A Dog, A Handler, and Eight K9 Nose Work® NW3 Trials

My first NW3 trial was in November of 2009. My most recent NW3 trial was February 15th, 2013. In between there I attended six other NW3 trials. That's eight trials total at the NW3 level. Thanks to Muriel, we have earned two NW3 titles from those eight attempts. What will happen at our next trial is any one's guess, but I can say for sure that there is something wonderful about competing at the NW3 level: every trial attempt - title earned or not - leaves you excited to try again. And again. And again!

Whoa, Jeff! Put on the brakes and back this post up. Every trial attempt leaves you excited to try again? That's a crazy statement! Not to mention, it shows a major case of repression! The first two NW3 trials I competed in, we were probably closer to sniffing out Jimmy Hoffa's remains than to earning a title. No titles were given to any competitor in those first two trials. Excited to try again?! I was on the phone with my orthodontist scheduling a root canal just to have something less painful to look forward to!

So, what about those first two trials was wonderful and kept us coming back? At the time, I didn't think there was anything wonderful about those trials. Now, I can say that the wonderful thing about those trials was surviving them! We put ourselves into some pretty challenging situations and came out of it very humbled and ready to learn more, practice more, and improve our skills - way more. By the time we got to the third NW3 trial in May of 2011, we were having tons of fun. I knew we were capable of doing the searches at trial because of what we were accomplishing in classes every week. I also knew that all we could do during a trial was show up and give it our best. If we missed a hide or botched a search, it didn't mean we were failures or we weren't capable of doing those searches, it just meant we needed more conditioning or more luck - or both!

Rather than share the details of one whole trial, I'll try to bring together learning experiences from a number of NW3 trials Muriel and I competed in; and hopefully you'll see why I really enjoy the trial experience.

San Pedro, CA Nov 2009 - what I took away from this trial was how unprepared we were to find an unknown number of hides. I was very nervous about the searches, so much so that I asked a lot of questions during the walk through and ended up focusing on the answers to the questions instead of focusing on my dog in the searches.

We were only successful in one search - the container search. I remember feeling very unhappy about the whole performance, but we were only two months off of our NW2 title and we just didn't have enough practice with NW3 search scenarios.

An interesting note - and this will resurface - the exterior search was between two classroom buildings and included grass, shrubbery, asphalt, and a handicapped access ramp with guardrail leading up to a building entrance. It was windy. Muriel got trapped up on the ramp because of blowing odor and we ended up wasting a lot of time chasing odor on the wind.

Lesson Learned: get used to multiple hides and don't rush into your first NW3 trial  

San Pedro, CA Aug 2010 - with a lot more time to practice we definitely felt more prepared, but we still got our butts handed to us! This time we had a fifty percent success rate for the day: container search and interior search.

At this trial I used chicken breast as my reward, a huge leap up the value ladder, and I think little miss Muriel was overeager to get her reward. On the vehicle search she alerted several feet from the hide. On the exterior, she alerted all over the place, but it wasn't just because she wanted that yummy cooked bird...

The exterior was brutal. A large grassy area with a depression in the middle leading to a rainwater runoff drain; beyond the grassy area, a playground with sand and equipment ending at the broad side of a building. There was a single hide at the bottom of the depression right in the middle of the grassy area. Again, the wind was up, and we were chasing odor all over the place. Muriel's nose was high in the sky for almost the entire search. Only one dog & handler team was successful in this search.

Lesson Learned: compete like you practice. Introduce new rewards, try new strategies in practice and get your team comfortable with the change before heading to trial. 

Sierra Madre, CA May 2011 - our training really took off between the second and third trials. I was more confident in my ability to read Muriel, and I tried my best to make the trial experience feel no different than class - same rewards, crating in the car, happy and running to and from the searches. More importantly, Muriel had the experience to work through many of the challenges that got us in the earlier trials: trapping odor, channeling odor, high/low converging odor.

This time, we were successful in every search but the exterior, where we missed just one hide. And guess what got us? The wind. Pooling odor blown into a corner of the massive search area kept us chasing ghosts for the better part of a minute in a five minute search. Worse, we left the area because she couldn't source odor, and we headed off toward the far end of the search area, found a second hide and then got that thirty second warning. In a rush to go work that pooling odor one last time, we pass the third hide. Cue the sad horn (wah wah).

An interesting note regarding the interior search: the first area included two rooms, one large lobby with a fireplace, and one very large hall with a cathedral ceiling. This area was blank. The dogs knew it right off. Muriel only needed to peek her head in the huge room and that was enough for her to tell it was blank. Us humans were less certain than the dogs. Muriel nearly alerted in several places in the clear room because I kept pushing her to search. Another dog, Anton, who is very similar to Muriel in his search style, gave a convincing alert in the clear room. It was clear that some of us with very driven and and odor sensitive dogs needed to condition them to search longer in blank rooms - because, hey, that takes the pressure off us handlers having to call clear quickly!

Lesson Learned: Don't just trust your dog, know your dog. 

Los Alamitos, CA July 2011 - I'm proud to say that in this trial, the wind reared its ugly head in the exterior and we responded by charging right into it and making all the right moves. Admittedly, this area didn't really have a pooling odor problem, but it did have a grassy knoll separating the parking lot from the street, creating some interesting air movement and derailing the search for more than a few of the dogs.

We had a rare first place showing in the vehicle search. I can't remember for sure, but it was probably a three hide vehicle search - those seem to be our speedier searches. We fared just fine in the other searches, until the interior...

This location was an office building in a business park. The interior used a section of office cubicles, a kitchen area and a room with desks. We missed one hide in the cubicle area, and it was definitely a joint failure. Muriel didn't commit to the hide, and I didn't ask her to more carefully search whole sections of the area. The second room was the kitchen area - it was blank. Muriel went in and searched everything with the same frantic sniffing, checking high and low. This is usually a sign that she's looking for something that isn't there. About forty-five seconds into the search, I'm getting up the courage to call clear and she head snaps on an exterior door, really detailing the door frame. She sniffs up and down the frame, then picks a spot, exhales hard and sits confidently. I call alert. Wrong.

