What a Smile Can do for You in The Sport of K9 Nose Work®

This week's post comes to you a little later and a little lighter on the word count, courtesy of my new baby girl, Mackena Grace! She was born on Thursday, September 27, 2012.

I've been tossing around the idea of asking K9 Nose Work & NACSW co-founder, Amy Herot to unearth some early trial footage of me and Muriel to post here for instructional purposes. I have a feeling that the video would speak louder than any words I could conjure up to describe the experience. Still, I'm going to try and conjure some words.

The first trial I entered with Muriel was a December 2008 practice match in Torrance, CA. We were about 3 months into our training and had very little experience on all four elements of competition in novel environments. We had not even searched in grassy areas yet. For these reasons alone, my expectations for the outcome of the trial would have been pretty low, but a bout of fringes and false alerts just days before the trial had me focused on failure as the only outcome.

Trial day came and we took it one element at a time. We finished the day somewhere in the top ten - passing all four elements - and earned the first ever Harry Award; an award recognizing high performance, exceptional teamwork, and the special bond shared by a K9 Nose Work handler and his rescue dog (click here to learn more about the Harry Award). I was so shocked and overjoyed that I cried. Right there in front of all of my fellow competitors, the judges, volunteers, the score room tabulators, and the co-founders of the sport. I cried.

Now is probably the time to explain that I am not that guy who cries in public. Even behind closed doors, I'm just not the lachrymose type. At most, I'm a crying on the inside fella. Here's the thing though, I had adopted Muriel from a little two-woman rescue in Pasadena (Mutts & Moms) with no intention of competing with her - really, I just wanted to save this poor animal from a terrible life that nearly ended in early 2007 in some dusty Bakersfield shelter. What I adopted from Mutts & Moms was not an animal, not a pet, but a piece of my spirit I never knew was missing. That we shared some asomatous connection was the only explanation for why this being whose body and soul had been beaten and abused by humans, would allow me to get close to her. Muriel trusted me unconditionally from the moment we met and her penetrating stare and robotic focus on me were eerie at first, but I now know she merely wanted an opportunity to prove to me what others failed to see: that she wasn't worthless. Once I began to provide Muriel with opportunities to show what she could do, she set out on a path that led to my moment of public weepiness and she continues to amaze me daily.

That December trial was not just significant because we succeeded unexpectedly and earned the Harry Award, but because it was the first time my very personal feelings about my relationship with Muriel were recognized by others through our performance in a sport.

The next trial we entered was on January 25, 2009 and was the first official NACSW sanctioned trial in the sport of K9 Nose Work. I was on a high from the accolades Muriel and I received in the December trial, but I was trying to remain level-headed about the competition and the challenges we would undoubtedly face. First we gave an underwhelming, but successful, performance in the box drill (we got one of those "trust your dog" comments from the judge for not calling her first alert when I was only trying to be certain she wasn't up to her recently acquired fringing/false alert behavior). After that we waited to do the exterior and vehicle searches.

We failed the exterior search. It was a complete and total failure, beginning with Muriel nearly peeing on some ivy and ending with me calling a false alert that may have been caused by odor blowing and pooling, but was nowhere near the source. I was disappointed in our performance and not looking forward to continuing with the other two elements.

The rest of the trial was a far worse display of K9 Nose Work than our failed exterior search. I remember the actual experience being unpleasant - the searches going all wrong, Muriel signaling randomly and the judges begrudgingly uttering no to my feeble calls of alert - but watching the video a week later was painful and embarrassing. The images of me and Muriel searching show a slump-shouldered, blank-faced handler, and a broken dog trying anything she can to make him happy. After watching the video, I realized the January trial was just as significant as the December trial, it was the first time my feelings about our performance had a negative effect on Muriel. It was also the last time.

For every trial since that January 2009 trial I have worked very hard to keep things fun for me and Muriel. I'm still competitive and I want us to perform well at trial, but my number one concern is that we're both having fun. This is especially important when we fail with one or more elements remaining in a trial. Even though I know we won't take home a title for that day, there's no reason we can't do some great searching. I blew it for us on a vehicle search at the December 2011 NW3 trial in Livermore. It was our first element, and it was frustrating, but I knew our failure was because we didn't take our time and move throughout the search area well enough. Instead of bemoaning our loss of a chance to earn a title, I kept a positive attitude and looked forward to the remaining three searches. We ended the day with that one vehicle hide being the only thing we missed. I considered that a great day of searching, and I was very proud of Muriel.

