quite vital. In training, you help the dog shape his natural talents to the human-chosen task. In competition, you possess important facts that help the team succeed under the conditions of the search (what are the boundaries of the search area, what is the search time, where have we gone or not gone, this is a container search or this is a vehicle search, etc.). And, probably most importantly, your dog wants to work with you! Yes, you provide a reward for finding source odor, but you're also your dog's partner, and he's excited to make discoveries with you. </div>
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So, when will you get to the point where you're not a cue-producing factory on the end of the leash spewing out signals to your dog that challenge his ability to focus on finding source odor? The Dr. Seuss in me wants to say, "I don't know, go ask your pup." Most likely, it will happen in stages, over time. There will be progress and setbacks, highs and lows, and the learning will never end. If you find yourself doing searches with a deeper understanding of your dog's behavior, a deeper trust of your dog's independent efforts, and a less intellectual, more intuitive way of being in the search, you're definitely on the right track. Enjoy the nose work journey with your most excellent partner in sniff. </div>
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Happy Sniffing!</div>
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Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-72529655480097977562014-03-17T07:13:00.002-07:002014-03-17T07:13:42.676-07:00K9 Nose Work® Dogs: Hunting Machines in the MakingRecently, I listened to K9 Nose Work co-founder Amy Herot (along with co-founders Ron Gaunt and Jill Marie O'Brien) speaking to a group of soon-to-be certified nose work instructors about just what we aim to do when teaching a dog nose work using the K9 Nose Work methodology. Amy chose two words that resonated with me to describe a K9 Nose Work dog: hunting machine. When I heard that phrase, I thought, "oooh, that sounds cool. That sounds cooler than odor obedience." Don't get me wrong, odor obedience - what we see when dogs will seek out and find a target odor under any and all conditions, regardless of distraction - is awesome, but it's not something you can teach a dog with any reliability if the dog is not a strong, independent, hunting machine. Facilitating a dog's journey to becoming a hunting machine has always been at the heart of the K9 Nose Work philosophy and methodology, starting with the power of primary reward (dogs seeking out and rewarding themselves for food or toy finds in the search environment), and continuing with the idea that the human is not teaching the dog in the traditional sense, rather, the human is providing a learning environment for the dog to teach himself. In this post, we'll examine a few important dos and dont's as you help your dog embark on the journey to become a K9 Nose Work hunting machine. <br />
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<b>Do give your dog the power to choose - </b>Many dogs have little opportunity to make independent decisions in the presence of a human in their daily lives. Typically, they are told when they eat, when they pee, when they should sit, lay down, be quiet, stay off the couch, and when they should keep walking instead of stopping to sniff the roses (or the poo... which - if you believe Outkast - is what roses really smell like). Because dogs are dogs, they adapt pretty well to being told when, where, how, and what to do. In many dog activities and sports, the human knows what the goal looks like (running an agility course correctly, performing obedience commands properly, etc.), but in nose work the goal (the target odor source) is hidden from the human and nothing can be done to find it on your own - you are at the mercy of your dog. If you have a plan to direct or control your dog, it may not go very well. Your dog will probably be more than happy to comply with you in your human-driven search, but success will be elusive or fleeting.<br />
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Allowing your dog to be independent and make choices is key to success in nose work. When your dog hunts on his terms, driven by his own desire, and working independently of you, this is a scenario you can feel confident about, and a path to long-term success.<br />
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From day one of your dog's introduction to nose work, your goal should be to step back and watch. Let him make choices, let him discover things on his own, and watch him begin to confidently desire the hunt. When you can observe that your dog cares less about what you're doing in the search and more about finding odor, then you can think about adding a little more human involvement into the search. Which leads us to...<br />
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<b>Don't leave your dog hanging in the search - </b>Yes, it is important for your dog to become an independent hunting machine - and sometimes it's good for your dog to experience your presence in the search when you are no help whatsoever - but you are still a needed part of the team. You want to be your dog's support system, reacting to his behavior in the search and making yourself a tool for him to use, not a solution to his search for source odor.<br />
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There is a difference between supporting him in his search for target odor and guiding your dog to success. The guided dog is well aware of the situation and will happily go along using his human as a solution in the search. The dog-guiding human is not well aware of this situation and believes the dog to be searching independently. If you suspect you've got a dog-guiding issue, set up searches your dog can do without help and let him have true independence.<br />
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Supporting your dog in the search can manifest in many ways, but there are two major supportive actions you can take in the search: helping your dog gain access to all areas of the search environment, and reacting to your dog's behavior changes in odor and promoting more thorough investigation of an area he might otherwise have sniffed and left. You'll know that you're being supportive when you can confidently say that your dog is not expecting a reward just because you're present in an area, rather, he is taking advantage of your presence to sniff out the possibility of his target odor in the area, and he will act independently to reach his goal; for example, if no target odor is present, he may search the area you're in and try to leave, but he will not communicate to you that he expects a reward just because you're there, too.<br />
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When you have an independent hunting machine and you can be his support system and tool in the search, it is the most rewarding form of teamwork a human and dog can engage in, and it happens to be very effective.<br />
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<b>Do keep it simple and take it slow - </b>One of the many great features of starting a dog on primary reward is that it eliminates the need for expert timing, and it promotes independence right away, and it is pretty difficult to screw things up. Still, you want to keep it simple and take it slow. Dogs don't need to search a warehouse or a football field, they don't need to scale office furniture or climb ladders to find their food reward. They do need puzzles and challenges, but not what we would consider visually challenging, what they would consider an olfactory challenge or a challenge to their ability to focus. In many cases, just a small change in environment creates the challenge the dog needs.<br />
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Once your dog is gaining lots of confidence solving the sniffing challenges, think about introducing your dog to uneven or unusual surfaces, confined spaces, random noises - but use your ability to control environment and make these introductions simple so your dog can have a confidence-building experience. And always listen to your dog when changing environment, he will let you know if you're moving too fast and making things too complicated. <br />
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While you're keeping those challenges simple and achievable, don't be in a rush to get to the next level of searching. Our human goal to see the dogs confidently search for and find source odor in any environment can lead us to throw harder and harder challenges at our dogs and to test the team with blind searches. If you really want to reach your goal, take it easy and focus on your dog's independence, confidence, and desire to hunt and hunt to find source odor. If you find yourself helping your dog a lot, or getting a lot of checking-in behavior from your dog in your practice searches, change things up so your dog is able to work to source odor confidently.<br />
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When you keep it simple and take it slow in training, you'll save yourself the headache of fixing your dog's independence, focus, and confidence problems at the time when you should be enjoying success in the face of greater and greater challenges.<br />
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<b>Don't get stuck on introducing a target odor too soon - </b>Add to that, don't get stuck on going off of pairing the dog's primary reward with a target odor too quickly.<br />
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The coolest thing about watching a dog search for his primary reward is the total independence of the dog in the search. He does not need his human to tell him what to do or to guide him - or even support him - in the search. This makes the dog very reliant on his own abilities to search for and find the odor source.<br />
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As soon as the human is inserted into the game and the dog is searching for a target odor that will bring the reward from the human, it is now quite likely that the dog will consider communication with the human to be as important or more important than finding the source odor. This is largely because of timing of reward delivery. The best timing for reward delivery is before the dog is communicating that he's found the source odor and expects a reward. We can't always act on or choose the best timing for reward delivery, and sometimes our dogs will ask for a reward at places other than where the source odor is, for reasons we can't always be certain of - a dog may think he's found the source odor, and maybe he has, but we have an idea of where he should be physically when he finds the source odor and now we're not sure of what to do. When timing is less than perfect, the dog gets confused and may begin trying out behaviors and communication to figure out just what his human wants from him.<br />
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There is a solution to less-than-ideal reward delivery when introducing a target odor: paired reward with the target odor. This helps maintain the perfect timing the dog enjoyed when searching for primary, it keeps the dog independent and confident, and it avoids confusion.<br />
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If the ultimate goal is clear communication from the dog in a blind search scenario, the best way to do this is to keep the task clear for the dog and provide him with well-timed rewards for finding source odor (primary reward or paired reward and target odor) for as long as possible. When searching for a target odor only, make sure you're setting up scenarios that will give you every opportunity to provide a well-timed reward to your dog.<br />
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<b>Do have fun watching your dog do what he loves best - </b>this is a game for the dogs and games should be fun. It is also a gift to the dogs, and gifts should be presented with no strings attached. Dogs exist outside of time and expectation, and if you're going to give them a fun gift, you have to be patient and set aside your expectations. This is not to say that you won't see your dog become an awesome hunting machine, but rather to say that it should happen on his terms. Tiger Woods may have risen to greatness with a golf club glued to his hand from the age of 2, but many other kids never reached greatness, and just ended up resenting their parents and hating whatever sport they were expected to excel at. Imagine that every dog has a Tiger Woods caliber nose - so there's no question that innate talent is present in every dog -knowing this, the journey to greatness can be a 100 meter dash, a marathon, or a trip around the world in a hot air balloon. Every dog will reach the destination, so relax and enjoy the ride.<br />
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Happy Sniffing! Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-68291059830962546532014-01-30T00:07:00.000-08:002014-01-30T00:07:45.510-08:00Fun, Simple Searching: Good Enough for a Police K-9, Good Enough for your K9 Nose Work® Dog When doing nose work it's easy to see your dog as a super-sniffer, ready to work in any environment, eager to conquer the most challenging sniff problems for nothing in return but the adoration of his handler and a tiny morsel of food. This is most definitely your dog's future potential, but it might not be what your dog wants to do today or tomorrow, or what he wants to do the majority of the time he searches. In fact, your dog most definitely doesn't want to scale the mount Everest of searches - that is, unless he sees it as the mole hill of searches. This is your number one job: give your dog the confidence, success, and motivation to want to search, and be patient as he builds to his full potential in K9 Nose Work.<br />
<br />
A recent Police K-9 magazine featured a question in the 'training perspective' section which to my surprise elicited the kind of answers that would apply to any K9 Nose Work dog. For these teams, the answers focused on foundational exercises, motivation, and fun for the dog. If police K-9 detection trainers are prescribing fun and simple exercises for dogs and suggesting that handlers focus on patience and perseverance until the dogs have overcome the challenge, then it has to be worthy of us pet dog handlers.<br />
<br />
<b>Has your nose work dog ever been hesitant to go into a tight space? Well, here's what some police K-9 trainers said about getting a dog motivated and having fun when faced with searching crawl spaces:</b><br />
<br />
<i>"I would start back to the basic crawl space search. Start by throwing his favorite toy into crawl spaces... Continue to throw his toys into crawl spaces so he will continually be motivated... Let him [the dog] see the decoy go into the entrance of the crawl space... Next, send your dog into the crawl space and let him have an immediate reward." - Art Lopez, Police K-9 Magazine Nov/Dec 2013</i><br />
<br />
<i> "All search work and ranging out into unknown areas, longer distances, and hard-to-reach places are dependent upon the dog's expectation of success... I would also like to mention that you have to make sure that during the learning process you keep things highly successful for your dog." - Armin Winkler, Police K-9 Magazine Nov/Dec 2013</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>"A dog's natural instinct is not to go into a crawl space or tight, confined areas without a reason. If the dog is on task (working in a drive), then he may "drive" into that location without thinking about it... Knowing this, it is the trainer and handler's responsibility to slowly develop the dog's understanding of this task... In summary, start the exercises away from the crawl spaces and slowly work deeper into the problem. Continually reward with bites, toys, or positive civil engagements as you build your dog's knowledge and understanding. Keep the exercises positive and with clear learning for the dog. If you encounter a problem, stop immediately and return to the last spot where the dog was performing at his highest." - Scott Clark, Police K-9 Magazine Nov/Dec 2013</i><br />
<i><br /></i><b>
What this means for your K9 Nose Work dog:</b><br />
<br />
Never stop doing the simple and fun search exercises! Use them to keep your dog excited about the search, and use them to help your dog overcome challenges. What might your dog's challenges be beyond tight spaces? What about being too social with people in the search environment, being worried about different surfaces, noises, distracted by other dog smells or critter smells, overwhelmed by large environments, etc.? Keeping it fun and simple and not progressing the challenge too quickly for your dog can make all of the difference. What is a fun and simple nose work search exercise? Anything that can keep your dog's focus and motivate him to search. It can be as simple as moving a hide deeper and deeper into a search environment, giving your dog focus and courage, and setting him up for success.<br />
<br />
<b>When you practice with your dog, think about the following things:</b><br />
<br />
has my dog ever worked in this specific environment, if not, has he worked repeatedly in this type of environment?<br />
<br />
would my dog become distracted, hesitant or worried if _____ happened in the search environment? (fill in the blank with things like noises or critter smells, etc.)<br />
<br />
am I certain of the hide challenge I have set out for my dog?<br />
<br />
has my dog ever lost interest or desire during a search?<br />
<br />
If any of these questions raise potential challenges to your dog's success for the search, keep it simple! Remember that your dog needs to experience and expect success in order to overcome these challenges, so think of how you can help your dog succeed through simple and motivating searches.<br />
<br />
The next time you do nose work with your dog, don't look at your dog finding the hide as being the only goal. Look at your dog's motivation to find the hide. Most of the time we believe the value of the reward drives the dog to want to find the hide - and some dogs are highly motivated in this way. If the reward alone does not seem to drive your dog to find the hide, maybe it's not the key. It's not too surprising that dogs accustomed to regularly scheduled meals might not feel compelled in all situations to seek out a target scent for a piece of bacon just because bacon is delicious. Engage your dog. Excite your dog. Give your dog a high expectation of success. Help your dog focus to achieve success and overcome fears. Bring in the visual aspect to stimulate your dog's curiosity and capture his attention (let him see you checking out an area where the hide is), set simple puzzles for your dog to master easily without losing interest or feeling overmatched (a hide blocked by a pile of items with several possible points of entry). Listen to what your dog tells you is fun and attention grabbing for him, and use that information to ensure successful practice sessions wherever you go.<br />
<br />
As you see your dog's desire to search and stay focused increase across a variety of environments, you should take advantage of your Certified Nose Work Instructor or Associate Nose Work Instructor to guide you into those more challenging search scenarios. And what should you be looking for from your dog when the finding gets tough? The same eagerness and confidence to solve the problem as he shows when playing the simple search games. Then you will know that he believes he can do anything - and this belief will lead your K9 Nose Work dog to achieve greatness in the search many times over. Enjoy getting to know and understand your dog, and making searching fun and successful for him, while patiently approaching the search challenges he faces, and you will be richly rewarded. Watching a K9 Nose Work dog work the Mount Everest of search problems as if it were a mole hill is a beautiful thing.<br />
<br />
Happy Sniffing! Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-28462881098328940522014-01-07T13:55:00.000-08:002014-01-07T13:55:22.218-08:00Guest Blogger Maura Warnecke Helps Bust K9 Nose Work Sniff Myth #1: Tiny Dogs Can't Sniff Out High Hides With The Big DogsMaura has a great perspective and lots of useful information in her post, <i>A Tiny Dog's Nose Work Journey</i>. One thing I took away from her post is that no matter what size your dog is, the most important skill a nose work team can have is understanding. The dog must understand his job, and the human must understand his dog. The latter is the key to being successful in competition. It is not easy, and it is definitely not about waiting for a trained final response. It is about learning what your dog's behavior tells you across as many different types of searches and search environments as possible. When you understand your dog well, you will make the confident call of 'alert', as Maura says, and you will not miss your dog's signals or second guess the information he's passing on to you. Will there still be mistakes made, missed calls, bad days? Count on it. Nose Work is a roller coaster ride with highs and lows, and thrills aplenty. Succeed or fail, it's all part of the journey, and when you embrace the experience, it's a helluva lot of fun!<br />
<br />
Thanks again to Maura for contributing to the blog!<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>A Tiny Dog’s Nosework Journey</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">by Maura Warnecke</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I was very excited when Jeff asked me to guest blog this
week to share Rookie’s Nosework story. Rookie is my 9lb Chihuahua mix whose
dream came true the day I started Nosework training with him. He was happy to
be done with agility, a sport that hurt his body too much, and start doing what
all dogs love - sniff and get treats for it! People are always intrigued with
his Nosework journey because he is so small yet he has the same drive and
excitement towards the sport as the more traditional breeds that are bred for
scent work. I've never thought of his height as a problem but more as a great
training challenge!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Our Start<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">We started training in 2010 and Rookie quickly proved to
me that he was obsessed with Nosework, and pretty darn good at it! He nailed
his NW1 title on his first time out and it built my confidence enough to sign
up for a NW2 trial shortly after. Our first NW2 trial he missed only 1 hide -
the highest hide of the day on top of a table. I got asked the dreaded “Where?”
and out of the 2 objects sitting on top of the table I chose the wrong one. I
knew right then that I hadn’t waited long enough, got excited and called alert
before he was truly giving me his sure-proof alert signal of licking his lips.