After what happened in the Sierra Madre blank room, pushing Muriel too long and almost calling a false alert, I couldn't believe we fell victim to the same mistake - worse, because we actually falsed - just two months later. We're supposed to be getting wiser with each passing trial!

Lesson Learned: if your dog's covering the whole area, but making no progress/showing no signs of getting closer to source odor, then you need to step up and make a decision - most likely, the area is blank or the odor problem is such that it's not going to be solved by your team in the time allotted.

Livermore, CA Dec 2011 - this was a unique trial for me. There was a lot of driving involved. Five hours to Monterrey, where we spent the night at the Best Western Victorian Inn. Then another hour and a half of driving the next morning to get to the trial site. Luckily, Muriel didn't seem bothered by the travel and lodging. The trial was split into two locations: a vineyard for the vehicle and exterior searches, and a school campus for the interior and container searches. This was one of my favorite trials as far as the locations, but one of my least favorite trial performances because we really screwed up and - once again - missed just one hide on the day.

Our downfall this time was the vehicle search. Our first search of the day. Everyone in the trial successfully completed the vehicle search except us and one other team. Ouch. We really goofed on this one. We searched a few SUVs, and a couple of pieces of farming equipment - a flat trailer (could have been a cab attached), and something resembling a small dump truck. There were two hides and we found the first one pretty easily. The second hide was under the running board of an SUV, kind of midway between the driver's and rear passenger door. Two vehicles (another SUV and the trailer - I think) were perpendicular to the hide, with their bumpers closest to the hide, and a kind of odor bermuda triangle effect going on. Muriel would follow the scent around, bouncing off the rear corners of the SUV and trailer and circling and chasing, but it just wasn't leading anywhere. In my infinite wisdom, I decided the hide we'd already found must be blowing and pooling and that's what was causing her behavior. I call finish. I hear no, but the look on the judge's face tells me he really wanted to say no dummy! We really failed to work where the odor was, instead, we got caught where it was blowing and swirling.

We did a nice job with the rest of the trial. We handled the exterior really well. We were quick to complete the container search, and we made it through all three areas of the interior. Other than the snafu on the vehicle search, our biggest problems on the day were food faults and disturbing the odor. It cost us placements in the exterior and container searches.

The hardest search of the day was the exterior. It was a medium size grassy area, and there were three hides: two on the perimeter and one in the grass about 20 feet from a barrel and a small tree in a corner of the search area. The layout of the area and the way the wind was blowing caused that ground hide to blow toward the tree and barrel, with some odor collecting in the barrel. This search revealed the value of crossing search areas diagonally, and working in more than one direction.

Lesson Learned: make more of an effort to leave search areas undisturbed and clean. It's not that hard to avoid faults.

Los Alamitos, CA Jan 2012 - this was our first NW3 title, but I felt really disappointed with my handling. We took forever to complete each search. I pushed Muriel to search well beyond what I should have in each element. If I put on my pragmatic pants, I could say that since we titled, we did what we should have done. But, I don't own pragmatic pants, so I still wish we'd have done things differently.

The exterior was tricky for us. We had a man in a straw hat walk through the area during the search, but Muriel was too focused to be bothered. Muriel was perimeter obsessed and we nearly missed a ground hide in the middle of a grassy part of the search area. The interior, was almost an exercise in self-defeat. We searched a conference room with a large conference table and chairs, and some miscellaneous items. There was a single hide in a typewriter on the floor which she found in fifteen seconds. I made her continue searching until we almost ran out of time. She worked very hard to find something she knew was not there in the room, so hard that she jumped onto a desk chair and nosed a framed photo, a telephone receiver, she nosed a door knob, she even stretched high up a wall to nose a wall cabinet. I knew she wasn't giving me real alerts, but obviously some part of me thought there might be another hide, because I kept making her work. I wish I would have been more confident to call the search sooner.

This was a trial where twelve dogs titled*. Way more than any other NW3 trial. I think it was the result of a lot of teams like Muriel and I: skilled teams who had been coming really close in trial after trial finally hitting that tipping point.

Lesson Learned: Strike a balance between worrying that there's one hide tucked away high or deep that will require your dog to sniff every square inch of the area twice over and accepting that you and your dog have covered the area well enough.

Asuza, CA March 2012 - We put in a solid performance here, but our title hopes were scuttled by an unusual hide in the exterior. The exterior was off-leash optional and was all asphalt, with an RV, a large dumpster, and some other miscellaneous junk. Muriel was working a hide on the wheelbarrow. This hide was concealed in a channel formed by the metal lip of the barrow. The wind was moving the odor all throughout the channel, but the dogs still needed to get pretty close to the hide - there was about 12-16 inches of acceptable alert area, basically the narrow part of the barrow lip from rounded edge to rounded edge. Muriel alerted a few inches outside of that zone. The handles of the wheelbarrow impeded her enough that she stopped chasing the odor and made a decision. This was purely a training issue and an experience issue. Nothing that she did wrong. Just a tough search for us.

The rest of the trial was very fun - containers were in a tight space indoors. The vehicles were in a zigzag pattern and very close to some noisy industrial equipment. The interior was office space and a kitchen area.

On the vehicle search we were faulted for me pulling her off odor. This was a first, but I understand why the fault was given. A hide was placed deep in the wheel well of a pickup truck, behind the wheel - probably on the leaf spring. Muriel was practically disappearing in the wheel well, but she wasn't giving me anything close to her alert. I kept waiting and repositioning, and finally, I took her around to the other side of the vehicle just to rule out a blowing odor problem. When we returned to the wheel well she gave me an alert and it was correct. Our overall time on that search was the slowest vehicle search we've ever done.

I was not at all upset with how this trial went. I felt the exterior search was definitely doable with a little bit of practice, and we now had some work to do on vehicles to correct Muriel's indecisiveness.

Lesson Learned: The more things you fail at in trial, the more things you get better at.

San Luis Obispo (SLO), CA Feb 2013 - this was our most recent trial outing and our performance earned us a second NW3 title.

I loved this location! Camp San Luis Obispo, a military base. While we didn't get to search tanks, airplane hangers, or a mess hall, the search areas were unique and challenging and the overall environment was so different from any other trial I've attended.