Even professional handlers with working dogs recognize that the dogs see their job as a game, and it's best to play the game with the least amount of stress, especially when the stakes are high. There are accounts of search and rescue dogs working the rubble from the 9/11 attacks getting to search for and find live firemen who'd purposefully hidden themselves to give the dogs a chance to be correct and be rewarded and to keep the dogs' (and handlers') stress levels lower.

While there are many things a handler can do to make sure his dog is having fun while doing K9 Nose Work, one of the easiest things is to remember to smile. All dogs are sensitive to human emotional responses - some dogs to a greater degree than others (there is a great Nova documentary called Dogs Decoded that explores this topic). Don't just smile when things are going well, but try to keep a truly positive attitude when your team experiences failure. Some people like to use the mantra: trial is just another training day; I say do whatever works to keep a positive attitude. As long as your dog is able to enjoy searching and playing the game of K9 Nose Work, you can feel good about the day no matter the outcome of the trial. And, more often than not, your positive attitude will contribute to a better performance that you really will feel good about.

I remember what I said to my classmates the day I watched the January trial footage, I said that I never wanted to cause Muriel to fall to pieces again because I'd become so wrapped up in the outcome of a competition. I watch Muriel have the time of her life doing amazing things in practice sessions on both blind and non-blind searches and I know that there is no difference to her if the search is set up for practice or for competition. There should be no difference to me either. Every time we do K9 Nose Work I should be smiling at how much fun my dog is having doing what she loves and that should be the greatest reward.

Happy Sniffing!

Can You Read My Dog?

I set up a search for Muriel in my backyard on a recent hot and dewy morning; and with the help of my two year old son and a Canon T3i that's nearly idiot-proof, I captured an astonishing number of out-of-focus pics of my determined little cattle dog mix hard at work.

Take the K9 Nose Work® search quiz and see how well you can read my dog!


SEARCH AREA

I've set up a two hide search in an area roughly eighty feet long by twenty feet wide, with the start line/threshold bisecting the search area lengthwise. The search will be off-leash and I won't really be an active handler (other than to provide rewards for finding the hides) since I'll be behind the camera the whole time.

The start line is the threshold in the doorway opening out to
the rectangular shaped search area 

View from inside the search area and just to the right of the doorway/
start line

Looking across the search area (the wall is opposite the doorway/
start line)

1. As a K9 Nose Work handler looking at this search area, it would be important for me to know:

a) Which direction the wind is blowing
b) How tall the grass is
c) how many cracks are in the concrete patio



START LINE/THRESHOLD

2. Based upon the photo montage above, Muriel is:

a) Showing no interest in the search area
b) Catching scent and choosing to go to the right as she enters the search area
c) Waiting for me to tell her what to do



WORKING A SCENT TRAIL

3. Assuming these photos are ordered (top left, bottom left, top right, bottom right), it appears that Muriel is:

a) Trying to source a hide in the large crack in the concrete

b) Closing in on a hide on the tricycle

c) ruling out the patio area

WORKING MORE SCENT

4. This sequence of photos (top left to right, bottom left to right) shows Muriel is:

a) sourcing a hide suspended in mid-air

b) working drifting odor

c) dancing to the grass to relieve herself

HITTING THE WALL

5. Based upon the photos, Muriel appears to be:

a) trying to escape

b) telling us the hide is low

c) chasing scent back and forth along the wall; bracketing

DECISIONS DECISIONS 

6. In these photos, Muriel is:

a) checking the wall for cracks and the tires for air

b) Being obedient to me

c) sourcing the hides and sitting to alert me to them

All quizzing aside, some interesting things happened during this search. Here are photos of the hide placements up close, and answers to the quiz along with some additional details about the search:

Tin hidden under the front fender

Clear tube with cotton swabs wedged in between bricks on the wall about
four feet up from the ground

The quiz answers are as follows: 1.a, 2.b, 3.b, 4.b, 5.c, 6.c 

At the start line, there was a slight, but noticeable breeze blowing into our faces, so we were downwind of the odors - a good place to be. Muriel sniffed both sides of the threshold, but chose to follow her nose to the right and out the door.