If I would have waited 2 more seconds, he would have stopped moving and alerted
under the right object. It seemed obvious after the fact and I knew exactly
what I had to go home and work on: reading him better when it came to different
types of high hides. So that we did. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Human AND
Canine Training!<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Rookie and I practiced so many high hides that I almost
trained him to never search low anymore! Truly, it wasn’t him who needed the
extra training; I needed to learn how to better read him. The hardest thing to
decipher was how does he alert when the hide is up on top of a table verses in
the hinge of the cabinet door or somewhere else along the way up that is also
out of reach? A lot of practice and watching videos of ourselves helped me pick
up small signals he was giving me to differentiate the different hides. Bobbing
his nose and trying to nose-touch if the odor is just out of reach as opposed
to scratching and pawing like crazy if the odor is really high like on top of a
table. Also giving him extra time to source the odor and stop moving is a good
sign that he’s as close to it as possible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Another thing I had to practice was how to state “alert!”
not question “alert?” Sometimes it’s something that simple that is going to
mess you up in the end. I was always asked where the hide was, whether it was
high or low because I always questioned the alert instead of stating it. So my
Nosework practice friends helped remind me every single time I sounded the
least bit unsure. How are you supposed to sell the judge on the fact you know
where the odor is if you sound unsure? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Progress<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Our next try at NW2 proved successful - all that hard
practice paid off and I’ve never been asked where a hide is again since my
alert training! We came across a very similar table hide like we messed up on
the first time and I knew exactly what to do. I was happy to show that a
vertically challenged dog could title at NW2 since at the time I knew a lot of
small dog handlers who had or were about to give up training their short dogs
due to so many times at trials with no title to show for it. I then realized
that each dog, breed, handler, etc. is going to have their advantages and
disadvantages. When Rookie enters a search area if there is a high hide he will
start standing on his hind legs to get a better whiff and it gives me a clue
that the odor is above his head, thanks to the fact that odor falls. I’ve seen
tall dog handlers have to train just as hard to teach their dogs to drop their
noses low to find those ground hides. I knew then that height wasn’t going to
be an issue anymore, but when you overcome one issue there is always another
one not far behind that needs tackling!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">NW3<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">After getting our NW2 we went to a very helpful NW3
seminar to start prepping for the many added challenges that come at that
level. The seminar was the best money and time I ever spent. We came home with
videos that I could reference over and over. The best things I learned from
this seminar:</span></div>
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</div>
<ul>
<li><b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Always keep
moving.</b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"> I thought I was always moving my feet but apparently I wasn’t;
when I stopped and bent over I would start to convince Rookie he was close to
odor. So I learned to keep my feet moving and give him more space when I
thought he was in odor instead of crowding him and talking him into something
that wasn’t there. It was also then I learned that if he was trying to fake me
out he would move along with me but if he was truly on odor he would plant his
feet down and stay on odor, regardless of where I went.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Plan your
route.</b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"> Always have a route planned and if your dog strays off of it to
go to odor then go with him; but always remember where you left off and get
back to that area to continue your planned search. Having a plan has helped us
both focus a lot better while searching.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Clearing a
room.</b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"> We also started training clear rooms and soon learned that
clearing a room wasn’t scary at all, it was actually quite simple. When we
started clear room training I noticed instantly that Rookie would take in deep
breathes through his mouth to try to smell odor so I could easily tell after a
short time in the room that there was no odor because he was having to try too
hard to source it. If you have a hard time hearing the difference, try training
in the dark and listening to your dog!</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Rookie’s first NW3 trial was a breeze- we had a great day
together and although we didn’t title we had fun working together and came in 3<sup>rd</sup>
place overall. I really thought we were prepared and NW3 wasn’t going to be so
bad after all… what a deceiving day that was! Our next trail was our worst; we
came in last place and didn’t find half of the hides that day. Rookie wasn’t
having fun because he seemed tired and hot therefore I wasn’t having fun
either. Rookie can only trial in cool months due to the fact that he thinks
heat is for sunbathing in, not working in. Also he is severely fearful of flies
and will completely shut down if they are present. Trying to desensitize him to
flies is something I chose not to work through with him, instead just planned
to never trial in the heat of summer when flies are really present. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Motivating
Rookie<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbqdd8VGHJaIjjskZS09GFN9b3lhgbQVg9ZIJCtb3sRPoslTMsNz4N-SXIuc-c_0wHf0DTiYlmNvEcDfIHM-JRk9l5t7Q8sVaSKA2Wkiw3jNX4BU_SvY0C4o2otognqISvgDmUIZ6XrKvq/s1600/522180_3923651733266_1903701654_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbqdd8VGHJaIjjskZS09GFN9b3lhgbQVg9ZIJCtb3sRPoslTMsNz4N-SXIuc-c_0wHf0DTiYlmNvEcDfIHM-JRk9l5t7Q8sVaSKA2Wkiw3jNX4BU_SvY0C4o2otognqISvgDmUIZ6XrKvq/s1600/522180_3923651733266_1903701654_n.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Our second NW3 trial day was unseasonable warm so I crated
him outside my vehicle near a friend’s dog and the heat mixed with lack of good
rest throughout the day made for a tired dog. We did however get all the high
hides that day. Going forward I knew I was going to have to be more careful
about how Rookie spent his downtime at trials and how far we’d travel to a
trial as to not wear either of us out. After that trial we took some time off
and when we started training again he seemed to have lost a little bit of his
enthusiasm towards the sport. I decided we’d give NW3 one more try but if he
wasn’t into it then it might be our last try. In the weeks leading up to the
trail I practiced more and it seemed his enthusiasm was partially based on the
quality of reward I was providing him. The week before he seemed ready to go
after we had our best practice in months with our Nosework friends. I wasn’t
going to risk him shutting down again so I brought out the heavy artillery of
treats on our trial day, steak cooked in bacon fat- and boy did that get his
attention! I made him rest in his crate all day in between searches and I
stayed away from the van so I wouldn’t distract him. He was ecstatic to go
search every time I took him out that day so he would earn more steak and
finally all the pieces fell into place and we earned our NW3 title! The extra
rest, amazing treats and previous NW3 trial experience all came together and
paid off making it one amazing day of searching together! We definitely weren’t
the fastest that day but we got what counted. We didn’t go for speed, we
actually ran the clock down to the 10 second call during every search,
something we don’t often do, but I knew when leaving each search area that
Rookie tried his hardest, searching down to the last second and then even on
the way back to our van. I kept his energy up by talking to him on the way into
a search or right after in my excited high-pitched voice so he could tell I was
excited and that he was doing great!</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">If We Can Do
It, So Can You<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A week later and we are still high in the clouds over our
achievement. I hope Rookie inspires other handlers to overcome whatever poses
as a challenge to you and your dog, and don’t let it hinder you; let it make
you a better trainer. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My last
tips:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Practice with many different people and dogs because there
is something to learn from everyone.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">For those dogs who aren’t super high drive, don’t over
practice, less is more most of the time.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Listen to your dog, trust him, and most of all have a
blast playing this game with your dog!</span></li>
</ul>
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<!--StartFragment-->
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">My motto at our last NW3
trial was “why are we stressing out, it’s not like we’re searching for bombs,”
and I think that helped. Any time my dog is having that much fun with me, it’s
the best day of my life!</span><!--EndFragment-->
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Check out Maura's blog, <a href="http://onthegomutts.com/">onthegomutts.com</a>, you'll find lots more fun posts and pictures. As for the next blog post, I'm thinking since hell has definitely frozen over in the midwest, that it's time to make good on my promise to give K9 Nose Work a try with my Shiba Inu and get the results out to the blog for all to see!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Happy Sniffing!</span>Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-44724966510723819422013-11-27T08:43:00.001-08:002013-11-27T08:43:31.024-08:00Where? The Question in K9 Nose Work® With an Answer That's Right on the Tip of Your Dog's Nose<i>A Nose Work dog bounces around a vehicle, sweeps nose over arc of wheel well, checks rear bumper, sniffs tire, looks at handler, checks wheel well again, then sniffs around hubcap, holds his nose on a spot for a moment, exhales, drags his nose up the wheel to the top of the wheel well and looks at handler.</i><br />
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<i>Handler: Alert?!</i><br />
<i>Judge: Where?</i><br />
<i>Handler: {flabbergasted, flustered, sweeping hand gesture encompassing the entire horizon} There at the top of the wheel well. </i><br />
<i>Judge: No. Sorry.</i><br />
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What just happened? A dog found source odor and a handler panicked and responded to a judge asking where the dog had alerted, resulting in the handler identifying the wrong spot. For many handlers, the dreaded "where" question is one they hope to never hear, and for many judges, they'd hope not to have to put a good team on the spot. While answering the question of "where" is never easy, being well-prepared and having an answer to give based on observing your dog can save your team and prove that both handler and dog are in sync and on their game.<br />
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<b>Why Do Judges Ask "Where"?</b> - Here is the official wording from the NACSW rule book:<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>In the event the judge asks “WHERE?” the handler should identify the location of the source by </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>pointing to the location without touching the location. (‘top drawer of the file cabinet,’ ‘right desk </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>drawer,’ ‘kitchen sink,’ etc’) If correctly identified FULL POINTS AND TIME WILL BE AWARDED. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>This scenario is most likely with a dog that has a subtle final response that is not as easily </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>identifiable or if the judge wants confirmation that the handler knows the location based on the </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>dogs change of behavior. NOTE: Once you say “Alert”, if the judge asks “Where”, you must </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>respond promptly. This is not an opportunity to re-cue your dog to continue searching to clarify </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>the hide location. </i></span><br />
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Here are just a few reasons why a judge may ask the "where" question upon your call of <i>alert</i>. Most often, the judge observes your dog clearly working the hide to source, but observes you looking less than confident about what your dog is telling you - maybe your dog has to keep going back to source to tell you three or four times during the search. Sometimes, a dog may have an unconventional way of working the odor and may not be as easy to read; maybe he goes to odor, gives a very subtle final response and moves away from the source before the handler calls alert. The judge might ask where because the dog found the source, moved off the source, and the handler called the alert after the dog left source. When hides are less sourceable, or are inaccessible, the judge may ask the "where" question if she sees all of the right behavior from the dog, say, the dog showing he wants to work a hide on the back of a wall-mounted sink blocked by some objects by bracketing the area and sniffing past objects in a way that shows the objects and the front of the sink aren't the source of odor, but the dog doesn't come to a clear final response. Occasionally, if the handler blocks the judge's view seconds before calling alert, the judge may have to ask the handler where the call is being made because of obstructed line of sight.<b> </b><br />
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<b>What Is a Good Answer to the "Where" Question? - </b>The best answer to the "where" question is to identify the area where your dog gave his final response! If he worked and worked on a desk and chair, then paused with his nose under the edge of the chair seat and exhaled loudly, you should be prepared to say, "it's under the chair".<br />
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If he works from one side of a shelving unit to the other and sniffs high up both sides and across the front, stretching his body, he may be working a hide that is not sourceable. Based on his behavior, you'd probably say you think it's high up on the shelf. If your dog shows that same behavior, but sniffs the shelf surface he can reach, and maybe sniffs a box on the shelf, you need to be able to quickly evaluate what he's communicating - is his behavior showing the presence of source odor on that shelf, or is he just sniffing the closest available scent after working hard to get to the hide that he cannot source? If you practice both types of hides, you should be able to see some key differences and say alert confidently, and answer the question of "Where?"<br />
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<b>How Do You Prepare to Make the Right Calls if the "Where" Question Pops Up</b>? - Practice observing your dog.<br />
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Watch your dog's change(s) of behavior as he begins to work the odor. Typically, your dog will catch scent, look for a way to follow scent to source, and then become very detailed as he closes in on source. Many dogs quicken sniffing and exhale loudly when at source, some dogs pause at the source for a moment before looking at the handler or sitting/downing. Almost every dog will try to get that nose as close to source as possible. Some do this very quickly and subtly, but they still do it.<br />
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Know what your dog looks like in a variety of search scenarios. There's not much to worry about when the hide is in a bucket and your dog sticks his whole head in there to find the odor. But, what about when it's under a table top in a metal channel running the length of the table? Will your dog catch scent moving along the channel and show a final response (even if his changes of behavior don't fully support it)? Sometimes patience is key and watching for your dog's tell-tale signs is the only way for you to know when he's done searching and found the source. What happens if your dog is partially out of your line of sight? Looks like you'll need to practice watching more than just his nose and head! A dog's rear half can give pretty clear signals as to when he's found the source. Maybe your dog's tail freezes when he's on source, maybe it wags really fast! The signs are all there for you to observe and become confident in trusting.<br />
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<b>What Will Trial Day Be Like? </b>- So, let's say you've logged some time observing your dog and you are confident in your ability to read him, what will your searches be like on trial day? The searches will probably be very much like you've been practicing for, but you and your dog may both be lacking a bit in confidence because of the unfamiliar location and/or anxiousness on your part because a title and ribbons are on the line. Your dog might not seem as strong or clear at source, and you most definitely will be cautious with your alert calls - or pull a 180 and blurt them out - and you might even be a bit "in your head", trying to size up the search areas and make guesses as to what the challenges might be.<br />
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If this is what your trial day might look like, remember your time spent in practice observing your dog. Don't get too focused on what your dog is checking out in the search environment, stay focused on your dog. He may check various objects in his quest for source - and the hide may indeed be in an object, but it could also just be pooling odor that's closer to him than the hide is. You'll only know this if you know your dog well in these scenarios. Look for the signs that he's working something he can reach (often the dog will close in on an area pretty quickly and sniffing will become faster, more intense, and more detailed). An inaccessible hide usually has the dog looking for ways to get closer, to get past items, and he'll usually spend a larger chunk of search time on looking for access to the source. Sometimes, this dog will show a sudden interest in a very accessible object in the area he's been working. This is usually the dog giving in to a handler who has been waiting for some clear indication of source as the dog worked and worked to show the presence of an inaccessible hide. If you recognize that your dog has been working in the area of that very accessible object for a while without showing interest in it, you don't have to call alert on the response you know is questionable, you can observe him working one more time before you make the call. Also, you don't have to wait for your dog to give a final response if all of his behavior is clearly spelling out the location of source odor. Whatever decisions you make, make them confidently.<br />
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<b>What if Your "There" is not the Right Answer to Their "Where?" </b>- So you watch your dog work a trash can in a corner and the hide is high on the back side where the dog can't reach it. The dog works up and down the can and spends a little more time on the bottom half so you call alert, get the "where" question, and say the bottom of the can. The judge tells you no. This is an invaluable training opportunity. At your next practice, try to set up similar challenges and observe your dog and look for the behavior you might have missed, or start thinking about how you help your dog to learn how to solve this kind of odor problem so it's more clearly observable for you. Maybe you start by making the hide a bit more accessible, or maybe it's not as high to start. Whatever you choose to do, your goals should be for your dog to learn how to get closer to source and for you to learn how to observe him better so you can make more accurate and confident calls.<br />
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As you practice to reach a level of teamwork where the question of "where" is just another opportunity to show how well you and your dog work as team, remember that the question does not get asked if you and your dog are not already a pretty darn good team. In the moments between "Where" and a yes or no from the judge, trust your teamwork, rely on your observations, and make the best of whatever comes next.<br />
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Happy Sniffing & Happy Thanksgiving!<br />
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Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-8778797555368470002013-11-11T15:26:00.000-08:002013-11-11T15:26:50.452-08:00Guest Blogger Jason Heng, CNWI, Answers the Question: Am I Ready For a K9 Nose Work® Trial?<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I first crossed paths digitally with Jason Heng, CNWI, when he submitted a story to the NACSW newsletter about his journey in K9 Nose Work with his Shiba Inu, Atlas. At the time he submitted the story he was just a student with a (difficult) dog. Now he shares his experience, knowledge, and passion with students of his own.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Enjoy this post from Jason, it has lots of helpful information and some important words of wisdom, not just for people considering entering their first trial, but for everyone who wants to have fun with their dogs in the sport of K9 Nose Work.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><u><span style="color: #222222;">Am I Ready for a K9 Nose Work® Trial?</span></u><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">by Jason Heng, CNWI</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">This post came about thanks to a question from a fellow instructor
and the realization that hosting a trial locally means this question is going
to be asked a few times before the trial. If you’re a highly competitive
person that has competed in other dog sports (agility, rally, IPO, etc) then
you probably understand how competing can affect your attitude, learning and
experience. If you, however, are competing for the first time the question has
probably crossed your mind more than once: Am I or is my dog ready for a Trial?</span><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">If you have never competed with your dog, your
nerves might be giving you a second thought about if you are ready. The K9 Nose
Work community is growing, so reach out and talk with others who have competed
and ask about their experiences. It can only help you learn more about the
trial experience. If your region has trials happening now, go volunteer; this
not only supports the K9 Nose Work community, but will also help you learn all
you can for your own competition future. There was a previous blog post about
what to expect for the trial day, check it out: <a href="http://k9noseworkblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-k9-nose-work-trial-experience.html" target="_blank">The K9 Nose Work Trial Experienc</a>e. So how do you decide if you and your dog are ready to trial?</span><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><u><span style="color: #222222;">Trial Considerations?</span></u><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">The first questions to ask are: is your dog
ready for the day; is your dog reactive, does he become anxious in new
environments, does your dog travel well, how about staying in a hotel? Any one
of the answers might be of great concern. Although some reactive dogs are able to successfully participate in a K9 Nose Work trial, it doesn’t mean that your dog won’t need to be in proximity to other dogs
in the parking lot, or on the way to the search areas. If you are considering
competing with a reactive dog, attend a trial to see what it's like, visit the <a href="http://www.nacsw.net/trial-calendar-information/intro-first-trial-getting-started" target="_blank">NACSW</a> for information on trial readiness, or take the time to speak with a Certified Nose
Work Instructor (CNWI) about what to expect with a reactive dog. When I decided
to compete with my reactive dog, it was incredibly stressful. I felt confident in my responsibility to manage the environment for our safety and the safety of other dogs, but I wasn’t sure if the overall experience and the potential environmental stressors would be too hard on my dog. Although his
reactivity has reduced with K9 Nose Work, entering a new environment with dogs and putting my dog into a stressful situation was of significant concern. The path to the first search area was
straightforward after leaving the parking lot from the reactive dog parking and
the waiting areas were screened from view, so once we started our process to
the search area there were few opportunities to see other dogs (this is not a guarantee at every trial - each location may be different). Be comfortable
with the decision to compete, talk with your instructor and other competitors
that have reactive dogs before deciding. The NACSW had a policy statement
recently regarding the red bandana and reactive dogs, find it in the <a href="http://www.nacsw.net/news/reactive-dogs-orts-trials" target="_blank">NEWS section on the NACSW home page</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">Travel considerations can be stressful as
well. Will it be hot on the trial day? If so, preparing to make your dog
comfortable while crated in the vehicle will need some thought beforehand. Even
staying in a dog-friendly hotel can present a challenge; if your dog barks at
the smallest noise, sleep might be all you’re searching for on the day of trial.