This was a tough trial. The exterior nearly sunk us. I flashed back to Sierra Madre 2011 and the pooling odor. Muriel kept chasing odor into corners, and chasing it back out - that should have been my first clue that the corners were hide-free. I was pretty clueless for this search. Muriel pulled me to a ground hide, then she worked out a higher hide on a picnic table. Those were the only hides in the area, but I drug her back to the corners where she chased odor earlier. We went to the ten second warning before calling finish. Not our finest search, fittingly, we did not get pronounced on that search.

Muriel was a superstar on the other elements. She was so driven that day. She was so resilient to my thickheaded handling, demanding that she keeping searching areas when she'd already found every hide and covered all the ground there was to cover. I have a theory that when I'm under stress in some area of my life and not really able to shift focus completely, Muriel carries me and works on a whole other level. There have been two trials (this one and our NW2) where I was so stressed and distracted by non-nose work things leading up to trial day, I fully expected us to fail epically, but instead of crumbling along with me, Muriel brought her A-game.

I believe this trial really showed how far our training has come. We had a long break between Asuza and SLO, during which time we worked a lot on increasing drive and curbing her tendency to false alert when pushed to search too long in an area where no odor is present or all hides have already been found. Much of our work was on vehicles - a really great tool for working on drive and odor obedience, as well as decision-making skills. The Asuza wheel well hide is no longer a hide that takes Muriel a minute and a half to alert to; I believe she parlayed her quick decision-making skills to a fast alert on a deep odor in the bathroom interior search area, a hide that many dogs noticed, but did not commit to.

Aside from making the old mistake of falling for pooling odor in the exterior, I still pushed some of the searches longer than I should have. I really need to work on trusting Muriel more. She's worked hard to get to where she is, I should acknowledge her skill and not second guess her when she covers an area and shows no interest.

Lesson Learned: You can never train enough. Every training experience adds to your team's skills. Never stop training. Having trials to compete in gives all of us something to train for and a goal to work towards. Without trials, we might indeed stop training. This is another thing that makes trials wonderful!

I hope this has been a useful glimpse into one team's NW3 trialling experiences. There are lots of other teams competing at NW3 trials, it would be great to hear their experiences, too. Feel free to comment on in this post, or submit your own post to news@nacsw.net and we'll feature it on the blog!

Happy Sniffing!

*footnote*

Jan 2012, Los Alamitos:

NACSW & K9 Nose Work co-founder, Amy Herot put together some interesting statistics regarding the only NW3 trial where we had titles in the double digits. See below, just how many trials each of us had gone through before getting the NW3 title.

Ramona  - 5th NW3 Trial  (and 2nd NW3 Title)  (NW2: 09-16-2009)   (NW1: 01-25-2009)
Kim -  6th NW3 Trial (and 4th NW3 Title) (NW2: 09-06-2009)  (NW1: 06-07-2009)

Chris - 4th NW3 Trial (NW2: 03-26-2011)  (NW1: 11-08-2009)

Christy - 5th NW3 Trial (NW2: 03-26-2011)  (NW1: 06-07-2009)

Cindi - 2nd NW3 Trial (NW2:  11-08-2009) (NW1: 06-07-2009)

Julie - 5th NW3 Trial (NW2: 11-08-2009)  (NW1: 06-07-2009)

Jennie - 2nd NW3 Trial (NW2: 03-26-2011)  (NW1: 10-02-2010)

Jeff - 6th NW3 Trial (NW2: 09-06-2009)  (NW1: 06-07-2009)

Michael - 1st NW3 Trial  (07-18-2011)  (NW1: 06-07-2009)

Barbara - 7th NW3 Trial (and 2nd NW3 Title)  (NW2: 06-07-2009)  (NW1: 01-25-2009)

Penny - 7th NW3 Trial (and 2nd NW3 Title)  (NW2: 09-06-2009)  (NW1: 06-07-2009)

Alexandra - 3rd NW3 Trial  (NW2: 08-14-2010)  (NW1: 05-15-2010)

To Trial or Not to Trial? What Your Reactive Dog Thinks About Competing in K9 Nose Work®

Since the early days of K9 Nose Work and the NACSW, there has always been overwhelming support for reactive dogs being able to enjoy the activity of K9 Nose Work. Let's define reactive dogs as overreacting to certain stimuli out of fear or aggression. A handler might see his mildly reactive dog growing agitated or anxious as another dog passes by, but the handler will be able to calm his dog or redirect his attention. A severely reactive dog will become uncontrollable in certain situations, and could be a danger to himself and those around him. Any time a reactive dog's fear or aggression responses are triggered, his stress levels will rise and he'll be less able or unable to focus and have fun. K9 Nose Work workshops and classes are designed to provide safe and comfortable working space for dogs to learn the game and enjoy its many benefits - increased confidence being near the top of the list. The activity of K9 Nose Work can be done anywhere that a dog feels most comfortable and will most likely have positive learning experiences. The sport of K9 Nose Work is very much like the activity of K9 Nose Work, except that dogs and handlers are called upon to perform searches in novel environments under real-world conditions with variables that may be beyond the control of trial organizers or participants. Now that we are in the fourth year of official NACSW trials for the sport of K9 Nose Work, many reactive dogs and their handlers are competing at trials and many questions are surfacing as to how trials should be organized to accomodate reactive dogs. The most important question to ask is: is it in the best interest of your dog to compete? 

Before K9 Nose Work, my dog Muriel had fear issues. Before I adopted her she was abused and mistreated, and who knows what other terrible things happened to her. If a human that frightened her invaded her space, her initial reaction was to threaten to bite. If a strange dog approached, Muriel's fearfulness would often put them both on edge, on one occasion, leading a dog to bite her on the muzzle.

In her first few K9 Nose Work classes Muriel had a difficult time focusing entirely on the hunt, this was never more obvious than when K9 Nose Work & NACSW co-founder Ron Gaunt was visiting class. Muriel feared pretty much every male expect for me, and when she would start her search with Ron present, she'd just about get completely focused on the hunt, then she'd catch Ron in the corner of her eye and hit the deck, frozen in fear. We kept playing the game in class and at home, and it didn't take long for Muriel to gain enough confidence to focus completely on the search no matter who was present or what was going on around her.