Once she entered the search area she locked down the tricycle hide, circling once between the center support post for the overhang and the tricycle itself, before detailing the tricycle, finding the hide, and alerting.

Muriel left the tricycle in search of the second odor, which she picked up very near the house and air scented all the way to the grass. Interestingly, because I was taking pictures from the patio, Muriel remained trapped under the overhang working drifting scent for thirty to forty-five seconds. She climbed both sides of the table on the patio and she fixated on the center support post for the overhang - nearly going to an alert at one point (although there were none of the signs leading up to the alert that would have made me believe it in a blind scenario). It was only once I changed position in the search area, moving to the grass, that Muriel broke free of the "scent trap" and started working the wall. Nice lesson learned regarding handler positioning and the "invisible leash" our dogs can sometimes be tethered to even when we think they're free to follow their noses.

Once Muriel hit the wall opposite the start line, she began bracketing the odor, working to the left and right and climbing the wall - clear signs she's locking down a high odor. It took her a while to source the hide, maybe because scent was staying high, travelling along the grooves in the bricks and she thought it was out of reach for her and telling me it's up was good enough. Once she checked high within a few feet to the right of the odor she was able to work the scent back to source and alert.

Overall, a challenging search for Muriel - especially with me present, but not doing my part as handler. A number of the things talked about in past posts played out in this search, and hopefully the pics helped make concepts like drifting odor, waiting at the threshold, and a dog's behavior changes in odor seem a little more concrete.

Happy Sniffing!

p.s. - Here's a pic of my junior handler in training. Doing his best to hold onto Muriel until she picks up the scent coming from the tricycle hide!

Alert! (The Final Response)

In K9 Nose Work®, we consider a dog's final response to be his alert, or indication that he's found source odor. In a competition, when you see your dog give a final response you should yell out "Alert!" This allows the judge to evaluate how well you can read your dog. A clear final response can make it easier to read your dog when he's found source odor, but how do you get from the sometimes subtle behavior changes - tail stiffening, forceful exhale, lip curl - to the solid performance of a sit or down? And is it what you really want? Ask most K9 Nose Work enthusiasts if they would like their dogs to have a clear sit or down response and you will get an overwhelming yes.

*If you're interested in a final response for your dog, discuss it with your CNWI/ANWI to figure out what's best for your dog and how to achieve a final response without adversely affecting your dog's overall K9 Nose Work performance.

Are You "Looking at Me"?

In the transition from self-rewarding to handler delivered reward, most dogs develop a habit of anticipating where the reward will come from (handler) and checking in to see when it's coming. We refer to this as the "looks at me" response.

There are top dogs in the sport of K9 Nose Work who can communicate clearly and consistently just by looking at their handlers once they've found the source.

One benefit of the "looks at me" response is that it develops very naturally and without prompting, so there's less confusion on the part of the dog as to what gets him paid.

How do I Know If My Dog is Ready to Be a Better Communicator

The important thing here is not to rush things. If your dog finds source odor, looks at you, and moves on to sniff the next thing, you need to focus on raising the importance of the odor for your dog. Nothing trumps odor obedience, not even the prospect of your dog striking an odor pose at source.

If you've got an eager searcher, the type who won't leave the odor box even when you're a little slow to deliver the reward, you've got a good candidate for developing a clear final response. 

Sit, Down, or Both?

Just like the "looks at me" should come very naturally, your dog may also display a preference for sit or down - or be agreeable to both. To figure out which final response might be better for your dog, use a box drill with chairs. Have the odor box elevated on a chair and let your dog find it, then move in with the reward in a closed fist and hold it right on the box. Offer your dog enough food (a lick and a nibble from between your fingers) to get rewarded for finding the odor box, but keep the rest for rewarding his potential sit or down. Your dog will probably slide into a sit position to get the food reward from your hand - that is the moment you open it and give him his reward. To see if your dog prefers to down, just have the odor box placed on the ground and use the same closed fist on the box presentation, releasing the reward when he downs (or sits, if that's his preference). Got a tall or small dog? Just think of ways to set the hides as close to the nose height of the dog as possible. Stacking boxes to achieve desired height is one plan, so is using a table top. 