Traveling with your dog previous to a trial can be a good way to assess any
challenges. Are there any mock trials in your area? Maybe just getting your
fellow classmates together in a park to have a dry run, crate in your cars, set
some hides for practice, don’t rush through, have a cup of coffee and talk
about your concerns. Then run the dogs through one or two elements with someone
being the timer and the videographer. Watch the video as part of your day
asking each person to contribute some positives about each dog. Many
instructors do this in class, so ask about doing a practice run of one or more
of the elements.</span><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">Go review the trial photos for the last couple
of trials on the NACSW website at <a href="http://www.nacsw.net/trial-photos"><span style="color: #1155cc;">www.nacsw.net/trial-photos</span></a>. There is a great
deal of information in those photographs; scanning through each element you can
get a good idea of some examples of search areas. If you see something you
haven’t practiced such as, exterior on gravel, or vehicles on dirt, or
containers on carpet then get out and practice in those types of environments.
The NACSW is also working on getting some sample videos of trial searches
available on the website site soon.</span><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><u><span style="color: #222222;">Know how your dog works!</span></u><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">It’s hard to be objective about our own dogs.
The dog doesn’t have to be the fastest in class, the most determined, or have
found the most challenging hide the instructor set last week. It’s more
important that you have grown as a team. From the introduction of birch, to
this point your dog has become a detection dog. They go to work with focus in
new search areas quickly and work for extended search times. They are odor
obedient and therefore work through distractions and source odor with focus.
All dogs lose focus from time to time when searching so if they re-focus after
little or no interactions from the handler and continue working to source then
they have learned that odor is more important. In addition the odor is
important enough for them to tell you about it, “Hey! It is right here!” Your
dog’s communication is clear enough to you the handler that you have enough
confidence to read your dog and say, Alert! Even if your call had a question
mark after it for the ORT, consider where you are today. If this describes your
team then there is a good chance your dog is ready. If you’re still not sure
this describes your dog, have a friend video and watch to give you another
perspective. Ask your instructor for their feedback.</span><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><u><span style="color: #222222;">How do you deal with
disappointment?</span></u><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">How about that team member holding the leash,
are you ready? It’s just another day of searching for your dog. Having a
positive attitude about the outcome of each element is more important than
getting a ribbon. Failure is the lack of success, however learning from your
dog and having fun is a successful day. The dog didn’t fail, even if you missed
them telling you about a hide, fringed or false alerted. Instead you might have
needed to be more patient for your dog to source, or the dog may not have had
enough experience for the particular hide placement. Maybe the distraction was
too much to overcome at that time: dog pee, acorns, a flock of sparrows flying
under a vehicle, or a loud sound (fireworks in the adjacent neighborhood, a
train near by, or thunder). All of these distractions and others have happened
during trials at one time or another in my trial experience. The dog was still
successful. What you learn as a handler is just as important for the next
trial. You will have the opportunity to reward at source in the search area at
an NW1 and/or at the practice boxes after the search.</span><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">You will most likely be nervous or extremely
nervous, the day of trial. Seeing the search areas will shower your thoughts
with what-ifs. Try to focus on why you are there: to have fun! If you are going
to get really upset at yourself, consider volunteering at a trial before you
compete. Being able to see other teams work will give a better perspective of
the trial day and talk to others about their experiences. Giving a little perspective
to the competitive environment can only help frame your expectations for a
later trial day.</span><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><u><span style="color: #222222;">Learn from the
Experience!</span></u><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">So you have decided you’re ready, now what?
Your expectations are even more important. When you participate in the walk
through on the day of trial and try to guess where the hide has been set, “oh
it must be in the desk because the drawer is open a crack”. Your expectations
will cloud your perceptions of the dog’s behavior. Remember the point is to
have a fun day of searching with your dog as a team. If one of the team members
is trying to out-think the nose then encountering difficulties will be
inevitable. The big expectation might be about getting that title ribbon, we
are human as we measure success based on the acknowledgment of others, no
getting around that. The pass rates for NW1s vary on any given day, averaging
around 50%. So if it’s pouring rain on the trial day, less people will pass,
not because it’s too hard, but because most competitors probably didn’t train
enough in rainy conditions to give their dogs enough experience working in the
rain. Having a dog that objects to going out to potty in the rain, I can’t
imagine the look she would give me if the trial were in a downpour (with no
lighting/thunder of course). I would hope to have fun, and my takeaway might be
to share with everyone I coach that next time we have class and it’s raining,
we are going to practice in the rain.</span><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">The trial is a test, but you are measuring
your dogs’ progress, it’s not a graduation. In another way, you must be
measured in your attitude for that day. Things happen in the moment and if you
get too disappointed or too excited it will affect the day’s experience. Yes
“experience” it is not a performance! K9 Nose Work is not about performance;
birch is not an explosive device nor is anyone going to get arrested based on
your call of Alert! Even for those highly competitive folks out there, you are
still competing against yourself. Each search is a different dog with a
different handler, with a varied experience, strengths and weaknesses, the wind
can change each minute altering the conditions, or a dog can pee in the search
area plus a myriad of other conditions. When the ribbons are awarded it’s about
the fastest time for that search, and although the searches are meant to be as
close to the same for each dog as possible, there’s still an unknowable
variability each time. So if you get a placement, your dog did extra great to
be sure, and I always think of it as he was really on the game for that search
and we benefited with a fast time that earned us an extra acknowledgment. That
doesn’t make us better than all the other teams but means we shined enough to
get the extra bonus. Supporting the sport includes being proud of all the other
competitors if you were not acknowledged that trial day. If you get more that
one placement or first to third overall, nothing minimizes that for your team’s
work was outstanding and you should be proud.</span><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Even as an instructor it’s not always a clear-cut
decision when watching a team work to answer are they ready. Consider your
learning style, do you need to see examples or can you read about a situation
and be comfortable about the process. Can you watch someone tie a knot and tie
that knot with little or no practice? My learning style is to learn by doing,
so when I decided to trial for the first time, it was to measure our progress
as a team. I was willing to pay the entry fee, travel the thousand miles to the
nearest trial to have the opportunity to learn all I could about how the trial
works. I also volunteered at that first trial weekend to learn more about the
trial process. I felt my dog was odor obedient and that the odor was important
enough for him to overcome most environmental distractions. I was still concerned
about his reactivity but knew I could manage him. I was least sure about being
able to read his communication consistently at source, but I was willing to
risk taking the jump to competition to evaluate the progress from our year long
training. The trial was a blast and Atlas and I had a lot of fun. I learned
many lessons, including what I needed to work on, where there were gaps in my
training. Oh, and he didn’t get a title that first time, we did get a placement
in vehicles, so overall it was a great success. Even for the elements we missed
in retrospect he worked well, just didn’t overcome the distraction that day.
Regardless of the outcome Atlas was rewarded at source each time. What I
learned is that I have a great deal of fun competing with my dog. When he did
earn an NW1 title at our 4<sup>th</sup> trial attempt the pride in my dog
was immeasurable! The bar is set high to make the accomplishment of training
our dogs as a detection dog just that much sweeter. Seeing my fellow nose work
enthusiasts being recognized with titles is part of the great day. Some of
those teams I had never meet, some were friends. I am always excited for all of
the competitors because a K9 Nose Work title is such a wonderful way to honor
your dog!</span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Thanks again to Jason for sharing this post with everyone. Don't forget to thank a veteran today (and everyday). And don't forget some of those veterans are dogs - so thank a dog, too! Human and canine working together are capable of amazing things, be it to save lives or to enrich a personal relationship.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Happy Sniffing!</span></span></div>
Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-47994282752668259362013-10-29T23:00:00.000-07:002013-10-29T23:00:02.681-07:00The Shiba Experiment: Can K9 Nose Work® Help Me Find a Reason to Tolerate (maybe even like) My Shiba Inu?Confession time: I have a dislike of my Shiba Inu, Jade, so strong it borders on hatred. When I say "my Shiba Inu", I mean this like a prison warden would call a convict "my prisoner". This dog lives in my house, and I take responsibility for her care, but she's not <i>mine </i>mine<i>.</i> I take care of Jade, mainly because she's used her evil Shiba mind-control powers on my wife, Rachel, and made her have irrational feelings of love. I take care of the Shiba-beast, but, my not-so-secret hope is for this dog to run away in a snow storm and disappear from our lives forever. After over 4 years of living with this soulless creature, I've come to grips with the fact that no matter how many times she's run away or appeared to be choking on food she's stolen from one of the other dogs, this constantly nipping, yipping, shedding, snarling black imp is not leaving my life. Hoping this little Darth Vader dog may have a shred of goodness somewhere inside her, I've decided to turn to K9 Nose Work to bring her to the light. Who knows how this manipulative minion of darkness will respond to such a relationship-driven activity, but one thing's for sure, my Karma bank account should be in the black forever with this act of kindness.<br />
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How did Jade & I come to live with - and despise - each other? Human love. My wife, Rachel, had two dogs before we met, Jade, and a mutt named Deogee - who is a great dog & best buds with my dog, Muriel. The first time Jade & Muriel met, Jade forced her into a corner and frightened her so badly she emptied her bladder in fear. The second time they met, Jade physically attacked Muriel. This time I intervened and grabbed Jade by the hind legs, hoping to prevent bloodshed. While dangling in my grip, this serpent-dog coiled up and bit my elbow. The bite caused a reflex that sent Jade flying. She skidded across the floor, hit the wall, and popped up like a fluffy little four-legged terminator, driven by the singular purpose of inflicting pain on me and mine. Only because of my love for her human, was Jade allowed to be a part of my life. When Rachel & I moved in together (first in a one-bedroom guest house in the San Fernando Valley), Jade had numerous opportunities throughout each day to terrorize Muriel and drive me crazy. She would try to bite me any time I touched her for anything, she'd dig under fences, bring near-lifeless birds & squirrels to the front door of the guest house - once she dropped a bird in the landlord's family room - and she would emit a shrill banshee cry for hours each night, no doubt communicating the effectiveness of her dastardly deeds to some distant evil overlords. Like a comic book villain, she's no less black of heart after all these years, rather, she's become more patient and selective in the pain she inflicts. Most recently, she's run away several times, attacked Muriel over food a number of times, frightened the vet's office staff with glass-shattering screams in protest of a temperature reading by rectal thermometer, and murdered a few frogs in the back yard, leaving me to clean up frog bodies like the county amphibian coroner. In between her bouts of mischief and mayhem, she sits calmly with a blank stare that says she's fully expecting to outlast me in our little game of thrones. <br />
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Jade isn't entirely new to K9 Nose Work. I've been thinking about the possibility of working with Jade as my next nose work dog for a while now, and I did demo her a month ago at a clinic to show that even convict-dogs can benefit from some time in the "exercise yard". And, true to our relationship, Jade clawed at the ground, pulling against the leash as I led her into the demo area - she probably thought I was planning a public execution. Even as we played the game, she nervously popped around, expecting a trap to spring at any moment. I can't even imagine how we would work together as a team - trust is not something either one of us has found in the other. Yet, as much as I would enjoy the clean slate a puppy brings to the game, I find it much more interesting to try and use K9 Nose Work to dismantle the bad behaviors of the past and repair a broken relationship, with the hope of forging some previously unfathomable bond between dog and handler.<br />
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Over the next few months, probably as a members-only feature, I will document and share parts of my K9 Nose Work journey with the cute little excrement sack all of the neighborhood kids want to pet (unless said kids are holding food, in which case Jade will body slam them to the ground), in hopes of capturing the magical power of K9 Nose Work to alter the core of a being (or two beings) and to create trust and a bond where, before, only malice existed.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuVfx5VvLVNQW5dG5qn942EmcFVwnM3xhRXgEWf2Rn0WvN52kKLTc9PlhXZI39NvMxaNa_BBF17MHfHP8i6czqrwP95jT-evyMCXqeQRbe1evCkBJncvuwIaigrJeqkLboX-b07X5ccduO/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuVfx5VvLVNQW5dG5qn942EmcFVwnM3xhRXgEWf2Rn0WvN52kKLTc9PlhXZI39NvMxaNa_BBF17MHfHP8i6czqrwP95jT-evyMCXqeQRbe1evCkBJncvuwIaigrJeqkLboX-b07X5ccduO/s1600/photo.JPG" height="301" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jade giving the camera her favorite look: evil.</td></tr>
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Here is a photo of Jade, video will probably follow as part of the members-only content. She's a highly food-motivated dog, so, if nothing else works, she'll learn to love food even more and hate that I hold large stores of it captive from her jaws, accessible only through honest sniffing work (not bullying and thievery). As this experiment moves forward, I really have no idea what I will do if this dog & I develop neutral - or worse, positive - feelings for each other. It will truly be a K9 Nose Work miracle!<br />
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Happy Sniffing!Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-2156820210305896242013-10-13T03:51:00.000-07:002013-10-13T03:51:02.891-07:00Be All About Your Dog in K9 Nose WorkMany lucky K9 Nose Work dogs and their people just wrapped up an enjoyable long weekend of nose work - with the added bonus of a beautiful backdrop - at Colorado K9 Nose Work Camp, surrounded by the Rocky Mountains. Last month, a great group of nose-workers gathered in Pennsylvania for K9 Nose Work Camp in the Poconos Mountains. Attending a K9 Nose Work camp is a singular experience in the nose work world, it's also a big commitment of time and money. Similarly, attending seminars or workshops, or traveling a long distance for K9 Nose Work classes, requires you to give more than just love for the opportunity to learn K9 Nose Work with your dog. When you invest your time, money - and your love - into K9 Nose Work, it's easy to let the desire to reach certain goals, as well as expectations for the way training should happen, get in the way of true learning for the dog (and the human). If you want to reach your desired goals and have your expectations met, you have to be willing to be all about your dog in K9 Nose Work.<br />
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What do I mean when I say you should be "all about your dog" in K9 Nose Work? Here are some ideas:<br />
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<b>Set Your Dog Free - </b>on or off-leash, beginning or advanced, your K9 Nose Work dog needs to spread his scenting wings and fly. He needs to start making his own decisions and coming to his own conclusions about what pays and what doesn't and how you fit into the picture when you are part of the search. The smaller and more insignificant a role you play in the game, the better. The more freedom you give your dog to explore and rule things out, and to come to the one right behavior independently (find source odor), the better.<br />
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The easiest way to do this in the beginning is to have your dog work off-leash and search for primary reward, then paired odor & reward hides with random supplemental reward, and to have an instructor do most of the interacting necessary in the search until your dog is confident that source odor is the only game in town that pays.<br />
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As your dog progresses, you'll be a bit more involved in the searches (rewarding, helping make sure areas are fully covered), so it's as important as ever to make sure your dog is still searching freely without getting hung up on things you're doing (knowingly or otherwise) in the search. Your reward should not be hidden from your dog. We humans would probably love to snatch a paycheck from our boss' hands before our 40hr week was over, but we know, even if that check is dangling before our eyes, we won't get it unless we put in the work. Your dog can be the same way. He'll happily work for his paycheck even if it's right there in your hand. In fact, he'll understand more clearly that it's there and waiting for him as soon as he finds source odor. When you play the disappearing/reappearing coin trick of reward tucked behind your back or stuffed in a bait bag, this can be confusing for your dog - especially if you're early or late with the reward and he fixates on where it's coming from. Finding source odor should be your dog's only goal, not trying to outsmart you and your spring-loaded treat hand.<br />
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Just like you shouldn't hide the fact that your dog's reward is right there waiting if he just finds source, you should not keep him in the dark about your movements and actions in the search. At some point, your dog is going to need to know with certainty that sometimes you might stand in an area, by an object, or even ask or direct him to search something/somewhere, and at no time should that mean to your dog that a reward is forthcoming; only if source odor is found does your dog get that reward. Same goes for distractions, and clear areas. If your dog cannot confront these scenarios and go through the possible outcomes (always leading him to the one and only outcome that pays: find source for reward), then it should not surprise you if he pulls one over on you at the time when you are most vulnerable (blind search).<br />
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Early and always, let your dog discover how he can be right in the search, even if it means he tries some of the wrong behaviors as he works on understanding that finding source is the one right behavior in all situations.<br />
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<b>Try to See Things Your Dog's Way - </b>I don't mean get down on all fours and sniff around - although that's fun and probably has some kind of value in some alternate nose work universe! I mean, think about how we are different from our dogs, especially how we react to experiences and how we process information. Humans have a tendency to focus on the negative in any situation. To dwell on it, in fact. And, to apply prejudice to similar situations they might encounter in the future. Dogs - and this is just an observation - appear to take what works from any given situation, and forget the rest. It makes sense; you wouldn't last long in the wild if, when devouring a tasty rabbit, all you thought about was the terribly long time it took you to locate the rabbit, the multiple times you pounced and he wasn't there, the few times you sniffed up trees when he was hiding down in the thatch, the extended bout of sniffing you went through while he cowered right beneath your nose. You'd do much better to see it as a successful hunt (you are eating the rabbit, after all), and you'd make sure on your next hunt not to be so easily fooled, maybe to pay closer attention to the information your nose is bringing in.<br />