Our first few trials were eye-openers. The environmental challenges were like nothing we'd done in class or at home - lots and lots of people and dogs, small spaces, strange surfaces. Even more challenging was the waiting. We were not used to waiting so long between searches, waiting so long on deck, and not knowing how long we'd be waiting! Muriel was out of her comfort zone, and I certainly wasn't confident enough as a handler to carry us. I recall one search where we were waiting and a male photographer approached to take some pictures and Muriel nearly jumped out of her fur (suprisingly, the pictures turned out nicely). Our performance in these trials was mixed, and I wasn't sure about our future competing in the sport of K9 Nose Work.

Things got much better for Muriel - and me - at trials. In our case, we did our best to adapt to the trial experience. Muriel's training expanded to include lots of novel environments and K9 Nose Work became an anytime, anywhere game with odor always on hand for things like random side-of-the-road searches. I resolved to approach trials with less concern about the rules, determined to let my dog do her thing and find some odor. At trials, we would chill in the car, getting out for a quick potty break and a jog, and we learned to be patient, to relax. When we searched, I tried to keep the energy as much like it is in classes and practice sessions as possible. In a trial last year, we had a man in a straw hat walk right through our exterior search and Muriel barely acknowledged him. Today, I can confidently take Muriel anywhere and know that she's excited to search.

I'm the first to acknowledge that I got lucky with Muriel's transformation from scaredy-cat to daring-dog, as I know a few other dogs with lots of K9 Nose Work experience whose reactivity issues still present added challenges at trials. These dogs are generally happy to search at a trial location, and their reactivity issues are less devastating to them than to their handlers in terms of the effect they can have on titling and placing. As long as the dog can cope with and/or recover quickly from the many variables - known and unknown - at a trial, the experience can be quite positive regardless of whether titles and awards are earned on the day.

So, what factors might put your reactive dog under too much stress and make trialing less of a positive experience?

Lots of dogs and people - depending on the trial title level and the location, there could be 40 or more dogs and twice as many people potentially invading your dog's space bubble over the course of a trial day.

Tight spaces - sure, hanging out in your little corner of a large parking lot is no big deal, but what about walking through a doorway into a small bathroom and having your dog come within a few feet of several strangers? What about getting your dog out of his crate and having a handler come walking his dog by unexpectedly?

Loud noises - will your dog shut down and stress out if loud retorts from a nearby shooting range ring out? How about industrial saws whirring in a warehouse only 20 or 30 yards from your vehicle search - will that be too much for your dog to handle?

Strange flooring and surfaces - some dogs won't walk on tile or marble, some won't cross lava rock. Will you try to force your dog to walk on these surfaces that he fears? He probably won't be focused on the search if he's worried about what he has to walk on.

The unexpected - will a run-in with a fellow competitor's dog set your dog off, and will you be able to calm him down? What if a soccer game is taking place near a search area and your dog lunges and  barks and only wants to chase the soccer ball or the players?



If you think some of the things listed above will cause your dog stress and possibly set off a fear or aggression response, but you still want to have the experience of competing at trial, here's what I suggest:

Choose practice locations that prepare your dog for trial - if you just practice at home and at class, don't expect your reactive dog to be focused on the game at a real-world trial location. Get out to the park, see if you can get permission to search a store or an office, try a school or community center. Just make sure that you're setting your dog up for success. Don't expect him to search ten feet away from the doggy obedience class being held at the park.

Work on the reactivity issues outside of K9 Nose Work - while K9 Nose Work helped my dog gain loads of confidence, it wasn't the only tool in our toolbox for dealing with fear and reactivity. I used to take Muriel to the park with a pocket full of treats and just get her used to being around so many dogs and people and getting a positive reward. Now that she's so invested in K9 Nose Work, I can use the game to help her get comfortable in new environments. If your dog needs more help than you can give on your own, get your trainer involved.



When you attend your first trial, here are a few things to think about:

Red Bandana is just a helpful reminder to others, not a magical force field - in K9 Nose Work, a reactive dog can wear a red bandana to signal to others that he needs some space. In theory, everyone would give red bandana dogs space all of the time. In reality, every trial location is different, and everyone is focused on their own tasks - competitors focused on their own dogs, volunteers focused on their jobs - so the red bandana sometimes fades into the fur. As a reactive dog handler, you should use the red bandana as a secondary identifier, and expect to have to be vocal regarding your dog's space requirements.

Find a quiet place for you and your dog - Usually, reactive dogs are able to crate separately from the rest of the dogs at trial. Take advantage of this and set up your dog's space so that he can relax and not have to put up with 25 dogs walking back and forth in front of his crate all day.

Know the layout of the location and plan for how you will move your dog from crate to search and back - even with as seasoned a competitor as my dog is now, I still prefer to go crate to search and back without any stops or doggy or human meet-ups. Your reactive dog will prefer this, too. Know the routes you will have to take throughout the day and don't plan on making any detours.

Playing the game is more important than titling - If your reactive dog goes to trial and tries very hard to focus on the searches all day, but a few things don't turn out as planned, call that a success! If the day is a total disaster, take it easy and stick - for now - to playing the game in comfortable, controlled environments where you can ensure your dog will be successful and have fun.



As you consider entering a trial with your reactive dog, think about what's more rewarding: getting to trial quickly, but having an overwhelming and disappointing experience, or waiting for the right time and sharing a positive experience with your dog? The right time could be a year or two down the road, but the wait will be worth it.

There is a dog named Thai, a female yellow lab, whose reactivity issues were very frightening at first. Her, "hello, I'm Thai" appeared more like an "I'm going to eat you", and seemed to be triggered just by the presence of other beings - dogs or people. Once she got set off, it was very difficult to calm her down. For many months, Thai's K9 Nose Work training was more about getting Thai to calm down enough in the presence of people and odor than it was about preparing for trial. After a year and a half of watching Thai lunge to the end of her leash, barking her head off, and having to be guided to odor, something magical happened, in the middle of a crazy mindless bark, Thai caught odor and the drive to find source took over her whole being. Thai's reactivity went from the first two or three minutes of a search, down to the first minute and then the first thirty seconds. After several years of training, Thai was now predictably odor obedient. Let her get a whiff of odor in the air, and she was super focused.