Once you've identified which final response your dog has shown preference for (or which you prefer) you can reinforce it by repeating the drill for a sit or down described above. Keep the search very simplified and do not worry about moving the odor box around. A few repetitions and a short break is more effective than a marathon session. 

Your dog will begin to respond quickly with the sit/down to get at the food in your fist. Now, when he finds the odor box, wait just a few seconds before moving your hand to the box. He should go into the final response all on his own; and, if he does you need to reward him right away. If your dog shows signs of confusion over what you want, don't delay any longer, bring that closed fist in again and wait for his final response. Do not over-train the final response. Make sure you are still doing lots and lots of regular searches and do not expect your dog to exhibit the same kind of final response behavior in these searches that you've been getting in your drills.

As you work on a final response, you may find that your dog sits most of the time, but downs for certain hides. This is not uncommon. It's generally related to hide placement, and can be addressed in your regular searches. If your dog is sitting most of the time, but downs on ground hides, just set out more nose-level hides than ground hides. The repetition and reinforcement on the nose-level hides should help get a sit on every hide. Despite your efforts, there will always be situations where your dog won't offer the usual final response, so don't obsess over the dual final response. 

So, You've Got a Sit Response... to Everything

My dog, Muriel, had a strong natural preference toward sitting as a final response; and, boy did she make it look good. The eager little cattle dog mix would sniff furiously until she found the odor box, then she'd snap her haunches to the ground and eye me for her reward. 

About a week before the first K9 Nose Work practice match in December 2008, Muriel began alerting to everything in the environment. Chairs, cabinets, flooring, stacks of books, etc. This would be fine if odor had been present in all of these items. It was not.

Turned out Muriel began to test a theory that she could get paid solely for striking her sit pose. I panicked and contacted K9NW & NACSW co-founder, Amy Herot, and begged for some miracle advice. Amy gave me a short list of instructions that boiled down to me showing no interest in what Muriel was sniffing and alerting to unless it was source odor. I even changed the pace at which I walked, and kept my body language to a minimum, all in hopes of eliminating every alert but the right one. After just a few days of practice, Muriel was back to being a solid searcher; she even won the first ever Harry Award in the 2008 competition.

Be careful with your own dog and a trained final response. It's easy for some dogs to make the connection between sit & treat and decide that odor is no longer the only thing that could get them a reward. If your dog starts alerting just for the "reward of it", take a deep breath and simplify your searches. Set your dog up a few feet from a hide and give him very little chance to fake you out with a false alert. Work your way back to larger and more complex search areas, but make sure your dog is clear that only odor gets him a reward before going on to challenging or blind search scenarios.    

Do You Really Need The Sit or Down?

The answer is "no." All you need is the ability to read your dog in odor. Even in competition, you need only be able to describe what your dog does when he finds the hide (wiggles three toes, whistles, says "it's right here, dummy!"). In fact, many situations will arise in training and in competition that will cause your dog to offer behaviors other than his usual final response, like odor placed in an area where he can't sit or down, a difficult hide placement or an unusually weak or strong concentration of the source odor (single cotton swab versus a jar of cotton swabs).

A sit or down alert does come in handy when doing blind searches in competition. When you're searching a new environment under the pressure of the clock and you need to be able to trust your dog, a strong and clear alert makes you as a handler feel more confident calling "Alert!"; but it doesn't mean your dog will be any more likely to find the hide than a dog with an ear twitch for an alert.

As much as I'm happy to have a dog with a sit alert, I've gone through a lot over the years to correct her false alerting issues, and to get her to make faster decisions. Just in the past week I've had to deal with her getting sloppy about sitting - now she's nose-touching the hide several times and doing more of a hunchback alert. It's a fixable problem, but it's a problem I wouldn't have if I was rewarding a "looks at me". 

Now, I know a number of people with sit-alert dogs who have been solid since the day they learned their final response, so my experience in no way defines the norm. And, despite the periodic troubles we've had with the sit, I'm committed to this final response and overall glad that Muriel chose it and that we've worked to make it work.

When you're ready to think about an alert behavior for your dog, just remember that the flashy sit or down final response is not what K9 Nose Work is all about. Odor obedience is most important for your dog. Observing your dog is most important for you. A good team that excels at those two things can go far in K9 Nose Work, be it with a sit alert or a nose-hair twitch alert!

Happy Sniffing!