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When working with your dog in nose work, think in terms of what the experience of searching means to the dog when success is always achievable - not always easy, but achievable. It means that the experience is almost always positive, and will result in better performance in subsequent searches. For example, a dog who works a container search with a hide in a flat bag where scent is escaping in such a way that the dog doesn't commit to investigating the bag, rather he looks everywhere else, will usually respond much differently to similar situations in future searches - he'll make sure to check flat bags sooner and more carefully, and if the hide is in a flat bag, he'll commit to it with more confidence.<br />
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Imagine if you watched your dog search the flat bag from your human perspective, you would probably feel like he was struggling, and want to do something about it. You'd be thinking "Why is it taking so long? How come he's passed it 6 times? Why is he leaving the area to sniff random things?". You might try to put him on leash and guide him on a path to the bag, or to stand by the bag and call him back every time he leaves. You'd probably be focusing on why he wasn't doing better, finding it faster, being more clear with his indication - all the negative things. Consequently, you'd be missing the fact that your dog was learning that whole time, and that he was working toward an achievable success. while we may have to manipulate a search environment or handle our dogs differently depending on the search scenario, the best strategy to begin with is to be patient and let your dog learn.<br />
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<b>Be Willing to Try New and Different Training Ideas... at Least Once - </b>some of the best things I've ever done with my dog in our K9 Nose Work training were things I felt so at odds with when I first tried them, that if I had not kept an open mind, I would have dropped the ideas in a heartbeat. After seeing how Muriel responded to the different ways of handling her in different searches, I would have been robbing her of excellent learning and skill building if I would have let my feelings of discomfort and doubt influence our training.<br />
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New exercises often take several repetitions over time and in different environments before your dog is reaping the full benefits. Sometimes, the exercises are working for the dog even when they're not working for us.<br />
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If you're training with an instructor at a camp or seminar, or in your weekly class, and you're asked to try new or different ways of starting a search, handling your dog, or rewarding your dog, then make a real effort for your dog - even if you have your own ideas about how the new strategies will play out. You may not even be aware that you're giving your dog way too much leash in the search, starting him when he's not paying attention/ready to hunt, or paying him too many times for finding the same hide. Going along with a new way of working can help your dog shake some of these bad habits you've been promoting. <br />
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Are there times you should not try something new & different? Sure. If you're getting information from a source that's not familiar with the activity & sport of K9 Nose Work, you might not want to try things on blind faith. Instead, you should absorb the information you receive and think about how some part of it might be applicable to your nose work training.<br />
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<b>Let Your Dog Teach You - </b>you may be the handler part of the nose work team, but what you should really be doing is observing. Your dog has so much information to share in any given search that if you're ready to watch, you'll be amazed by what you can learn that will help your team in the search - or at least not do any harm!<br />
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Try pairing your reward with the source odor so you can just watch the search instead of worrying about your role in the game and whether you will inadvertently cue your dog with poor reward timing.<br />
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Use what you've learned to be a better handler. If you see that you're trapping your dog in certain parts of a search and he's not moving out independently, there's an opportunity for you to positively affect the search, just by moving around more. Maybe your dog starts his searches at 90mph and doesn't turn the sniffer on until he hits 200mph, so he begins most searches by jumping into the deep end of the odor pool and then spending way too much time doggy paddling around without a plan. Be more patient at start lines, set threshold hides, set multiple hides in a row for your dog to find one after another close together. A handler who learns from his dog is a handler who starts to think like a dog - and, in most searches, that's a good thing!<br />
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Whatever stage of nose work training you and your dog are in, try to keep things fun and exciting for your dog - exciting usually means challenging, but achievable. Do your best not let your own preconceptions or feelings about a search project onto your dog. And, remember, if your dog wasn't having fun, he wouldn't get right back in the searching game and do it all over again, tail wagging & face beaming. So, trust that your dog is both an excellent student and teacher, fade yourself into the background a bit and be all about your dog!<br />
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Happy Sniffing!Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-907609391844121612013-10-01T10:09:00.001-07:002013-10-03T11:56:19.753-07:00Learning From K9 Nose Work NACSW National Invitational Videos: Kristie & Jasper Part 3This week we look at the last two videos from Kristie & Jasper's National Invitational searches! The <a href="http://www.nacsw.net/trial-calendar-information/2014-nacsw-national-invitational" target="_blank">2014 NACSW National Invitational</a> is already scheduled for May 9th in Santa Rosa, CA! If you & your canine already have an invite, congratulations! For the rest of you, sniff hard and sniff fun, you may or may not make it in for 2014, but it's all about the journey, not the destination!<br />
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Day 2 NACSW National Invitational</div>
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<b>Garage Bottles </b>- I could watch videos of this search area over and over again. There's so much to observe in the way each team works the problems out. Jasper, as we've seen in prior videos, is such an independent searcher and really gets - and enjoys - the task of finding every "bird" in the bushes!<br />
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*** this video was giving me trouble right before posting - I could view it no problem on an iPad with Youtube app, but not on a laptop through Safari or Chrome. Let me know if you have issues, not sure what I can do about it, other than redo the commentary and re-upload at a later date...***</div>
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<b>Jeff McMahon:</b> Boy, he heads off to chart his own path! You can always count on him to hunt one down, then another, then another! -- hang back at the start a little more and he might start knocking them down right from the get go instead of coming back later to round up the two or three he blows by at the threshold.<u></u><u></u></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Kristie Cervantez:</b> This was the most fun of the entire weekend. I, like everyone else, when we did the walk through laughed and thought “OH BOY...this is either going to be the most fun or the biggest disaster”.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">What should be mentioned is this, <span class="il" style="background-color: #ffffcc;">Jasper</span> LOVES to play with water bottles. Since he was a puppy he has been a water bottle cruncher, whether the water bottle is in a toy or by itself. He also has a couple of the toys that were strewn about, so again I thought, this could be trouble. How wrong I was about trouble. I am so proud of him. He was all business as soon as he entered the search. No goofing around. He knew what his job was and he did it. Crazy! I like watching the video from both angles. What amazed me when I first watched it was how long it took him to alert on the first hide. Over 30 seconds (glad I did not realize that at the time..I would have panicked)...What was more amazing watching the video, he entered the search area and pretty much scoped out the whole thing. It looks like he was mentally checking off where he knew some of the hides were before he got to the business of finding and alerting on them. It was another “unknown number” of hides and I was so focused on what he was doing and so proud of how he was working, I did not even think to count how many he had found. I truly just followed him the entire time, calling the alerts and handing out the treats. This search was all Little Man.</span><span style="color: red; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<b>JM:</b> The first water bottle hide is tough because he's so pushy he knocks it around and has to re-find it twice.<u></u><u></u></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>KC: </b>When I am not quite sure where he is alerting, I will ask him, “Do better” and I did on this one. He tried to do better for me but you are right, he was pushing it around. He did know where it was and I did call it and get it right.</span><span style="color: red; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<b>JM: </b>The toy hide under the ladder, are you worried he's possibly on the wrong object and waiting to see if he starts working again?<u></u><u></u></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>KC: </b><span style="font-size: small;">This one was funny. I did the same thing, “do better little man” and </span><span class="il" style="background-color: #ffffcc;">Jasper</span><span style="font-size: small;"> looks at me and I says..”NO..I found it you call it I already did better..you need to TRUST ME”. He actually said all of that with that one look at me..I was just the only one that heard him. :) He was right and did not need to “do better”.</span></span><span style="color: red; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<b>JM: </b>On the pallet hide, even <span class="il" style="background-color: #ffffcc;">Jasper</span> now seems to be wondering if he's following the scent to the right source, taking a little more time to figure things out.<u></u><u></u></div>
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<b>JM:</b> Clear indication on that hide in the center of the area in the vertical cardboard tube - nice! <u></u><u></u></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>KC:</b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span>This is one of the ones that he found on his initial canvas of the room, he just worked his way back to it. Good Boy!</span></div>
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<b>JM: </b>Great job covering the whole area and getting back to the threshold to find remaining hides.<u></u><u></u></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>KC: </b>Great job <span class="il" style="background-color: #ffffcc;">Jasper</span> in covering the whole area. He took himself back to that threshold hide. If you notice, I never once led him or touched him or directed him in any way..at least I do not think that I did. <u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">He got that last one and again, I had no idea how many we had found. He kind of sniffed around Luther a bit and I think finally saw the spectators. He looked around somewhat and then looked at me and I knew he was done. He just had that look as if to say “That is it MaMa...we found them all”. FINISH<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">We left the area with the biggest smiles on our face...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Interior Tables & Chairs - </b>This search still impresses me as a really cool problem to put the dogs in the middle of, and even though it's not as grand and flashy as some of the other searches, it's a challenge worthy of the best sniffers around. How fitting that it would be our last search - a smaller, more familiar looking search area for the end of two long days of searching, but a tough scent puzzle to solve. A "wolf in sheep's clothing" of a search!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM: </b><span style="font-size: small;">nice first find - so funny that he just charges into the middle of the search area after that!<u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>KC: </b>I think this was my second favorite search. I stopped outside to give him some water. He gets really thirsty after searching and we had just left the bottle search. I remember opening the door to start the search and it was so quiet. All weekend that room had been a hub of actitivty and it was like opening the door to Church. :) I was not sure how well we were going to do. He had just worked pretty hard. Little Man rocks again. He enters the search area and boom...alerts on the TV Stand. Christina (judge) asks me the dreaded “Where?” question. I showed her where he was alerting and we got it right. I think I said to her “I deserved that” because he was not as accurate as he usually is (he was tired..I could tell), but I knew what he was telling me.</span><span style="color: red;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM: </b>Good job with the chair hide. Nice flow to the shop vac hide.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>KC: </b>Following Little Man as he does his thing, finding a hide and trying to figure out how to get it into his mouth.</span><span style="color: red;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM: </b>Gets table hide at 1 minute left to search. There you guys go again working the area he's pretty much cleared -- I see a habit that could be broken!! Like my inability to move Muriel on from blowing odor in no less than 60 seconds!<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>KC: </b>Let’s break the habit. :)</span><span style="color: red;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM: </b>Okay - working the chair hide you clearly aren't sure if he got it already. Makes more sense as to why you're hanging out there. Was very hard to keep track of everything in these searches.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>KC: </b>I think that the hide we missed was right behind us. It is that converging odor thing we need to work on. In watching the video, I see him catch odor over there but than works the table and chair. You are right, and I think I asked, haven’t we found this one? I could not remember and he was working, trying to find something. He finally gave up and alerted and we received our one and only “No” of the entire weekend.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM: </b>hmmm... interesting call. I did the same thing, calling a false in the final seconds of this search. I think it was nose work fatigue for all of us!<span style="color: red;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>KC: </b>After the “No”, they had already called 30 seconds and I just called finish. Little Man was tired and I could tell. He did an amazing job and I am just so proud of him. He loves his MaMa and I love him and in watching us together, I think it shows.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">What a great series of videos Kristie so generously shared with us all. Thanks again to Kristie & Jasper and thank you to the NACSW!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Happy sniffing!</span></div>
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Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-78270666808686194502013-09-20T09:09:00.002-07:002013-09-20T09:09:57.443-07:00Learning From K9 Nose Work NACSW National Invitational Videos: Kristie & Jasper Part 2Lots of nose work fun from coast to coast this past month has delayed parts two and three of the Kristie & Jasper videos. So, I will not delay any further. Enjoy the sniffing!<br />
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Day Two of NACSW National Invitational<br />
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<b>Equipment Exterior</b> - I love that Kristie kept the leash on Jasper for this search, it gives a nice contrast to Muriel's off-leash work in the same area. The more I watch videos of the exterior search at the National Invitational, the more I wish there was a search area like that in my backyard!<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Jeff McMahon</b>: <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Interesting that he headed straight for the truck first, then on the same path as Muriel to the hide behind the plate on the yellow truck's front bumper, the stack tires, then the tube.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Kristie Cervantez</b>: This was our first search of the day Sunday and I think we went 2<sup>nd</sup>, lucky for us, it was not too hot at that time. Very windy though. I remember walking up and the Steward told me there were 8 hides...fun...initially we were told “unknown number”. In watching the video, I really lucked out at where I started Jasper. Again, though, I just walked up and that is where we started and it looks like we were lined up directly with the hide on the back of the truck. Jasper went right to it. Good way to start the day. Again, no real plan to start..I just followed his nose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM</b><span style="font-size: small;">: I like your ID of Jasper crittering in the gravel as you head towards the tires. He's much different when he's just farting around and odor is not nearby.<u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>KC</b>: He is very different when he is not on odor. My thought at the time was cat poop or something so we moved along.<u> </u></span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I guess I figured we will just walk around the perimeter and see where his nose stops.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM</b><span style="font-size: small;">: worked the tire stack hide similar to Muriel - on a mission, passed the hide and u-turned fast, sourced with confidence. very nice.<u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>KC</b><span style="font-size: small;">: </span>Little Man was playing his “A” game.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM</b><span style="font-size: small;">: Tube hide presented no challenge for J-man!<u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>KC</b>: Again...just following Jasper while he does the work.</span><span style="color: red;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM</b>: Nice job getting him back to the perimeter/threshold for that hide on the red steps.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>KC</b>: We just ended up there after our “walk around”. Michelle told me not too many people found that one. I am actually glad that we ended up doing this search on-leash. It helped me keep better track of where we were and may have kept him more focused.</span><span style="color: red;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM</b>: good idea to go down the row of vehicles after that threshold hide.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>KC</b>: Ok..here is where I remember...oh yea..I should be counting how many we have found. I was so focused on Jasper that I forgot to count. I even asked Natalie, she was timing, jokingly how many have we found so far. I even stopped for a second trying to count. I think I stopped at that yellow tractor and Jasper found a hide.</span><span style="color: red;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM</b>: Interesting choice to go back to the corner where tires stacks end, then to work the trash dumpster. You take him back after he leaves, I actually like that strategy in most situations - might have worked well in the warehouse interior to sort out the shipping crate hide faster.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>KC</b>: Now is the point where I am thinking have we found 6 or 7? Where have we not been? That dumpster and scoop look like they are there for a reason (they were there for a reason..distraction! No odor on them) so I asked Jasper to work them. Nothing there...Hmmmm..now where are we going to go???</span><span style="color: red;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM</b>: Dang - that pressure washer was a tough two-hide object. He pushed right past the hide on the hitch to get to the one on the fender. No wonder no one found 8 out there!<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>KC</b>: We went to the only corner we had not been...THE PRESSURE WASHER.. Little Man looks like he actually caught the one on the hitch first, then the fender. He alerted on the fender and then bad handler me, I pull him off in the wrong direction. Now I really cannot remember how many we have found..7 or 8? Do I call finish or keep going? </span><span style="color: red;"><u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM</b>: Interesting to me that you would choose that corner for the last 45 seconds - he really showed nothing there as he found a hide in the tires and a hide in the tube - nothing between. I guess, at that point in the search it really doesn't matter where you go because you'd have to go back where you just were to find hide 8, but it is interesting to think about.