Thai would not have had a positive experience at trial before that pivotal moment in her training. As it happens, she and her handler, Emma, competed in California in May 2010 and managed to complete three out of the four searches. Overall, the day was a nice experience for a handler with a dog who used to flail and bark for three minutes in a search. It was also a big challenge for Thai to be in an environment with so many unknowns and so many potential triggers of her reactivity. Thai has not competed since the 2010 trial. Does this make Thai's accomplishments any less amazing? Definitely not. What Thai can do in a more controlled environment is still proof of her advancing skills in K9 Nose Work, even if she'll never be able to perform to that level at trial. Most importantly, Thai has finally reached a point of success and enjoyment when she does K9 Nose Work, if she did get entered into another trial, how would this affect Thai's enjoyment of the activity, and would the potential to title be worth exposing Thai to harmful stress?

We each have to be making decisions that are in the best interest of our dogs. After all, they come along for the ride without much say in the matter, the least we can do is make it fun for them. So, when you think about competing with your reactive dog, think about preparing him for all of the potential real-world challenges of a trial, be patient, and understand that, ultimately, you must be your dog's advocate and there may be times when what your dog needs just isn't possible on that day at that trial. Finally, be willing to set aside your desire to compete in favor of your dog's safety and well-being. As far as your dog is concerned, playing K9 Nose Work at home, the park, a friend's house, your office, is no less rewarding than playing it at a trial location. Let's keep K9 Nose Work all about the dogs and keep it fun!



Happy Sniffing!

Thinking & Acting "Blind" in K9 Nose Work®

One thing that adds to the challenge of scent detection work for any dog - and this includes professional working dogs - is the handler. Even the most odor obedient dogs spend some time and effort in a search reading and reacting to subtle - and not so subtle - cues and behavior changes coming from their handlers. While we're trying our best to read our dogs, they're reading us right back. Most of the time, we have no idea this feedback loop is happening, and so it comes as a shock to us when we attempt a familiar search - like a container search - blind for the first time, and something goes wrong. Thankfully, with a little practice and some outside observation, you can learn to search like it's blind every time, after all, the searches are always blind for your dog!

1) Act as if you don't know, even when you do - There's a common image that we've all seen and/or been part of, and that is the static handler hanging out at the source of the odor waiting for his dog to find the hide. Often, the handler gravitates toward the hide without really being conscious of his actions, but there are times when the handler plants himself there on purpose. The usual result of a handler hanging out at the source of the odor is a dog that not only makes an odor-reward connection, but often makes a handler camping out here-reward connection. When the team does a blind search, the handler expects the dog to find the hide independently, and the dog expects the usual game: handler waiting for me at the hide location. As the search goes on, the handler will often try to read his dog with extra care, stopping to really study him. The handler's strange behavior throws the dog off and gets him mixing together the strong reward cue of going to source odor and the weaker reward cue of handler standing at the odor, and that's when a false indication occurs.

The fix to this kind of problem is fairly easy: move around. Pad around, shuffle, skip, jog, go gangnam style - experiment and find out what works for you and your dog. Just be sure to keep up the movement in some way, even as your dog is sourcing the hide. Your goal is to be as neutral as possible while your dog is working odor, so that odor obedience is his top priority and he gets rewarded for independently working to source, not for cuing off of his handler. The best time for you to make some kind of change in your behavior is when he's indicated to source odor, that's when you rush in and excitedly deliver his reward (or saunter in if you have a mellow dog).

Another instance where you should try to behave as if a non-blind search is blind: when you have your dog on leash. When we know the location of a hide, we have a tendency to lead our dogs on a more direct path to the odor than they might have taken on their own (many of us do this off-leash, too). Generally, it's best to let your dog lead you until a time when it is clear that your dog is not in a productive part of the search area, and not progressing towards locating an odor source. If you have to lead your dog and direct him to search other parts of a search area, just be sure he's actually searching the whole time you're leading him around.

2) Do more blind searching, but with a coach - One of the risks of doing blind searches is that your dog may give a false indication and you will support it with an enthusiastic call of Alert! This certainly exposes a need for further training and experience, but it's not productive for the dog's learning. Save the truly blind stuff for official trials, and take advantage of a certified instructor to coach you in blind searches for practice. If you're searching vehicles and your dog is getting close to a false indication due to wind blowing odor from the opposite side of a vehicle, your instructor can coach you to move on before your dog gets too committed to that pooling odor and before you get too supportive of his interest.

Beyond real-time coaching, an instructor can give you post-search feedback on your handling. As a handler, you can't accurately assess how your actions or non actions are affecting your dog in the search, but you can usually recall specific moments with a little help from an outside observer. If you get a chance to watch seasoned handlers work with their dogs, you'll see very fluid & natural searching and handling, in fact, you're seeing the product of many hours of experience, coaching and reflection.

Keep in mind that there is not just one right way to train for better performance in blind searches; be adaptable and choose what works best for your dog. If you find that your dog benefits more from real-time handler coaching because you're able to be more supportive of your dog's odor obedience, do that. If it turns out that your dog is an independent problem solver and can work through your handling mistakes, use post-search feedback to address your weak spots.

At some stage in your training, you want to feel and see that your dog is becoming less sensitive to handling errors, and odor obedience is his main focus.

3) Practice searching off and on leash - This is a really simple way to see how you affect your dog in a search even if you're a master at finessing the leash. Set up a simple container or interior search and run the search on leash for round one, then move the hide and run the search off-leash. Accepting that there are more variables at play here than just on or off-leash (prior success, lingering odor, etc.), try to observe the path your dog decides to take off-leash and how that differs from the on leash search. You'll probably find a number of key moments where the leash intentionally and unintentionally changes your dog's path and makes the search more difficult than when your dog works off-leash. A common misjudgment made by handlers when doing these non-blind searches is to keep their dogs close to the source of the odor, presuming that is what's needed to find the hide. Off-leash searching reveals that the dogs sometimes need to work quite a distance away from the source of the odor to be able to catch the scent and commit to follow it back to where the hide is located. Hopefully, exercises like this will help handlers react supportively to their dogs' behavior changes on leash and to work search areas beyond their boundaries at times.