Setting Better Hides: Part II

If you haven't read the first post on setting better hides or you want a refresher, click here.

If your dog has a solid foundation in K9 Nose Work® (shows odor obedience in a variety of search environments), then you should feel confident to get creative with your searches and hide placements. It's good for you to learn how to challenge your dog. It's good for your dog to be challenged. And, it's how you both have more fun doing K9 Nose Work.

First, a few things to think about when setting hides:

Odor Containers - tins are by far the most popular containers for cotton swabs scented with a target odor, but they are not - and should not - be the only container for your scented cotton swabs. You should try to use a wide variety of containers. If you can fit a cotton swab into it, it can become an odor container. Just make sure that whatever you choose as a container does not have other odors in it that could conflict with your dog's K9 Nose Work training. Buy your containers new or boil metal containers to remove unwanted odors. A variety of containers (sample vials, flexible rubber tubing, lip balm tubes, etc.) can be found on the website for official K9 Nose Work supplies, allgooddogs.biz. You can also look in places like the Container Store or Home Depot for small plastic containers, soft plastic tubing, and more.

Cotton swabs can be hidden in larger containers - paint cans, plastic storage bins, cardboard boxes - using clear tape. Just be sure to have clear tape on odor-free items in the search so as not to create an unwanted association with tape and the reward. Also, remember that any container used for odor should be designated for odor only for all future searches.

There are occasions to use a single cotton swab without a container, but keep in mind that anything the cotton swab comes in contact with can become contaminated with residual odor. This means that after the cotton swab is removed from the area, what remains can be a strong concentration of odor - sometimes as strong to your dog as the cotton swab itself. Do not set exposed cotton swabs in public places where other K9 Nose Work teams might search and unknowingly encounter residual odor.

Search Difficulty - If you set a hide or hides and your dog works for more than one minute without finding source odor, you need to evaluate the situation and make changes as necessary. Ask yourself if your dog is showing any signs of searching - breathing changes, head turns, following a scent trail, etc. - or if he is losing interest and/or becoming distressed. If your dog is searching and happy to continue working, just make sure you do your part as handler to get him working the entire area so he can have success. If your dog is giving up on the search, the hide placement may be too challenging (or unanticipated factors - wind, temperature, new environment - could be making an easy hide much more difficult). Resist the urge to lead your dog to the hide, you will not be teaching him anything this way. Instead, find an opportunity to slip over to the hide location and move it to a more accessible place. Use your leash to narrow your dog's search area so he can find the source odor and get rewarded. Next time you place hides, keep it simple to start and to finish, with a slightly more challenging search in between.

Okay. Here we go. 

Hiding Multiple Odors

You can have fun with multiple odors at any level. As much as your dog loves getting rewarded once for finding one odor, he really loves getting rewarded two, three, or more times in a search. 

Building Drive - Experiment with setting lots of hides and reducing the number or starting with just one hide and increasing the number. Set them up all around a vehicle to elevate the vehicle's importance in the game and to condition dogs to stay on task.

Drive building exercises are not like regular searches. It may take a little time for your dog to get the maximum benefit from this type of multiple odor setup. Start simple. Set out a few hides along a wall, spaced about four to six feet apart and keep your dog on leash so he does not pass a hide until he has found it. When your dog has found all three hides, turn around and let him find the same three, again. If he responds well to this kind of exercise, increase the number of hides.  

Limit how often you use drive building exercises, and always do a more traditional search with your dog afterward. Try using luggage or other large containers to do a multiple hide drive building exercise (set containers in a circle), then change up the hides - or reduce to just one hide - and let your dog search more freely. The hope is that you're helping your dog to make clear and confident decisions in odor, and to investigate every possible odor source before moving on to what might be a stronger scent trail.

Converging Odors - When scent trails from two or more different hide locations intersect in ways that create difficulties in sourcing one or all of the hides, we call it converging odor.

Some dogs use converging odor advantageously, working one hide to it's source, then quickly sourcing the second hide. Other dogs will show little to no interest in one of the hides in a converging odor situation, but will confidently alert on the other hide. This often causes the handler to decide all hides in that area have been found. Some dogs get caught between the hides, picking up one scent trail and dropping it for another. These dogs may dart around the search area, coming close to each hide, but not alerting until all of the hides in the area have been catalogued. This is somewhat prevalent in herding breeds - round up the flock, then tend to the individuals.

