Learning From K9 Nose Work NACSW National Invitational Videos: Kristie & Jasper Part 2

Lots 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!


Day Two of NACSW National Invitational


Equipment Exterior - 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!

Jeff McMahon: 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.

Kristie Cervantez: This was our first search of the day Sunday and I think we went 2^nd, 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.

JM: 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.

KC: He is very different when he is not on odor.  My thought at the time was cat poop or something so we moved along. I guess I figured we will just walk around the perimeter and see where his nose stops.

JM: worked the tire stack hide similar to Muriel - on a mission, passed the hide and u-turned fast, sourced with confidence. very nice.

KC: Little Man was playing his “A” game.

JM: Tube hide presented no challenge for J-man!

KC: Again...just following Jasper while he does the work.

JM: Nice job getting him back to the perimeter/threshold for that hide on the red steps.

KC: 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.

JM: good idea to go down the row of vehicles after that threshold hide.

KC: 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.

JM: 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.

KC: 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???

JM: 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!

KC: 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? 

JM: 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.

KC: 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.

* 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!

To highlight a little bit of what I talked about:

- 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).

- 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!

- 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.

Warehouse - 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.

JM: Your pace is nice and his responses to odor are strong.

KC: 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.

JM: Squeaked that threshold broom hide in at the last second! Nice job!

KC: 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.

Part three to follow in the next week or so. Thanks again to Kristie for sharing her videos!

Happy Sniffing!

Focusing on Distractions in a K9 Nose Work® Search

Our 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?



Always Deliver a Clear & Clean Reward - 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.

Confront Distractions Head On - 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.

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.

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.

Be an Observer - 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?

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.

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.

Keep the Target Odor Valuable - 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.



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.

Happy Sniffing!

Learning From K9 Nose Work NACSW National Invitational Videos: Kristie & Jasper Part 1

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!

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.



The Moat - This is a fun search to watch. I asked Kristie what she was thinking as they passed the one hide Jasper didn't find...

Jeff McMahon: 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?

Kristie Cervantez: 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.

The Lily Pad 1 - 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.

JM: The high hide you block with your body, what was your thinking at the time Jasper was working over there?

KC: 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.

JM: You respond well to his behavior changes, are you looking for something in particular that tells you he's definitely on to a hide?

KC: 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.

The Lily Pad 2 - Really nice search. Just watch & enjoy.

Large Warehouse Interior - 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.

JM: 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!

KC: 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.

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.

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. 

Small Warehouse Vehicles - 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.

JM: 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?

KC: 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.

JM: 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?

KC: 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.

JM: 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?

KC: Again, lost track of where we had been and what he had already found.  It was fun though!

Vehicles Open Bay - 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.

JM: Nice work on the drum hide under the flatbed.

KC: 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.

JM: 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. 

KC: 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.  :)

More videos to come soon!


Happy Sniffing!

Getting 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)!

*Remember to always seek out the knowledge and expertise of a Certified or Associate Nose Work Instructor (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.    



My dog loses interest or gives up in new/challenging environments: 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.

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.

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.

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.



My dog suddenly started false and/or fringe alerting: 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.

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.  

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.

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.

When I say "show me" my dog sometimes doesn't go back to source: 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.

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.

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.

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.

My dog urinated in a search. He's never done this before!: 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.

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.

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.

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.  



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.

Happy Sniffing! 

Learning From K9 Nose Work® NACSW™ National Invitational Video Part 3

This 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.

In the meantime, happy viewing!

 

Garage Bottles - 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.

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.

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.

Interior Tables & Chairs - 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.

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.

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!



Happy Sniffing!  

Learning From K9 Nose Work® NACSW™ National Invitational Video Part 2

Here 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.

On to the first two searches of day two!

Equipment Exterior - 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 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.

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.

Warehouse - 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.

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.

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.


Happy Sniffing!