4) When and how to support your dog in non-blind searches - While it's true that you want to avoid false indications and minimize the risk of handler influence on your dog while searching, there is a benefit to supporting your dog in non-blind searches when you do it properly.

Using objects within the environment to change the scent picture can help your dog investigate a new area or return to an area of interest and really commit. If a hide placed in a desk drawer is proving challenging, moving a chair over to the desk can cause just enough new interest and investigation to help your dog pick up the odor and commit to finding the source.

Using your body positioning to change the scent picture for your dog can accelerate and solidify his learning. If your dog is having a hard time with a particular hide placement, like a hide on a block wall, you can place yourself perpendicular to the wall at a distance of 10 feet or so away from the hide and see how that helps your dog source the hide.

If you're doing a specific exercise, like working on thresholds or perimeter searching, you can support your dog by using more leash control and not allowing him to run free throughout the search area.

When you're working on new and challenging hide placements like high or deep hides, you might need to give lots of support to your dog, including verbal praise, as well as any combination of the prior examples of supporting your dog in the search.

Be mindful of the possibility that some of the ways you might choose to support your dog in a search can come with the risk of causing your dog to offer a false indication in a blind search. As often as possible, do challenging searches that are achievable for your dog without lots of handler support, and practice being a neutral observer and an invisible assister.



Happy Sniffing!  

A K9 Nose Work® Odor Workout

Flip through any magazine and you're bound to find a little article on health & fitness: five tips for toning thighs, getting in shape for the new year, etc. It's about time K9 Nose Work teams get their quick guide to toning up the sniffing and handling in 2013!



1. Speedy Searches to Strengthen the Sniffer - If you have a small space or a bare space, or just one vehicle, you can change things up and run some searches designed to build intensity in your dog's searching and to promote a fluid leash handling style for you, the handler. You'll need a training buddy to help with some of these searches.

In a small space - like an office or classroom - have your training buddy place one or two odors in the search environment for your dog to find. As your dog finds an odor, you'll direct your dog to keep searching and your training buddy will pick up that odor and change its placement in the search area. The searching will continue without interruption for a few minutes or until the odors have each moved three or four times. What your dog gets from this kind of search is lots of reward and lots of expectation of reward, which builds intensity. Your dog also gets to discriminate between lingering odor and source odor as the hides move around. And, you get to work on leash handling skills as he darts around the environment, chasing the odor.

In a bare space - if you have a parking lot or an empty field to work, you can use the same moving odor game as above, or you can keep the odor placement fixed in a pattern - like a line - and build intensity. With as few as four hides, spaced about eight feet apart, you can have your dog charging towards odor in no time! You'll want to make sure he doesn't stray too far from the line, and that he finds each hide before moving on to the next one in line - all this can be accomplished by keeping a taut, short leash and using yourself as an anchor to make sure your dog doesn't blow by odors one, two and three to get to odor four. Work the line of hides back and forth three or four times before taking a break. Notice how your dog will try to race down the line once he realizes the hides haven't moved - just when you think he's no longer using his nose, he'll do a head snap right as he's passing an odor. If you have a helper, get her to pick up the odors as your dog finds them and let him search down the line with no hides, then place just one hide for him as he's returning. The detailing and thoroughness of your dog's sniffing will be so intense you'll change his name to Dyson!

With one vehicle - sticking with the continuous search style of the earlier examples, a training buddy is most helpful here. Place a single hide on the vehicle and begin searching, when your dog finds the hide, reward him and continue searching, then have your training buddy step in and move the hide. Change the direction you and your dog go around the vehicle a few times, experiment with searching a hide that  only moves within a few feet of its original placement or have the hide move from one side of the vehicle to the other. Just like the line search, remove the hide at one point and let your dog search around the vehicle before replacing the hide. With this kind of search, see if you can tell when your dog is sniffing the lingering odor from a previous placement of the hide versus when he's working the source odor. Observing his behavior change can help you tell the difference between sniffing and investigating pooling or trapping odor and sniffing odor that leads to the source - the hide - in a blind search situation.


2. The Handler Hold at the Threshold - Every search has a beginning, but not every team begins searching from the start. Both dogs and handlers need to practice giving the whole search area importance, especially when it's so easy to enthusiastically charge into a search area and believe you've covered what's behind you. These searches will really condition you and your dog to pay close attention to the search area before either of you takes a step.

In a doorway - if you have a doorway to search, you can work on threshold searching. Place a hide just inside of the doorway you're going to search and have the door open. Approach the doorway with your dog on leash and stop a few feet from the threshold. Wait several seconds to see if your dog shows any behavior change that would indicate he's caught odor. If you can't tell, look for your dog to focus his attention on the doorway. Once you've seen some odor interest from your dog, release him to search the doorway, but only give him enough leash to get his head past the threshold. If he's working the odor, support him with more leash, but don't let him wander deep into the room. As soon as he finds the hide, reward him and take a quick break. Move the hide to the opposite side of the doorway (if this is the side the door is hung on, place the odor where your dog could reach it right at the edge of the door frame under the door) and repeat the search. Really try to watch your dog and time his release to his behavior change - it should be more obvious now that he has an expectation of finding a hide and being rewarded. Change up this search by placing the odor a little higher at the threshold. Tip: use museum putty to stick your hide to the wall.

In a large area - some searches begin in a large, open area, but that doesn't mean there can't be hides near the threshold. To begin this kind of search, set a hide a few feet in and five or so feet to one side of where you'll start. Experiment with how different the search is if you're walking forward as your dog begins searching versus hanging back and allowing your dog to search without you pushing him from behind like a tidal wave. By staying put at the threshold, you'll give your dog a better chance to search the whole area from the start, and you'll have a better chance to watch your dog for behavior changes that signal he's caught odor.

3. Container Circuit Training - Try setting up several container searches indoors and outdoors that you and your dog can run consecutively. Make the container searches different by using different types of containers, different numbers of containers, different patterns, and different numbers of hides. The goal here is to build some stamina and intensity, and to keep your dog on his toes. This is especially useful for dogs who get a little obsessed with the containers themselves and, if searching the same area over and over with changing hide placement, might tend to give too much attention (biting, pawing, pushing, alerting on) to odor-free containers.