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>KC</b><span style="font-size: small;">: </span>We kept going and headed back to the corner..not even sure why..Than they call 30 seconds. He alerts on the tire again and what the heck, I call finish. It was a fun search. He did great.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">* Only the raw footage is shown for this search. The commentary for this video was done a total of 3 times. All 3 Coach's Eye videos with commentary became corrupted in the conversion process - there is something about the source video that the app does not like. Since I'm not reading from a script, there were 3 different commentaries, all of them now lost to the digital abyss forever. On the plus side, getting to talk about the video 3 times made me acutely aware of how much can be learned from this search!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">To highlight a little bit of what I talked about:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">- The garbage bin in the center of the search area was used twice by Jasper to work out two different problems. When thinking strategy, you have to manage your dog's need to work in the same area twice, with your desire to keep him from going back to source a hide he's already found. There's a balance to be struck in terms of how close you allow them to get to an already source hide and how many times you let them go back to an area. In this search, he needed the freedom to cover the same ground at the trash bin, and he would have needed the freedom to re-cover the pressure washer to find the second hide (the only one he missed).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">- When Jasper finds the 7th hide on the fender of the pressure washer, Kristie takes him and directs him on to search away from the pressure washer, thus not putting him in a position to work the final hide. I am guilty of moves like this, as I'm sure others are, too. It's worth looking at how our dogs work from one hide to the next when we don't reinforce continued sourcing of the same hide. Be mindful, as each dog will be different, and some are very sensitive to getting paid for finding odor, no matter if it's the tenth time at the same odor without moving. The key to look for is how your dog resumes working once they know a second find is the only way to get more reward at a source. I see a lot of dogs who, once they leave an odor they've been paid for finding, will really make good choices in hunting down that next hide - much better choices than we humans will usually make!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">- Kristie very confidently identifies when Jasper is just smelling critters or some other non-target odor scent in the gravel between the yellow truck hide and the stacked tires hide. It's pretty clear which is which when you watch him self-indulge in the gravel and then watch him work a target odor. Where people get caught up is in waiting for a final response. You can't solve a puzzle with just the last puzzle piece, but you can pretty much solve a puzzle with all of the pieces but the last one. Focus on the behaviors leading up to your dog finding source. This will give you what you need to rule out non-target odor interest, and to be confident your dog has found source even when he doesn't give you a clear final response.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Warehouse </b>- This one was down to the final seconds for Kristie & Jasper! If you don't know/have forgotten, this was a known number of hides the dogs were searching for, so at the 30 second warning with 5 hides found, she knew there was one more out there somewhere.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM</b><span style="font-size: small;">: Your pace is nice and his responses to odor are strong.<u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>KC</b>: This was really fun too. It was only 2 mins and Jasper was all business. He seemed like he found one right after the next. His “retrieving” behavior really showed itself on the second hide we found, on that big white thing. He sourced it so well because he was trying to retrieve it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM</b>: Squeaked that threshold broom hide in at the last second! Nice job!<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>KC</b><span style="font-size: small;">: </span>I loved this search because I just had this overwhelming feeling of confidence in him. Thus far, we had not made one false call. You know I had been struggling since last Nov in San Pedro with my confidence in him and more so in myself. It felt so good to have shaken all of that off and be able to “trust” my Jasper and have FUN.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Part three to follow in the next week or so. Thanks again to Kristie for sharing her videos!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Happy Sniffing!</span></div>
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Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-41353797291429975222013-09-09T13:56:00.000-07:002013-09-09T13:56:25.421-07:00Focusing on Distractions in a K9 Nose Work® SearchOur dogs deal with distractions in every search all of the time. Most of the distractions are low value compared to the target odor and the promised reward. Some distractions can be truly irresistible to even the most focused dog. Our hope is that our dogs will seek out and find the target odor, even if it means passing over a burrito in a duffel bag, or the scent of a deceased critter in a wood pile. Our biggest fear is that our dogs will take such an interest in a distractor scent that we'll get duped into thinking that a stick of butter in a box is the target odor. How do we put our fears to rest and make our hope the reality? How do we get to a place where we're confident in our dogs to always choose target odor above all other scents?<br />
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<b>Always Deliver a Clear & Clean Reward</b> - Not only is it important for your dog to get rewarded at the source of the target odor, but it's also important that you not drop food reward elsewhere in the search for him to eat. The clearer your dog is on what pays (finding the source of the target odor), the easier it is for him to seek that out above all else. If your dog usually finds a dropped treat in the search, he's being rewarded for efforts that don't result in locating the target odor. If you encourage him to find dropped treats, beware. Behavior that's rewarded is behavior that's repeated. Maybe, he expects that you also want him to find food in target-odor-only searches. What happens when he encounters food in the search, but he can't just help himself to it? Hopefully he doesn't offer a final response. Your dog should get paid only by paired reward on the target odor or reward you deliver, anything else he enjoys in a search will make it harder for you to read his communication.<br />
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<b>Confront Distractions Head On</b> - If your dog really has a problem with certain distractions, avoiding them is not going to make the problem go away. Rather, your dog needs some clear communication on what pays and what doesn't.<br />
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Some dogs respond well to a simple search exercise with three boxes: one containing the target odor, one blank, and one containing a high value food distraction (the food should be in a container within the box). Let the dog investigate the three boxes and pay him immediately for interest in the target odor box. If your dog wants to get the food in the distractor box, be patient and let him make the decision to leave the box and search for target odor. Do this a few times with lots of rewards for choosing the odor box, then add in several more blank boxes and watch your dog hone in on the target odor box without much waffling.<br />
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Some dogs show great progress working a search with 6-8x the number of distractor boxes to target odor boxes. Make sure to draw a diagram of your container search, and label all boxes clearly - you don't want to reward your dog for finding banana nut muffin! This exercise seems to work best if the target odor boxes stay put and the the distractor boxes move around. Again, if your dog is interested in a distractor, let him investigate and leave it on his own. If you drag him away while he's still trying to get to that rabbit pelt, he'll just pick up where he left off the next time he passes that distractor.<br />
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<b>Be an Observer</b> - Definitely take advantage of watching your dog in K9 Nose Work searches to see how he investigates a pee smell or food item differently from the target odor. But, also watch your dog in all other areas of his life. How does he look when checking out that tree on the corner that every dog in the neighborhood makes a pit stop at? What's his nose do when you set a tupperware container full of leftovers out on the table?<br />
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If you watch all the ways your dog investigates non-target odor scents, you won't have to wonder if that bag in the container search he froze on, then left, needs to be checked again.<br />
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And, while I feel for anyone who has had to make a false call on a distractor item, don't get too down or yourself. Your dog is not suddenly also alerting to corn on the cob or old gym socks. Most likely, you misread his initial signs and encouraged a second look at the item which then gave it some kind of value in your dog's world, and the two of you kept fueling the fire of false alert, until he gave you what looked like his behavior at odor, and you made a wrong call. Your dog doesn't get paid for your mistake, it's not suddenly a better gig to false on food and get nothing than it is to get rewarded for finding target odor. It is worth thinking about how your dog is different when working to and sourcing a target odor versus smelling distractors; pretty much every dog is different in some way.<br />
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<b>Keep the Target Odor Valuable</b> - Yes, it's good for our dogs to put the target odor in direct comparison with high-value distractors, but this works way better if the dogs already consider the target odor to be an easy-to-find source that consistently brings a reward. Make sure your search scenarios feature hides that promote clear communication from your dog. This doesn't always mean the search needs to be simple and the hides super accessible, rather, you and the dog need to be on the same wavelength regarding rewardable communication. If you're running searches with your dog and he routinely displays source odor behavior and/or gives a final response three or more times before reaching the actual source of the hide, you need to adjust your searches. This kind of practice won't help the team, especially during searches where distractors will be present. On the flip side, if your dog does searches that allow him to confidently work to source and allow you to meaningfully time rewards, he should have a strong desire to find odor in any situation.<br />
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When you & your dog are practicing K9 Nose Work and confronting distractions in the search (planned or unplanned), try to remember that you get more information when your dog investigates a distracting item or area, even though it may result in your dog peeing on a bush or pawing at a bag with potato chips in it. Practice is not a K9 Nose Work trial. Peeing in the search or false alerting on a distractor item does not mean your practice session - or your learning opportunity - is over. Take something positive from every search experience and use it to inform your training going forward. You'll never know when observations from a training "failure" will help you to read your dog and achieve competition success.<br />
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Happy Sniffing!Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-88199350830228398852013-08-15T15:20:00.001-07:002013-08-16T22:03:00.076-07:00Learning From K9 Nose Work NACSW National Invitational Videos: Kristie & Jasper Part 1<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Thanks again to Kristie & Jasper for sharing their videos with everyone! Each clip will show the raw search footage first and then analysis of key moments. Enjoy this awesome example of odor obedience and teamwork!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">If you're looking for more details on each of these search scenarios, refer to the 3 posts featuring Muriel's National Invitational video, you can find them in the archive by scrolling down on the right hand side of this page.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>The Moat - </b>This is a fun search to watch. I asked Kristie what she was thinking as they passed the one hide Jasper didn't find...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Jeff McMahon</b>: <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">You hesitated as he passed the vice stand hide going towards the forklifts and going towards the table. Any idea what you were thinking at the time?</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Kristie Cervantez</b>: </span><span style="background-color: white;">Jasper stopped as if he smelled food or rabbit poop or something other than odor. He was sniffing the dirt but not searching so I told him to keep going.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>The Lily Pad 1 - </b>This search highlights the teamwork at play when Kristie & Jasper search. She lets Jasper run the search, but she keeps an eye out for areas of interest that should get a second look, and tries to make sure no areas get missed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM</b>: <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The high hide you block with your body, what was your thinking at the time Jasper was working over there?</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>KC</b>: </span><span style="background-color: white;">I knew there was something in that area. He was working the far wall and the smaller pallet quite a bit, I could tell by what he was doing he knew there was something there, he could just not quite source it. It seemed like he worked over there for a long time. Now that I see the video, I was blocking the source. He decided to go to the other side of the search area, glad he did, and I figured we could be back, which we did. He ended up finding another hide and I told him “let’s go back and figure out where that other one is”, thus guiding him right by another hide (I think). By luck, I was in a better postion behind the short pallet and not blocking the odor this time. He finally sourced it to the best of his ability and I trusted him and called it and we got it right.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><b>JM</b>: </span><span style="background-color: white;">You respond well to his behavior changes, are you looking for something in particular that tells you he's definitely on to a hide?</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>KC</b>: </span><span style="background-color: white;">Jasper is a Labrador Retriever and he likes to retrieve. When he is on an odor, he will do his best to try and retrieve it. It is my best indication that he has found a hide. Even if the hide is inaccessible, he will try to figure out a way to retrieve it and if he cannot, he will sit and look at me.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>The Lily Pad 2 - </b>Really nice search. Just watch & enjoy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Large Warehouse Interior - </b>Kristie didn't feel this was their best search, but I think they did quite well, and there is a lot to learn in the video.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM</b>: <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Glad you went off-leash to start, I think he would have been fine, but maybe you wanted to save Jenn Brown from getting slobbered on!</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>KC</b>: </span><span style="background-color: white;">This was not one of my favorite searches. I really wanted to go off-leash but was apprehensive because the area was not completely secure and so many of our classmates were sitting in front. Jasper sometimes like to visit. I am glad that I tried it and I suppose if the area were secure I may have let him continue..but I did not.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It was a very difficult area to search, especially on leash. I was feeling pretty good when he got the bucket right away and than he found people and than he was headed for the doors and on went his leash. I was really proud of how he worked the pallet hide and in hindsight, watching, I see that he was working the shipping crate also.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I do not remember much of that search except that it was so hot in there and he was working hard. I remember trying to go down the aisles with him and at one point I was out in front of him, not a good position. I lost track of what he had found and where he had been and I think that I may have just given up on any kind of strategy I may have had. I am most disappointed in how I handeled this search. I did not do my part and he was getting really hot.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Small Warehouse Vehicles - </b>This search Jasper finds everything he gets access to - the only hide he misses is on the far side of a vehicle he doesn't get to search.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM</b>: <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">He's not on a vehicle to start the search, yet by working the space (esp wall opposite the SUV bumper) he ends up at the first odor pretty quickly. Did any part of you really panic when he ran in not searching a vehicle right away?</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>KC: </b><span style="background-color: white;">Another bad habit that I have during a vehicle search is to pull to the vehicles if he starts searching the wall or not searching the vehicle. During this search, I actually did not panic (for a change), I thought to myself “leave him alone..maybe he is working his way to the vehicle because the odor is bouncing off the wall”. I trusted him and he was right.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><b>JM</b>: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Before he finds the hide on the mini-van, he ducks under the rear bumper and checks a few times on the driver's side of the vehicle. You seemed to hold him on that side (hence the attempt to crawl under the rear of the van), was that because of the find on the SUV rear bumper being so close by?</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>KC</b>: </span><span style="background-color: white;">The rest of this search is a blur. It went so fast. I wish that I had done if off-leash. I forgot that we had the option. After he found the first one, I was just trying to remember where he had already been. Everything started to look the same and the time went so fast.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><b>JM</b>: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">He misses the last hide because you didn't give him total access. Interesting that you went back to the area you'd covered several times rather than go check the one car that you'd barely checked - any thoughts on why you turned back to the area already covered?</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>KC</b>: </span><span style="background-color: white;">Again, lost track of where we had been and what he had already found. It was fun though!</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Vehicles Open Bay - </b>This search was tricky for video cameras to capture, but there's a nice view of Jasper working a deep hide under the flatbed truck.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>JM</b>: <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Nice work on the drum hide under the flatbed.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>KC</b>: </span><span style="background-color: white;">It is the retrieveing thing again. Jasper is not afraid to go as far under a vehicle as he can to try and retireve a hide. When he is working like that, I know he has found it, I just need to wait for him to let me know.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><b>JM</b>: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">In this search there are parts of the vehicles he doesn't pay much attention to, interesting that he misses the hide in the metal frame on the rear of the flatbed. You were moving pretty fast through the area.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0b5394;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>KC</b>: <span style="background-color: white;">I have a bad habit of moving too fast in vehicle searches. I need to slow down my pace a bit so that he will slow down his pace a bit thus not missing things because we go by too fast. Funny at the end, he had his eye on my back pocket. I guess he figured out where I was keeping his treats. :)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">More videos to come soon!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Happy Sniffing!</span><br />