4. The Odor Stretch - You can set this search up indoors or outdoors - although, it's best to run it in an area where you can let your dog off leash.  Set out three hides: two low hides on either side of a higher hide (three feet off the ground), and space them out about fifteen feet. Start at one end or the other of the line of hides and let your dog work. What is most likely to happen is that the two lower hides will draw your dog away from committing to the higher hide. This is a great exercise for observing how your dog makes choices in the presence of multiple odors, what he looks like when he catches odor from one hide, then leaves it to find another hide, and how your placement in a search area affects things.

This is the kind of search where you can let your dog take some time to work out the problem. Once he's found the low hides, try not to let him go back to either hide unless it seems like he's a little frustrated and could use a reward before being put back on the challenge of sourcing the high hide. Experiment with placing yourself in the search area; try moving way out away from the wall - high odor sometimes drifts and falls away from the source - or try standing in front of whichever low hide your dog just found and facing towards the high hide to help keep your dog from getting stuck on the hide he's already found.



Have fun keeping your dog's sniffer in top shape!

Happy Sniffing!

In K9 Nose Work®, Success is All About Location, Location, Location

I've noticed a few things in some recent training sessions that seem to be key components for success in K9 Nose Work for dogs of all skills levels. These are not necessarily new ideas, but in reexamining them, hopefully they will help dogs and their people reach new levels of success and enjoyment in the sport and activity of K9 Nose Work.

Location, as in geographic - It's no secret that a huge part of success in K9 Nose Work derives from training in novel environments. So, is there a magic number of new locations a team should search? No.   While it's ideal to search as many different locations as possible, this isn't going to work for every team, or be necessary. What's more important is to make the most of the locations you do have access to for searches.

Goals when thinking about locations are: exposure to different places, different conditions, and different distractions; and setting the expectation that searching can happen anywhere, anytime. If you can't increase the variety of new search environments to get that exposure and set the right expectation, then bringing variety to your old search areas is the next best thing.

One good park location with grass, concrete, a building (e.g. restrooms), some moderate terrain variability, and typical park distractions can provide months of valuable search sessions. The same goes for an interior, like a small office building with separate rooms, filing cabinets, desks, restrooms, a break room - your dog can get great exposure in an environment like this, and be more prepared to search similar novel environments.

You can turn familiar locations into new search experiences by changing up the routine. Maybe you always search your neighborhood park on Saturday mornings - try a Wednesday night. If you have your dog in the car on a trip to pick up dinner from your favorite take-out restaurant, set a little search in the parking lot, or do a vehicle search on your car. Even your own backyard can be made to feel like a new location if you set up a search during a special gathering or party with lots of extra tables and chairs out and lots of unfamiliar people around.

You can work the same locations in different weather conditions. The park in June is completely different than the park in January. A really windy day can make a search area feel brand new. Inside, you can make use of artificial air movement from oscillating fans and heating/air conditioning units. Turning on a bathroom fan in an interior search - even if the bathroom is not where the odor is hidden - makes a big change to a search environment. 

Location of the hide - When you're setting a practice hide for your dog, it helps to think about what you hope your dog will learn from the search. Are you setting a threshold hide so he learns to turn that nose on right from the start? Is it a hide on a vehicle on a windy day and you're hoping he learns to work through blowing and pooling odor to get to source? Or are you just wanting to set a hide somewhere for a quick search and not have to think about it? Regardless of what you prefer to do, a good CNWI/ANWI can do all the planning, executing, and on-the-fly adjusting of searches for you in a weekly class, and you can choose to replicate the searches outside of class, get creative, or just stick to a simple practice search here or there throughout the week.

What I like about putting some thought into hide placement, is that it can really have a profound effect on the dog's learning. You may place a hide and your dog will struggle to find it - let's say you're at the park and you decide to work a planter like shown in the pictures below. If you place the hide anywhere in the middle of the decorative block wall, it will be a very difficult search. The odor will travel up the wall and will not be very accessible. If you choose the outer column of blocks on either end of the wall, you'll see a very different search. This is because there is a tiny gap between the decorative block and the brick wall that the block rests against. That tiny gap allows odor to travel along the adjoining brick wall and makes sourcing the hide much easier for the dog. Doing this search first, and then trying a hide placement in the middle of the decorative block wall will have a positive effect, because your dog has the success of the prior search to motivate him in searching the whole wall more carefully and committing to less accessible scent.

The red dot represents hide location and the blue lines depict scent
that is traveling up the block and  not very accessible.
photo courtesy of google street view

Again, hide placement is represented by a red dot. Notice how the odor
moves as indicated by the blue lines. This is a much more accessible
hide location.
photo courtesy of google street view

Hide location gets even more fun when you add in multiple odors. Try placing a single odor on a chair in the middle of a room and run the search. Next, move the chair a few feet and add in two odors, spaced about 20 feet apart, to form a triangle pattern with the hides, keeping the chair as the apex and the new odors at the base. Observe how your dog is pulled between the different odor plumes and what order your dog finds the hides in - particularly, see how the two new odors affect the way he works that chair hide. With the right search set up, you can help dogs at any skill level learn how to be more efficient in sourcing multiple hides in a search area.

Another way hide location can really affect your dog's learning is choosing to do a series of perimeter hides in a search area, then placing the hide around the center of the search area for a few searches. This is a great way to get a newer dog invested in searching a novel location. It's also a fun way to play with the expectations of a seasoned dog.

By thinking about hide location, you can use a single search area repeatedly over time. You can choose hide locations that really draw your dog to parts of the search area, and hide locations that require some careful detailing and extra work to commit to and source. Try to keep track of which hide locations were easy finds for your dog and which were challenging, then use that information to plan future searches that push him in the areas he's excelling and help him in the areas he's struggling. This can be as simple as leaving a drawer slightly open with a hide in it in a search one week and closing the drawer with a hide in it for a search the next week. Since the activity and sport of K9 Nose Work are all about searching for and finding the source odor, hide location really factors into your team's success.

Location of the handler - The K9 Nose Work game for the handler is mostly one of trying to avoid doing anything to confuse your dog while he's employing his superior sniffer in the search for source odor. The best way to minimize those palm to forehead (cue SLAP sound effect) moments is to be the best observer you can be and react to your dog in a supportive way.

For beginning dogs, the best thing a handler can do is move around the search area. In searches where the hide location is known, I'm a believer in using your knowledge to help your dog search the areas he needs to search. This is as simple as walking from one side of a room to the other. It can be a little painful to watch a handler planted in the ground as her dog struggles to break free from the invisible leash that exists between them, when just walking a few steps would help the dog move where he needs to be to work the odor. When the hide location is unknown, your movement through a search area should be more of a dance with your dog - but remember, the dog leads. Only if you are seeing clear signs that your dog is not working odor and you know he missed parts of the search area should you take a more active role in directing him around the search area. By practicing moving through a search area and dancing with your dog, you will build a handling style that is optimized to react to your dog, rather than anticipate his movements.

Which brings us to something that should be watched out for and prevented from becoming a habit: anticipating your dog's movements. For beginning handlers in K9 Nose Work, anticipating what their dogs will do is part of delivering a well-timed reward. Well, there comes a time when that lightning fast reward is no longer of such importance, and in fact, the behaviors that develop from anticipating your dog's final response can cause problems for both of you.

First, anticipating what your dog will do often leaves you frozen in place. If you do a lot of freezing in place during searches where the hide location is known, it can become an unwanted cue to your dog that frozen handler means time to perform that final response for a reward. If you're not frozen in place, you're often moving in on your dog, thinking that a final response is near. This can cause lots of disruptions for your dog as he tries to search. If you're used to anticipating his movements, you may start looking ahead to places you think he's likely to search, and miss the actual searching he's doing. Even seasoned handlers can inadvertently stop watching their dogs. I've been in a situation where my dog was working an odor and attempting to work the area around the odor in a square pattern, but I was intent upon moving forward through the search area. My dog kept trying to work her pattern against me, but - kind, obedient soul that she is - she went along with my pattern. Had I reacted to what she was doing, I would have started moving backwards when I saw that's what she wanted to do and it would have allowed her to work the odor and find the hide efficiently.

There's a fun exercise to run with your dog that can really have you feeling and seeing the effects of handler location and movement in a search - it's best done with guidance from an instructor. Basically, it's a continuous search with 1 to 3 hides that get moved each time they get found. As your dog begins to deal with lingering odor from the hides being moved around, you'll see him drawn here and there, maybe leaving one odor to work another or to investigate lingering odor. Your instructor can coach you on when to move around, when to stop and keep your dog working a particular area, etc. This exercise will make you and your dog more likely to work together to commit to a particular hide before darting off to find the next one.      



Have fun keeping your search areas feeling new, setting your hides with purpose, and figuring out where you belong in the search.

Happy Sniffing! 

A K9 Nose Work® "Dog In Bloom" By Paula Nowak, CNWI™

As the activity and sport of K9 Nose Work continue to grow rapidly throughout the country, more dog and handler teams are finding opportunities to build their skills in classes and to enter competitions, experiencing new kinds of success. Achieving success - or watching others achieve it - at any level of class or competition can create an expectation of continued success, and can sometimes cause us handlers - often unintentionally - to put a lot of pressure on our dogs to perform. As handlers, we can easily forget who our dogs were before K9 Nose Work and what kind of awe inspiring transformations they've undergone since their journeys began. Most importantly, we can forget that K9 Nose Work is and should be all about the dogs. Paula Nowak's post is a wonderful reminder to treat our dogs with care and patience, playing the game at their pace and enjoying the unique journey we each share with our dogs, as well as the joys of belonging to a community of likeminded dogs and people; all the while knowing that, in time, beautiful things will happen for our dogs in K9 Nose Work.

   

A Dog In Bloom

by Paula Nowak, CNWI

A rose in bloom is very beautiful, smells good and can brighten someone’s day. It’s a flower that symbolizes love for many people. This flower is also very beautiful while it is still just a bud and as it gradually opens up it slowly progresses to full bloom, which is when it reaches its full potential. The rose’s bloom cycle (the time from pruning the plant until bloom) can be anywhere from 6 to 8 weeks.  Ask anyone who enjoys these flowers and they will tell you it’s worth the wait.

A typical Intro to K9 Nose Work group class covers a 6-week period. During this time each dog has a short amount of time to search within an hour or a little more once a week. In many cases, in this small amount of time once a week, or even within the first week’s session, you’ll see a change in the dog’s level of security and confidence for those dogs who are fearful. The same is true for those fearful dogs that have their first K9 Nose Work experience at a workshop. It’s amazing to the observer how much a dog can change in such a small period of time. For dogs that are in a 6-week course you may see a large change in behavior of various sizes each week.

The “bloom cycle” for a dog to build confidence through K9 Nose Work is very different than the bloom cycle of a rose. There is no set time frame to expect a dog to change in confidence and that is a hard realization for some owners. There is really no guarantee as to when the dog will make progress, but I can attest that it’s very much worth the wait!

Recently, a student in an Intro to Nose Work group class had a fearful dog that had a very challenging time with mild noises or new objects in the search area.  On week 6, he initially thought a folding chair lying flat on the floor was going to kill him. By the end of the night he was able to work a simple hide near the “killer” chair. His mom really felt like he’d progressed, but saw the other dogs in class progressing faster and it seemed she wished he’d been able to progress more. Fast forward to his 7^th week (week 1 of his second round of K9 Nose Work) and he was a very different dog. He was much more confident than the previous week. Everyone who’d seen him the previous week, including me, was shocked at the amount of confidence. From that week forward he continued to amaze us by searching in different environments with a new confidence.

It’s sad to think we might have missed his blooming moment, had his mom stopped at his first 6-week course thinking he wasn’t progressing fast enough. The impact K9 Nose Work has on a dog’s behavior cannot always be predicted, but the results time and again show how much it can help them build confidence and help them bloom into a more balanced dog.

Post a comment sharing your dog's "blooming moment" or other special achievement that you gave your dog time and support to realize on his own terms in K9 Nose Work.

Happy Sniffing & Happy New Year!