<br />Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-1922273486048960702013-08-01T13:12:00.000-07:002013-08-01T13:12:36.435-07:00Getting to the Source: Finding and Fixing Hidden Training Issues With Your K9 Nose Work® Dog (And You)Almost every K9 Nose Work team will face one or more training speed bumps on their scent work journey. Some have easy solutions (stop reaching in your pocket for treats just before your dog finds the hide), others, like a suddenly false/fringe alerting dog, take more time. Let's look at a few of the most common issues and some tips on how to fix them so your team can get back to sniffing at highway speeds (regardless of what Sammy Hagar says, in nose work, you CAN drive sniffty-five)!<br />
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*Remember to always seek out the knowledge and expertise of a <a href="http://www.nacsw.net/instructors" target="_blank">Certified or Associate Nose Work Instructor</a> (CNWI/ANWI) to guide you on your nose work journey and help pump you up when your team's sniffer goes flat. A trained eye observing you and your dog can identify and fix more problems in a few searches than you reading every article on nose work out there and trying to fix things on your own. <br />
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<b>My dog loses interest or gives up in new/challenging environments:</b> This problem can blindside a team that is otherwise strong. If your dog does well in class - his home base for nose work - and advances his skills, there is a tendency to train at that level in all situations. But, a dog who is less experienced in an area - like exteriors - will not respond well to advanced challenges as an introduction to an already challenging environment.<br />
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Keeping with the exterior area example, an otherwise strong dog may get into this environment to search for a challenging hide, show a little odor obedience, but not see the search through to source. He may get distracted easily, choose other activities to do instead of searching, and he may even show signs of stress, or give up altogether.<br />
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The fix: Shift your thinking back to the early stages of the game and how your dog was introduced to searching. Bring out the boxes, use a little presentation, keep search areas small, keep searches simple. Get your dog to buy-in to the game in this environment. Don't move too fast to increase the difficulty of the searches. Keep the sessions short and end with an easy search. If your dog just won't come on board to search for odor in this environment, pair food and odor.<br />
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Tips to avoid this problem: While your dog is searching for primary reward and paired food & odor, try to spread your training out evenly across all the elements of K9 Nose Work. Don't wait until your dog is searching odor only to increase the difficulty level of searches. You're much more likely to see a motivated sniffer working tough problems when his nose tells him there's definitely an edible reward waiting at the source.<br />
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<b>My dog suddenly started false and/or fringe alerting:</b> This is not a problem that just fell out of the sky. Your dog has been thinking a lot for a long time about what gets him his reward, and he's probably not the one to blame for this new behavior. This is very simply a communication issue. You don't see too many dogs false or fringe alert when searching for primary reward. They might go back to the last hide placement and check it out to see if what paid once will pay twice, but there's rarely a commitment to that spot, it's more like wishful sniffing.<br />
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The problem starts developing when we a) introduce a formal alert or wait for the dog to offer a final response b) start working more blowing/pooling/lingering/inaccessible odor hides c) start working more blind hides. We introduce too many other possibilities for our dogs to be right and get rewarded. Suddenly, pawing after finding source or looking at you after finding source gets a reward. Sometimes a sniffing dog working lingering or pooling odor near source can get a reward because we think that's good enough or we're having a lazy day. With inaccessible hides we can send all sorts of mixed signals; a dog doesn't get rewarded for catching the scent at it's strongest point, because we think that's not correct, or a dog gets rewarded, but could have worked closer to the source. <br />
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The fix: So, the easiest thing to do is slow down on a, b, and c. Go back to easier hide placement (like small cones or buckets that the odor collects in around the hide so the source is easy to find and stick with), go back to instant reward at source, and keep the blindfold off (no blind hides) so you're not giving your dog the wrong signals about what pays. Work your way slowly back to the more confounding hide placements and occasional blind searches, always with an eye to reward your dog for source odor recognition. As much as 'looks at me' is a pretty obvious final response for finding odor, there's a risk that the 'looks at me' behavior becomes the trigger in your dog's mind and the source odor is just an extra step in the process. Odor needs to be the final stop on the train to treat town. Practice rewarding your dog more for a nose sniffing source, and hopefully that will reduce the chances that he'll sniff a chair halfway across the room from the hide and give you that treat eliciting 'looks at me' face.<br />
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Tips to avoid this problem: From the very first time you reward, pay careful attention and time your reward to be delivered when your dog is actually sniffing the odor. This is fairly easily done when pairing food and odor, because your dog is already there doing what you want without having to wait on you. As you and your dog progress, there may be times where he gobbles his reward at source and turns to look for seconds from you - this is a good time to chill out and be cool. His nose will go back to that source and that's when you bring in that reward. Do that often enough, and even if he looks at you occasionally, he'll be a true believer that only odor pays. <br />
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<b>When I say "show me" my dog sometimes doesn't go back to source:</b> I am always interested to see this command in action. The luckiest handlers speak it and the dog goes and finds the hide again and gets his reward, but most of the time this command translated to dog speak goes something like this: "Well, if I found it the first time and didn't get paid, why am I going back to that same spot? Maybe, I'll try something else." And so you get a dog that starts checking other spots around the source of the hide, and maybe he sweeps over the source again and you reward, but maybe he doesn't - and you reward. You can see how this gets confusing for the dog.<br />
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The fix: Zip your lip and let your reward do the talking. If you miss an opportunity to reward when your dog is sniffing source, have patience and be ready to deliver a well-timed reward the next time he finds the hide. If getting your dog to stick on odor is a chronic problem, then see the fix for the prior problem and work on setting hides that promote your dog sticking at source. When you reward, pay it out slowly so your dog stays at source longer, and don't hand out a reward for him looking at you, only for him sniffing at source.<br />
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If your use of "show me" comes from past experience misreading your dog and calling an alert too soon, it's best to phase the phrase out of your vocabulary. Your dog could actually get used to the chain of events you're reinforcing, get in odor and close to source, check-in with handler, get told "show me", sniff again somewhere near source and check-in for reward. It's better to set up non-blind searches and plan only to respond to your dog sniffing source. That means if he stops two feet before the hide and looks at you, just keep on walking, and if you must stop, don't engage your dog with eye contact or body language. Be patient and only come to life and deliver a reward when he finds that hide.<br />
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Tips to avoid this problem: Don't introduce a "show me" command. Instead, observe your dog carefully in non-blind searches and get to know the signs that he's found source odor. When you encounter the rare situation where you're not confident in your observational skills or your dog isn't giving you his normal signs, just relax. He'll know there's only one way to get his reward: go to source; and if you miss him going there the first time, he'll go back, because he's never been paid for anything but going to source.<br />
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<b>My dog urinated in a search. He's never done this before!: </b>Dogs relieve themselves during searches for many reasons. Some dogs reveal themselves early on in the game as uninhibited eliminators. Other dogs show pretty good control, closing the flood gates on command before so much as a drip of urine drops to the ground. All dogs have the potential to go to the bathroom during a search, no matter how long they've been doing nose work. Still, it's shocking and embarrassing to a person when his dog soils a perfect search record by answering nature's call in the search area.<br />
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The fix: Management. Try a pre/post-search routine that involves a command to get busy and empty the tanks. When searching known areas of urinary interest, don't support your dog's pre-potty routine. Keep him moving until he's actively working the hide. Take note of how your dog looks in areas that have no nearby hides. Often, with no or very little available scent dogs will check out of the search and check in to relieving, marking, checking their peemail. If you learn to read the signs, you can manage your dog in the search and keep odor obedience at the top of his list.<br />
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If and when your dog eliminates in the search, don't panic. Give him a break and get back out there to find that odor. Adjust the search to make the hides easier to find if necessary. The key is not to keep your dog from areas where he's likely to pee, it's to increase the importance of odor in areas where he's likely to pee. If odor obedience is winning 9 times out of 10, he's doing great.<br />
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Tips to avoid this problem: There's no avoiding nature's call. It's better to face areas that he may want to eliminate in and do your best to set him up for success: pre/post-search elimination routine, easy hides in smaller search areas, careful observation of when he's switched over to critter/pee mode. <br />
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Despite the different issues that can pop up in our K9 Nose Work journeys, our dogs are uber-forgiving and always willing to wait for us to catch on to the problem and offer a solution. So, be the handler your dog deserves and approach each bump in the road knowing that the road was smooth to start, you probably caused the bump, and the road can be smooth again if you focus on clear communication and odor obedience for your dog.<br />
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Happy Sniffing! </div>
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Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-87827482553212575022013-07-24T12:29:00.001-07:002013-07-24T12:29:54.602-07:00Learning From K9 Nose Work® NACSW™ National Invitational Video Part 3This week we look at the last two searches from the National Invitational (no more searches - cue the sad horn, waaah waaah). I want to thank the NACSW again for giving us competitors the video footage of our searches and encouraging us to share it with the world. The response to these posts has been overwhelmingly positive, and it's clear that future posts featuring video would be warmly welcomed... so, we will see what can be done.<br />
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In the meantime, happy viewing!<br />
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<b>Garage Bottles - </b>One of the coolest K9 Nose Work searches ever. Toys, bottles, food in bottles, and garbage was scattered throughout the small warehouse. This was a 6 minute search for an unknown number of hides. A few teams had trouble with the distractors - dogs were picking them up and carrying them, false alerting, and just losing focus and wasting time. Muriel was made for this search because she has no interest in toys - or in using water bottles as toys - and she does a good job ignoring food distractions.<br />
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We found 7 out of a total of 8 hides and made one false call. There was a hide on the small blue step stool that we missed, and Muriel barely even noticed it. I know I don't even remember seeing the stool in the search area, so I was no help as far as making sure she searched everywhere.<br />
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One thing we really did well in this area was covered the threshold at the end of the search. Always important to work the whole search area, even if you feel like you cleared the threshold when you and your dog passed through it at the start of the search.<br />
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<b>Interior Tables & Chairs - </b>Our last search of the event. There were 5 hides to find in 3 minutes. This was a very fair, well thought out search. The dogs were challenged by the convergence of odors and the handlers were challenged by navigating the area in the time allotted. We missed one odor and I made one false call, and it was mostly a case of not covering the area completely and getting hung up on blowing odor.<br />
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Something to note on this false call and the one in the garage bottles search is that in both instances, there doesn't seem to be any behavior on Muriel's part that indicates she's close to or attempting to get close to a source odor. If the source is within her reach, she'll quicken her sniffing, detail the area around the hide like she's following a dashed line to an 'x' marking the spot, and inhale/exhale loudly at the source, taking in that sweet source odor like a fine wine. If the source is out of her reach, she'll make a clear attempt or attempts to get closer to the source, which usually manifests as bracketing the source (the high hides from last week's videos show this), and she's determined in her sniffing, like she knows the scent she's smelling is coming directly from a very nearby source. If no source is present nearby, her investigation of the area can look similar, but is usually missing the bracketing and determined sniffing. She's not locking down a part of the area where she knows source is coming from, rather, after an extended period of me enabling/encouraging/forcing her to work an area without source odor, she arbitrarily picks a part of the area and lets me fill in the blank.<br />
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Next week, we look at a few nose work training issues that can go undetected until you're least prepared to face them, and we offer a few tips on how to get your dog's sniffer back up to speed... and, in the coming weeks we have a special treat, handler Kristie Cervantez with her black lab Jasper has put her video from the National Invitational in the mail to Minnesota to be analyzed and shared on the blog! Kristie & Jasper did a fantastic job at the National Invitational, coming in first place overall for the two day competition, as well as earning a number of other top placements over the weekend. A big thank you to Kristie!<br />
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Happy Sniffing! Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-13613425263387953732013-07-18T22:58:00.000-07:002013-07-18T22:58:33.522-07:00Learning From K9 Nose Work® NACSW™ National Invitational Video Part 2Here are two searches from day two of the National Invitational. I'm pretty sure all of us competitors felt much better on day two with the experiences from day one under our belts. I really got thrown by some of the challenges of day one and the way Muriel reacted to some of the hides (not quite her usual self). On our drive back to where we were staying after day one of searching, Muriel and I agreed to put the failures of the day behind us and do better on day two. Thanks to Muriel really searching her heart out, we did much better day two.<br />
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On to the first two searches of day two!<br />
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<b>Equipment Exterior - </b>This is easily the most fun I've had searching an exterior/vehicles. The size of the area is hard to recall, but it seemed to be around two-thirds of an acre - big, and full of stuff. This was an 8 hide, 6 minute search. No one found all 8, but a few dogs found 7 hides. The start line stretched the length of the<b> </b>search area and was flanked on one side by a trailer and metal steps, and on the other side by a fence and forklift. I will confess that although I used some dust to check wind during the walk-through, the only wind going through my mind at the start of the search was blowing between my ears where my brain should have been. In my case, at least, it will probably take years more of searching before I can consistently assess wind in the search area and apply the information to read/help Muriel as she works to find source odor.<br />
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Going over the video for this search made me think about the importance of observing as many dogs as possible working blowing/pooling odor problems. I think there is an observable difference between a dog working blowing/pooling odor when a hide(s) remains to be found, and a dog working the same problem when all hides have already been found (or at least all hides in that general area). Something to think about when we handlers start hanging around too long in these blowing/pooling odor areas.<br />
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<b>Warehouse - </b>This search tested how quickly dog & handler can work an area under time pressure. There were 6 hides to find in 2 minutes! Working quickly is not our strongest attribute as a team. Muriel sometimes gets caught up sniffing every particle of scent on her way to source, and I sometimes let superfluous sniffing go on too long. In this search, we did well enough with time management, but we missed a hide and had a false call.<br />
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The hide I made the false call on is similar to what trips up many handlers in NW1 trials: a hide where the dog may catch the odor strongly near, but not at, source and/or the handler may call alert before the dog is done working to source.<br />
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Two more searches remain to be analyzed, the Garage Bottles search (with tons of distractions), and the Interior Tables search (with lots of tables & chairs). Those videos will come in a post next week.<br />
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Happy Sniffing!Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-41293392992004128102013-07-11T07:32:00.000-07:002013-07-11T07:32:15.590-07:00Learning From K9 Nose Work® NACSW™ National Invitational Video Part 1Okay, I received a flash drive in the mail with some video of Muriel & me doing our searches at the National Invitational (woo hoo, Christmas came early this year!). We're going to look at a number of the searches using the Coach's Eye app and see how much we might learn from them. Some of you may not know much about the National Invitational - what the location was like, how each day flowed, what it was like to be a competitor sitting in shade on the backside of a building all day waiting to search and wondering where everyone was! Here are some answers: the location was industrial, each day had a morning and afternoon and we split into running orders of six teams each for the searches, the backside of the building was not too hot, and we had food, chairs, and each other's company to prevent us from going sniff crazy! That covers the summary. On to the video! I aim to keep this post lean and mean like a 2 minute, 6 hide warehouse search!<br />
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<b>The Moat - </b>The first search of day one of the National Invitational was a 3 minute, 5 hide mixed element search with forklifts and tires, a stand with a vice clamp, a working table, and other miscellany. It was a cluttered area with lots of tight spots for handling.<br />
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What made this search area difficult was the wind blowing across the length of the area and causing dogs to chase a little and overlook at least 1 hide (no dog found all 5). The hide overlooked by most dogs was on a stand with a vice clamp. This was between the table and one of the vehicles, and near a hide on a utility pole. Muriel & I ducked under the table to get to the back of the search area and passed right by the stand without a twitch of the nose from Muriel.<br />
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Again, this search could have been a bit different for us if we had handled the blowing odor situation better. We spent the lion's share of our time trying to work out odor on a forklift (see video below) that we never end up finding... I should say, Muriel did find the odor, she just didn't take off one of her shoes and throw it at me to tell me so.<br />
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As for the hide on the vice clamp stand, this might have been a matter of handler strategy - make sure to cover ground in many different ways, and make sure your dog is in a position to actually search that ground. This means finessing things so you guide your dog to an area, but then permit him to take control and search it. Not an easy task. I imagine this strategy would have resulted in a mess of tangled leash or the funky dance of "You go first." "No. You go first." "I'm not walking through that pinched space with that thing above my head. No thanks."<br />
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When you practice this kind of search scenario, start out with an easily navigable area and work your way to the pinched space with a thing above your dog's head (just make sure the thing can't fall on your dog's head). Even simple set-ups with tables, chairs, and household stuff to clutter the area can really help the two of you learn to navigate awkward search environments.<br />
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<b>The Lily Pad - </b>This search was our second of day one and it consisted of two side by side areas within a large 3-sided covered storage area. The search times were brief (3 minutes and 2 minutes), and there were 3 hides in one area and 4 in another. Forgive me, but I may not get exact details for each search area correct, but that's very much what competing in the National Invitational was like, hard to correctly remember the details during and after each search.<br />
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Search Area 1: We're going to focus on two things in this search, first is the dog that can't quite commit to the hide, and second is the handler that can't commit to the dog's signals. In the video, Muriel is pretty clear on where she wants to work, but she is not content to alert to a source (she can't reach it - not even close). I let her work for an extended period of time, but I'm not confident enough in what I'm seeing to call alert.<br />
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We waste a lot of time being discontent and unconfident. The nearby hide on the other side of the stacked wood could have been causing trouble with the decision making on the high hide. Had Muriel been guided away from the area, found the more accessible hide, and then went back to work the high hide, she might have made a clearer decision.<br />
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This is one of many cluttered and busy areas we searched, and it's worth pointing out that the very strong desire to let your dog work longer because the area seems busier is not necessarily a good strategy. If your dog struggles to lock down a hide in 15-30 seconds, move on. You can always go back.<br />
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Search Area 2: The learning experience that was search area 1 had not quite sunk in, but I was more prepared to call alert sooner if she gave me similar behavior to the high hide in search area 1. Time once again got the better of us here. We found two hides and got caught up working blowing odor to eat up the remainder of our time.<br />
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A good strategy for me & Muriel might have been shorter leash length and a little less freedom to roam. A few times she got caught up between odors or by blowing/pooling odor. For some reason, this is a hard scenario for our team to recognize and work through. Slowing things down might make it clearer for both team members when blowing/pooling odor is leading nowhere, when two odors are converging, etc. On the other hand, sometimes an odor problem needs to be solved by getting further away from the source and finding the edge of the scent plume, so, strategize with caution!<br />
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<b>Large Warehouse Interior - </b>A large area search with 6 minutes to find an unknown number of hides. The real challenge of this area was the high hide in the stack of pallets. Although, a number of dogs breezed by a hide at the outside corner of one of the rows of shrink-wrapped material - handlers were told to be careful in that area because of some open boxes of solar panels on shelving just a few feet away from the hide. Not sure if handler preconceptions and concerns had anything to do with dogs being less successful on that hide.<br />
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This search was about covering ground and staying out of the dog's way, as well as dealing with close convergence involving a very high inaccessible hide. Once again, troubles abounded because of blowing/pooling odor. A huge exhaust fan cooling system was running overhead while we searched, and, I believe a cargo bay door was open beyond the search area. Who knows exactly what was happening to the odor but the dogs!<br />
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Muriel had no trouble finding the threshold hide, the medium height hide in the wooden cargo box, the hide near the solar panels, and a hide in between two rows of shrink-wrapped material. I think we missed a hide on the building wall deep in the corner of the search area (or we didn't), and I missed the high pallet hide. That makes for a total of 6 hides in the area. The amount of time we spent trying to work out the high pallet hide was maddening! In the end, Muriel got frustrated and went to the wooden cargo box, sniffed the bottom corner opposite the hide and alerted. I knew it couldn't be right, but the two of us were desperate for some validation of our efforts at that point, so I called it. Nope. False call. Lose a half point.<br />
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<b>Small Warehouse Vehicles - </b>A traditional vehicle element search with the option to go off-leash. There were three vehicles and an unknown number of hides to find in 2 minutes. I chose to run Muriel off-leash and it worked out nicely for us. Because of the focus on vehicles I was much more able to read her signals and guide her to areas I wanted her to search, as compared to the more cluttered environments of the mixed element searches. Unlike the forklifts in The Moat, these vehicles were passenger cars (a minivan, SUV, and a 4-door sedan), and the configuration and hide placements were not really causing difficult convergence of the odors or blowing/pooling odor. This was more of a speed test to see if the team can stay on task and work efficiently.<br />
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This video contains some decent searching, but not the teachable moments contained in some of the other videos. I'll focus on the hide on the front of the SUV in the bumper to the left of the driver's side fog lamp. Muriel showed interest early on indicating she wanted to search towards the front of the SUV, but she turned off fast and worked problem. When she made her way to the front of the SUV she caught odor early, but wasn't quite there. I can't stress the usefulness of sourcing exercises and lingering odor exercises. I read Muriel correctly, but I'd prefer she work her way to source without needing to check in and test my handling skills!<br />
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Next week we'll continue the video analysis (and possibly the week after, too). Hopefully, it helps to see searches in action and hear some of a handler's inner monologue, as well as some post search reflecting.<br />
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Happy Sniffing!Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-618354434663187182013-06-21T16:13:00.001-07:002013-06-27T07:16:12.104-07:00A K9 Nose Work Conundrum: Is it Residual or Lingering Odor My Dog's Sniffing?This week's post cites information from an article in Police K-9 magazine, which in part describes why scent terminology can be problematic for drug detection dogs. To see the article in its entirety, click <a href="http://www.policek-9magazine.com/news--features/feature%3A-when-does-drug-odor-become-%E2%80%9Cresidual%E2%80%9D%3F/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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There is a key distinction between the work that drug or bomb sniffing dogs perform and the sport of K9 Nose Work we enjoy with our pet dogs, the key lies in how the two worlds define and place importance on what we call residual and lingering odor. According to the article in Police K-9 magazine, in the world of the police K-9, odor is odor regardless of the presence of 'source', or should I say regardless of the strength of the 'source'. If someone had a joint in his shorts three weeks ago, a drug sniffing dog might detect residual and/or lingering odor and alert on that guy's shorts! In the sport of K9 Nose Work we ask that the dogs find only the most concentrated source of the odor, and that they not alert to lingering odor - and try not to alert to residual odor (this can be challenging for reasons to be explained). So why is it that the professional sniffers get to alert to stinky gym shorts and our pet dogs have to parse a specific bloom from the scent bouquet? How do we help our dogs to become such scent sticklers? It might not surprise you to find out that our pet sniffers are capable of picking out a single pollen grain from that scent bouquet, all we need to do is give them a clear understanding of what we want from them in the search and fine tune it over time.<br />
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What do we mean by residual and lingering odor? Simply put, residual odor is some concentration of scent left behind after the removal of the source odor. Typically, this would occur when a scented cotton swab comes into direct contact with the environment as opposed to being contained in a tube or tin. Lingering odor is described as the fainter remains of scent in an area where source is no longer present. Where a dog might find a 'source' when residual odor is present, lingering odor is presumed to be much less concentrated and not resembling source odor for the dog. Lingering odor may be present without residual odor, but residual odor cannot be present without lingering (whatever more concentrated source left the residual odor also left lingering, and residual leaves its own, fainter lingering odor).<br />
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*<i>Be careful not to contaminate your search areas with residual odor. A cotton swab dropped on the ground or stuck to a block wall is something the dogs can work through, but if the oil used to scent the swabs contacts any part of your search area, it should be removed and cleaned, and no searching should be done in that area until the highly concentrated oil has dried and the vapor has dissipated. Also important, never give your dog a reward and never use negative feedback if your dog gives a final response at a residual odor location. Just say, "okay, good dog", and move on. In most situations, we can be reasonably sure that the residual odor left after hide removal is not as strong as the hide itself, so the best course of action upon moving on is to have a sourceable hide for the dog to find and get rewarded for so learning and reinforcement can take place.</i><br />
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When a dog trained to find drugs or explosives does his job, he will find any amount of that substance or material he can - and in the case of explosives, we all want a dog who can find a subatomic particle's worth of bomb material to save lives and be better safe than sorry. When a dog trained to find birch, anise, or clove does his job, he will find the source of the hide. Birch, anise, and clove are not substances that put lives in the balance or break federal laws for possession (however, concentrated essential oils can be harmful, read product warnings and handling instructions before use). A K9 Nose Work dog can learn to process scent information - lingering and residual odor - and use it to reach the goal of finding source. This makes the activity & sport challenging and exciting; it's like marksmanship in the Olympics, a sniper in the field of battle may get the job done in whatever way necessary (and his is a serious job), but a marksman in a competition must use precision and meet a tighter standard (and his job is the exhibition of his skills).<br />
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Now that we can examine just what lingering and residual odor are and how they affect our dogs' performance in K9 Nose Work, how do we confront these challenges and get our dogs effectively using the scent information to find source?<br />
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<b>Recognize the dog's earliest introduction to lingering and residual odor situations </b>- dogs searching for primary reward (food or toy) will encounter lots of lingering and residual odor. Food grease leaves residual odor on boxes, food placed in a container and moved from one box to another leaves lingering odor. Take notice of how this is never a problem for the dogs. The main reason being that they know the ultimate reward in the search is the food or toy and there's no point hanging out where it was - only where it is. If you observe your dog as confronting these lingering and residual odor problems from the start, you should be less concerned about problems when you move to a target odor, like birch.<br />
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<b>Allow the dog a chance to compare and make a right decision </b>- Just like when we introduce food & toy (or critter) distractions, it's best to put the dog in the same vicinity as what you want him to ignore in favor of source odor - this way he actively chooses source odor over the distraction. With lingering & residual odor the choice is not to ignore their presence, but to use them as a marker on the path to source odor. When doing target odor searches, moving the hide just a few feet and letting the dog encounter lingering or residual odor in the presence of source odor will allow the dog to understand what pays. Keep in mind that we don't use some kind of rigorous process to prepare odor, nor do we use the same number of scented cotton swabs for every hide - it would be impossible to control the concentration of source odor for every hide. The dog does not have to make decisions regarding specific strengths of source odor in a search, he just has to choose the strongest concentration(s). If there are multiple hides, he works to find each one because they are all stronger sources than any lingering or residual odor. The hides can be different strengths, two cotton swabs and twelve cotton swabs, the dog will not ignore the two cotton swab hide because it's not as strong a source as the twelve cotton swab hide, he will treat them both as sources. And, over time, because he's consistently rewarded for source odor, when the dog reaches NW3 level skills and must clear a search area, lingering odor will not prompt him to give a final response unless the handler fails to read the dog and pushes him to search too long.<br />
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<b>Keep your searches straightforward for the dog's learning</b> - always make most of your training and practice searches straightforward such that the dog can build his understanding of what we want him to do for the game of K9 Nose Work. If we have him searching hides out of reach too often, we could be rewarding the dog for sniffing odor that is more like the lingering odor we don't want him to give an <i>alert </i>to - this usually happens because we handlers expect our dogs to give a final response in a certain area, but that might not be where the strongest concentration of odor is coming from. A search that allows the dog to puzzle through lingering odor and make a decision at source is more helpful than a search where he alerts at the base of a sign post to a hide that is 6 feet above him.<br />
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Teaching our dogs how to interpret lingering and residual odor is an ongoing process - we can add blowing/pooling odor to the list as well. Every search situation presents new challenges, and often the only way for our dogs to learn is to experience the search; we can't create a lab where we can teach them skills that will apply to real world searches, they just need to learn from the school of hard sniffs (with us, their chaperones on hand at all times to keep things from getting too hard).<br />
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I have some videos of the searches Muriel & I did at Nationals, so look out for a post in the coming weeks that shares those videos and tries to pull some teachable moments from them (shouldn't be too hard with the handling errors!)<br />
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Happy Sniffing!<br />
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<br />Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-33046827628414980602013-06-11T09:27:00.000-07:002013-06-11T09:27:18.890-07:00K9 Nose Work® Blog Passes 35,000 Page Views!Many thanks to all of the readers of the blog from all around the world, your continued interest in the weekly posts has helped us reach the 35k mark in less than a year!<br />
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A few fun facts to share:<br />
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<b>Countries</b> - we have readers from the U.S., Canada, Germany, Australia, Russia, and the U.K. (Latvia is on the list, too, but - correct me if I'm wrong, Latvians - it's more likely spammers than sniffers)<br />
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<b>Popular Posts</b> - the top five posts are:<br />
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<a href="http://k9noseworkblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/primary-reward-k9-nose-work-way.html" target="_blank">Primary Reward: The K9 Nose Work Way</a><br />
<a href="http://k9noseworkblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-k9-nose-work-practice-group.html" target="_blank">The K9 Nose Work Practice Group</a><br />
<a href="http://k9noseworkblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-k9-nose-work-dog-in-bloom-by-paula.html" target="_blank">A K9 Nose Work "Dog In Bloom" By Paula Nowak, CNWI</a><br />
<a href="http://k9noseworkblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/your-all-access-pass-to-inaccessible.html" target="_blank">Your All Access Pass to Inaccessible Hides in K9 Nose Work: Part One</a><br />
<a href="http://k9noseworkblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-review-of-first-nacsw-k9-nose-work.html" target="_blank">A Review of the First NACSW K9 Nose Work DVD: The Parker Videos</a><br />
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<b>Pack Members</b> - We now have 117 members of the blog, as well as a number of people signed up to receive posts via email. Becoming a member of the blog is an easy way to get the latest posts and maybe we'll even do some members only content in the future! Just look for the 'Join This Site' button on the right hand side of the blog page to become a member.<br />
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<b>How People Find the Blog</b> - google searches top the list, with Facebook coming in a close second. The yahoo discussion groups also help a lot of people find their way to the blog.<br />
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<b>Beyond the Blog</b> - Many of our posts have been printed and shared with students in K9 Nose Work classes and some of our blog posts have been used as handouts in workshops & lectures across the country (thank you Barbara Schwerdt!). If you're looking to become a CNWI, you may even see some familiar content from the blog in the next update to the training manual.<br />
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<b>Special Thanks</b> - We try to focus on bringing you the best smelling blog posts out there, consequently, we don't spend a lot of time self-promoting! We'd like to acknowledge some special pack members for making the blog the bark of the town:<br />
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Silke Wittig, CNWI, for always enthusiastically sharing the blog with everyone she knows<br />
Barbara Schwerdt, CNWI, for making the blog posts part of workshops and lectures across the country<br />
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We'd also like to thank K9 Nose Work co-founder Amy Herot for inspiring most of the blog posts, and handler Gretchen Farrell & her dog Amica for inspiring most of the rest.<br />
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Thanks goes to all of the contributors to the blog, including CNWIs Paula Nowak, Jaime Fellows, Gail McCarthy, and Leah Ganglehoff! And, thanks to Christy Waehner, CNWI & the NACSW for releasing the Parker Videos DVD, the review of which is one of the five most viewed posts on the blog.<br />
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Last, but not least, thanks to every reader, every commenter, and all the people & dogs who help to grow the activity & sport of K9 Nose Work.<br />
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Happy Sniffing!<br />
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p.s. - can't forget to thank Muriel, one of many great K9 Nose Work scent translators, helping us humans understand - and write about - the world as the dog smells it.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFZgAiNz7E1WLwQZvpw2OxhkP4IS6T-DYMMn5LANTO9JSxYyHspuXuPJlP2mQU2ivWnsgQRfcPtUIgjKhkRJB8TtWAWFa__zW6rmYf7eScLWr6_4yjx4e_xmWZX5T6xK50uMMBrm-eulRD/s1600/photo-2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFZgAiNz7E1WLwQZvpw2OxhkP4IS6T-DYMMn5LANTO9JSxYyHspuXuPJlP2mQU2ivWnsgQRfcPtUIgjKhkRJB8TtWAWFa__zW6rmYf7eScLWr6_4yjx4e_xmWZX5T6xK50uMMBrm-eulRD/s1600/photo-2.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Muriel at LAX after Nationals, wondering<br />why they don't make the ribbons out of<br />meat.</td></tr>
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<br />Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-42312428339177958792013-06-07T15:54:00.000-07:002013-06-07T15:54:09.600-07:00Reflections on the 2013 NACSW National Invitational TrialThis would be a great post for pictures, but instead of sharing them here, I will direct everyone to the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/NACSW">NACSW facebook page</a>. There you will find lots of great pictures, fun facts about the trial, comments from people all over the world, and a sentimental slide show charting the journey thus far for the sport of K9 Nose Work, the NACSW, and the 13 teams invited to compete at Nationals this year. Here on the blog, we'll reflect on the trial weekend and see how we can apply the very unique searching experience to helping future invitees to Nationals - really any nose work team - have fun and success like was had by the twelve teams that competed this past weekend.<br />
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<b>Prep for Trial</b> - what the National Invitational reminded me of was the first NW1 and the first NW3 trials. Dog & handler teams had no idea what to expect and were tossed into the deep end of the ocean and left to swim to shore! The big difference is that the teams at Nationals had the skills - like a Navy Seal team - to handle lots of unknowns and environmental challenges and come out sniffing. Yet, I think all 12 teams would agree that our dogs were pushed to the limit with the heat and test of endurance over two days of searching, and that we all could have used more rest the day before trial and more conditioning to do hot, large area, long duration searches. <br />
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Make sure your dog is well rested and comfortable in the days leading up to a trial. If your dog usually likes to go for a long run on Fridays and you're in a Saturday trial, make it a long walk instead. Give your dog plenty of food and water in the days before a trial, but don't feed too much the morning of a trial. If you know you're not likely to search until ten or eleven in the morning, maybe an early AM breakfast is okay, but make sure your dog is hungry enough to get some reward from searching. Remember, even dogs who search for the fun of it - hungry or not - sometimes need a little motivation to hunt from mother nature when going to trial at a new location.<br />
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You the handler should be well rested, too. Save the partying for after trial. Don't do too much strategizing leading up to trial or at the trial. Everything that will help you at trial, you already know in your gut from lots of practice and experience. If you fail at something, you'll practice and get better so next time it's in there, too.<br />
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Get in the mindset to have FUN. We are not in control of how well our dogs will do on any given day. We are just along for the ride, with a few opportunities here and there to add some value in the search.<br />
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No matter what level of nose work you and your dog are enjoying, make sure to expose your dog to as many environments as possible and to as many search scenarios as you can think of. Take advantage of an experienced CNWI or a practice group with some seasoned teams and soak up all of the search knowledge you can.<br />
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Finally, in preparation for trial, know the rules (people work very hard to set the rules and update them to make for fair competition), but do not let the rules override your dog's communication to you in the search. For example, many people fixate on the boundaries of a search area and worry about source odor being hidden on the boundary line or inside something that forms the boundary line. Just worry about watching your dog and letting him get where he wants to go - boundaries or not. But, don't be silly, if he alerts 10 feet outside the search area, move on.<br />
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<b>Never Forget Foundation Work</b> - a number of the searches at Nationals had some very basic hides that required threshold searching, hitting corners, covering the whole area, etc. Granted, the environment and other factors (converging odor) made finding the basic hides a bit more challenging - and a number of us missed some of these hides altogether - but there's no doubt a few of us could have used some foundation skill building in the lead up to the competition to remind our dogs and ourselves not to complicate the searches and forget about the simple stuff.<br />
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In your training, always go back to basics, but give it a fun twist to keep your dog excited. For example, the shell game we play with boxes to introduce dogs to nose work, play that game with your dog using a hide that you move back & forth along the rear bumper of a vehicle. If you have an interior area with several doorways, or pass-throughs - what we would call thresholds - set a hide at every threshold. You can work this two ways, once as a continuous search and once as individual searches where you line up at each threshold to find the odor.<br />
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Do lots of very accessible hides the dog can source, this will keep his job very clear and when he does search inaccessible odors, he'll be conditioned to get as close as possible. One thing to be mindful of, some dogs want so badly to get to the source of the odor that they may not stop trying and may not give their final response when a hide is way out of reach. Become a careful observer and take note of the behavior changes that signal your dog is onto an inaccessible odor - but also observe the times your dog is caught up in a blowing/pooling odor situation. The big difference for most teams is that when source is present the dog will not leave the area as readily as when there is no source. Another notable difference is most dogs make a decision on source odor within 15 or 20 seconds (or at least it's obvious they're working toward a decision), whereas they may work for as long as you ask them to in an area with just blowing/pooling odor.<br />
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<b>Make a Wrong Call Sometimes (But Make Sure Your Dog Is Always Right) </b>- The National trial was set up to allow competitors to make false calls (at the expense of points) and to continue searching, unlike the NW titling trials where a false call means the search is finished and a title will not be earned for the day.<br />
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I think almost all of us in the trial made at least one false call. Some we knew better than to call, and some our dogs sold to us like source odor kool-aid on a hot day! At the end of the first day of competition I learned that Muriel was all over two pretty high hides and I didn't buy in, and the false calls I made stemmed from me not correctly reading her interest in blowing/pooling odor. My poor dog worked back and forth for a minute or more in one search before I finally false called - she only stayed because I thought there was something important in the area.<br />
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As scary as it was to be making false calls in a trial, it was very useful in learning to better read and understand my dog's behavior changes. By the end of the trial, I still made a few false calls, but it wasn't because I was convinced Muriel had found source odor, it was because I wasn't convinced and I knew calling it would not mean the end of the search.<br />
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In practice, I'd do more blind searches with coaching. Make sure the dog is never rewarded for a handler's false call and that the handler is careful not to make too big a deal about calling the alert - just raise a hand or use another word than alert. The coach should give immediate feedback - often catching a handler before he can commit to the alert call and moving him on. This kind of practice gives the handler more feedback and helps address the root of why these false calls are being made. It's important to note that when we call <i>alert </i>it is not necessarily when the dog has decided he's done searching and has found source. It's when we think he is done and has found source.<br />
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Another benefit of going out on a limb and making a call you're not sure of is that you're likely to make all of your calls a little faster. I'm not saying yell alert at the first sign of a nostril flare, but maybe call it once your dog has sniffed to the left and right of an area or object, he's poked his nose in an opening, his whole back half is wiggling and waggling in anticipation of a reward - that kind of faster call. I called many of our finds faster than usual and it only got me once, we were maybe a foot away from a hide when I made the call, but we went back later in the search and sourced the hide. All in all, I feel much better about calling it faster, making a false call, and paying closer attention to my dog. I think it will make me a better observer and better handler when we go to trial and every call has to be right.<br />
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<b>Relax and Have Fun</b> - For Nationals Muriel & I traveled by plane from Minnesota to California. Flying her for the first time ever was a little stressful and I know it wasn't easy on her either. Our first two searches on the first day were tough and I got a little down - I made a point to blame jet lag, to say she wasn't being herself (maybe true, but not an excuse). I also think there was a bit of pressure to perform partly because we spent so much money to come to the competition, and to honor the sport by acing these searches. Thanks to the wonderful atmosphere created by the NACSW and the other competitors, it was easy to put things back in perspective and just enjoy the amazing opportunity we were given to search with our dogs.<br />
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I think this is how it should be any time we do nose work at any level, regardless of the venue. We did not take our dogs into our homes so they could parachute into the mountains of North Waziristan and find bombs and terrorists, and save the world. The fact that our dogs have learned nose work and become skilled detection dogs, with scenting and searching abilities beyond our wildest dreams, does not mean we always have to earn a placement or go home with a ribbon, or find every hide. We need to have fun and appreciate that our dogs are willing to put out a great deal of effort to find stinky cotton swabs hidden in strange environments.<br />
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We also need to remember that every search, every hour, every day is different. The best we can ask is that our dogs go along with us as partners into these searches and that we both do our best and come out smiling. K9 Nose Work trials are very specifically the measure of a dog & handler's search skills at that trial location, on that day, under those conditions. Some dogs have more good days than others, but any day could be your dog's day to shine.<br />
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A future post may look at the individual searches at Nationals in more detail - maybe with some video. A big congratulations to all the dogs & handlers who competed at Nationals. A big thank you to the NACSW, to Amy, Ron & Jill, to the amazing judges for the weekend, and to all of the volunteers and spectators. We can't wait to see what the 2014 Nationals will have in store for the invited teams!<br />
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Happy Sniffing!<br />
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Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2958112649912191833.post-63080609226783041292013-05-28T08:37:00.000-07:002013-10-29T23:01:06.829-07:00What Can You do With a Single K9 Nose Work® Search Area?Here's a challenge: confine yourself to a single area - it can be large or small - and use it in as many ways as you can come up with for searches with your dog. I'm not talking about moving the odor to every square inch of the area - although that's probably not a bad idea - I'm talking about searches that have some sort of purpose: teaching your dog the importance of corners, working lingering odor, elevation, converging odor, working on leash handling skills, etc. This doesn't have to be a marathon day of searching, you can use the same area over time. Take some pictures of your searches, submit them to the blog or to me, and we'll have our own little social search network - instasearch or k9nosebook.<br />
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Here's an example:<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr06ltEkhTz9cXqf1slc1CW4mHidq5yHcxIV2ZxojfEwqhyphenhyphenjLpVKZebImvJobXagqamG8JKHMpOXlRykuYe9yMmtvpTdqkLphS187wvAv7DqF6g28ALL4wYI4Es5vcdg-14nZgxz8qq68v/s1600/525blogarea1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr06ltEkhTz9cXqf1slc1CW4mHidq5yHcxIV2ZxojfEwqhyphenhyphenjLpVKZebImvJobXagqamG8JKHMpOXlRykuYe9yMmtvpTdqkLphS187wvAv7DqF6g28ALL4wYI4Es5vcdg-14nZgxz8qq68v/s1600/525blogarea1.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Search area at the park with blue line representing the<br />
perimeter of the area</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I went to a park the other day and saw this area that was naturally defined by the slope of the land. It had two levels of block retaining wall on one end, and a lending library resembling a birdhouse on the other end. Immediately, I knew I wanted to place two elevated hides on opposite ends of the search area that would be on almost the same plane, with a third hide at the lowest point between the two elevated hides.<br />
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I actually started Muriel from right beside the car about 50 yards from the search area (she'd done some searches between the car and this current area, so her motivation was pretty high). She took off down the slope, made a 180 back up the slope and into the parking lot and worked the scent on the wind all the way over to the search area. A few yards before the retaining wall hide she turned hard left down the slope and went right to the tin on the block wall.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbmzeX9u8yIyGzdmrDvqgUYgFN8NlQgqlQ-qdqNFBp58Iyz0Plk8nhVZ7y2DlG3FODKMtx5uGPdmqpsRLPHVntEVoY1yD_fVOIMe3PHORw2piV0HL-C442pvH0tHCi26QuZxAjKyaSJYIS/s1600/525blogareatinwall1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbmzeX9u8yIyGzdmrDvqgUYgFN8NlQgqlQ-qdqNFBp58Iyz0Plk8nhVZ7y2DlG3FODKMtx5uGPdmqpsRLPHVntEVoY1yD_fVOIMe3PHORw2piV0HL-C442pvH0tHCi26QuZxAjKyaSJYIS/s1600/525blogareatinwall1.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hide in tin on block within blue outline. Through the trees would be the<br />
ground hide in the valley, and beyond that, the elevated lending library<br />
hide up the slope at the opposite end of the area</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Her next move led us down the slope, across the walking path and beyond what I would define as the search area, but I wanted to see where this was leading. About 20 yards beyond the search area she made a choice to turn around and this time she was on to the elevated hide on the lending library. She got about 5 feet from the hide and hit the skids, turned down the slope and started working the ground hide. Muriel's herding instincts were telling her to round up the flock, which resulted in about thirty seconds of her bouncing between the two scent trails like a ping pong ball. Luckily, her more recently acquired scent detection skills took over and she knew that to find both sources, she best find one first. Up the slope she turned to tackle that elevated hide. The wind was blowing the hide straight across the lending library, Muriel went up and alerted to the first gust of scent she caught - still about a foot away from the very accessible hide. I gave her a shrug and one second to think about her decision and she right away went back to work, sniffed up to and nose-kissed that odor tin.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAnVWylLt79b-YNGS3na_6U8k7qTj1JNkOy9QkmSeeOd0051mXkSDGEZls-ALeVrfdqheeKbPoERfC40onOSEY90lCEWzPRCyAgKeGP-CixVwbCP8oG1BN22Pt6_tM_hlsEQqLeCl-k1x2/s1600/525blogareathreehide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAnVWylLt79b-YNGS3na_6U8k7qTj1JNkOy9QkmSeeOd0051mXkSDGEZls-ALeVrfdqheeKbPoERfC40onOSEY90lCEWzPRCyAgKeGP-CixVwbCP8oG1BN22Pt6_tM_hlsEQqLeCl-k1x2/s1600/525blogareathreehide.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The distance from the lending library hide to the block<br />
wall hide is about 50 yards. Notice how all three<br />
hides are more or less in line. The wind was<br />
blowing towards the houses in the<br />
background, beyond the parking lot</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcPoHFaHbV2nOSPcHEaCQ-XSOyr60eXBcM2shCw0W_e0yw2z35A8RZXxWRF1iDyuZlvbKPvvKTjAjgEk8zR4T4GPqoZjypwcCnj61qwmI05K7mAUrsyvRRHl6jrVSCu8PVP7u5qNd4VBeK/s1600/IMG_0806.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcPoHFaHbV2nOSPcHEaCQ-XSOyr60eXBcM2shCw0W_e0yw2z35A8RZXxWRF1iDyuZlvbKPvvKTjAjgEk8zR4T4GPqoZjypwcCnj61qwmI05K7mAUrsyvRRHl6jrVSCu8PVP7u5qNd4VBeK/s1600/IMG_0806.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nothing like a good hide & a good John Grisham novel</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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After resolving one of the remaining two hide locations, the ground hide turned out to be pretty easy. Muriel raced down the slope on a scent avalanche from that elevated hide, then picked up the trail of the ground hide and went right to source. All smiles as she scarfed her reward over the odor, Muriel zipped off looking for the next hide (eternal optimist). Taking her back to the car was like telling your toddler that play time at the park is over - she looked a bit like a prisoner in her crate... so I tossed one more odor behind a tree just ten feet from the car, let her out for the quick find, then back into her crate a little happier (I wish it was this easy to get a toddler to leave the park).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYPEvtj3xc1fizD2g_MxFX-1C7QXFO2TrB8CqI12VPfCHuOmBhAK63_iTjfmQ7cZByFYtm945XT-NvSO9Ebh7PbPCDKMSFmhzTyp0DvtJP7w744Dzt2TOXGtKjORKKKX5MuqczIWiByZHM/s1600/IMG_0805.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYPEvtj3xc1fizD2g_MxFX-1C7QXFO2TrB8CqI12VPfCHuOmBhAK63_iTjfmQ7cZByFYtm945XT-NvSO9Ebh7PbPCDKMSFmhzTyp0DvtJP7w744Dzt2TOXGtKjORKKKX5MuqczIWiByZHM/s1600/IMG_0805.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The tin is in the bottom right corner of the image (trust me).<br />
The retaining block walls are in the background</td></tr>
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Given the way the search played out with the three odors in a line, two elevated, I would continue moving that line like I was creating a starburst pattern. See what happens when the wind isn't blowing two of the hides into the third, when only one or none of the hides are elevated.<br />
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Then, I might take away one of the hides and place two on opposite ends of the retaining wall. Or two along the edge of the walking path. Then, I'd try two on diagonal opposites of the search area.<br />
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Next, I'd go down to one hide and place it where the original ground hide was, see what kind of problem - or easy success - that creates. Same with the elevated lending library hide, see if that hide is easier by itself (no doubt it will be a little easier with the prior success, so factor that into your observations).<br />
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Sticking with the single hide, I'd move to different parts of the search area to start. See if starting at the top of the slope, or in the valley, makes the search different.<br />
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If my dog was on a searcher's high right then, I might use the block wall to run a fun exercise. I'd place four odors spaced out evenly on the wall and keep a short leash, giving her enough line to pass an odor, but not enough to pass it and get to the next one. For this exercise, each odor should be found before moving on. I'd do this down and back and rest on that.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-s3U_QqdoG3DaDjT4PdAzZdiN1ieBqQads1iH4gLvH-pQ5VtXsVUQVQbvIMI9hgJfqrH2o7QY45GPF4yHbHyNKTA741Dw55POCZc5K6RUpikinj9M1lmhnzlii4YBo1eWwa8EQIk8DCYG/s1600/525blogareamultiplehides.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-s3U_QqdoG3DaDjT4PdAzZdiN1ieBqQads1iH4gLvH-pQ5VtXsVUQVQbvIMI9hgJfqrH2o7QY45GPF4yHbHyNKTA741Dw55POCZc5K6RUpikinj9M1lmhnzlii4YBo1eWwa8EQIk8DCYG/s1600/525blogareamultiplehides.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Different colored dots and squiggly lines marking hide placements to<br />
begin to illustrate the endless possibilities a single search area can offer</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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If Muriel and I had done all that in one day, she'd get carried back to the crate, blissfully exhausted from a search marathon! The better thing to do is to spread these different searches over many trips back to that same search area - this way you get the added bonus of different weather conditions to add variety to this single search area. </div>
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See how easy it is to get out and have some fun searching in just one location! Your dog is game for whatever you can come up, wherever you can come up with it.</div>
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Let's get sniffing!</div>
Jeff McMahonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634038342280050377noreply@blogger.com2