Setting hides to create a converging odor situation is not always easy, so try to gain some experience in your weekly class by working converging odor searches set up by your CNWI/ANWI.

My favorite type of converging odor scenario involves hides of varying height. In most situations, a high hide will draw a dog's attention from further away, but if he catches the scent trail of a lower hide on his way over it will draw him off the high hide. If you're new to setting converging odor hides, try setting your lower hide in an area where the odor will pool and be stronger, like a corner. Set the higher hide on the wall between your start line and the other odor, or set it in the middle of the room if there is something like a desk or table to place it on, and maintain a distance of ten to twenty feet between the hides. You'll know you've created a converging odor problem if your dog catches one odor and leaves it for the other, or if he bounces between the two odors.

These are good searches to practice non-blind and to alternate on and off leash. Don't obsess about setting converging odor hides (after all, we can only guess at what the odor will do when we set hides), instead, watch your dog carefully in every multiple odor search and try to identify when he's working a converging odor problem and how you might use your observations to help the two of you in future searches.


High Hides

It's not the size of the dog in the search, it's the size of the communication in the dog. I have yet to see a high hide placement that could not be accurately identified by a dog too small to actually reach the source odor. Are there blind search situations where big dogs may have an easier time following the scent trail of a high hide? Yes. Are there searches where small dogs will nail a ground hide that big dogs struggle to pick up on and source? You bet.

All dogs can become capable high hide searchers with practice. You must take care not to place your hides too high, too soon. Start with high hides that can be accessed from the ground or in other ways. A hide on the top of a picnic table accomplishes this goal. Your dog can catch the hide from the ground and stretch to his full length to alert or he can climb the bench seat to the top of the table and alert right on the source.

Place hides in recessed areas, like a window sill, to help your dog solve the problem of a high or out of reach odor. Doing this will create scent trails that escape either side of the window and travel across the wall. Your dog will learn to work to the left and right of the source, or to bracket the odor, and this will help him decide more precisely where the source odor is located.

Make most of your high hides accessible for your dog. Out of reach hides should be done less frequently and should always be accompanied or followed with an accessible hide. Remember that your dog will not always been keen to get up high to source the odor, even if it's within his reach. If your dog is reluctant to get off his front feet, keep hides low on objects or surfaces that he could climb (chairs, walls, tables, countertops). Frequent rewards on these objects should make him more comfortable reaching for a higher hide. 

Make sure to give well-timed rewards for your dog's clear communication of source odor. This does not mean waiting him out for his pretty sit alert. When introducing high hides to your dog, he may not offer his typical alert, but he will show all the signs that he's in odor, and he might even stare up at the source or jump up close to or under the source odor. Reward your dog for trying his best to tell you he's found a high hide. Help him a little in the beginning and he'll become a confident high hide searcher. Leave his source odor signals unanswered, and you'll have a dog who doesn't know what you want from him. 


Hides in Unusual Places

Think outside the box when setting hides. You want to set hides that condition your dog to expect source odor to be anywhere. Try setting a hide inside a printer, in the spine of a book, in the end of a garden hose, on or under a trash bin, in a storage cubby full of dirty gym clothes, inside a roll of toilet paper, on the wire fencing of a chicken coop, inside the coin return of a vending machine, under a piece of trash or discarded clothing, under the front of a refrigerator, in a mail slot, in a fire extinguisher spray hose, or under the keys of a keyboard. Try everything you can think of, but keep your dog's safety in mind.
   
If you can't find an unusual place for a hide, make your usual hide placement unusual. Try a ground hide in a pathway or sidewalk where you can run water from a hose to simulate runoff in a rainfall. Or search in the grass right after sprinklers have soaked the search area. Make use of closets or other closed off rooms within rooms, and see how your dog reacts when odor is behind closed doors. Find a place with shiny, slippery floors (again, safety first) and see how your dog handles searching when he also has to focus on walking without slip-sliding across the room.

You can also go to unusual locations. I once got to search a dozen motorcycles at driving school. I've never searched a farm or a body shop (be safe!), an ice arena, or a movie theater. These are all places that would present plenty of opportunity for setting fun hides.


Hides Gone Wrong

When you set your own hides things sometimes go wrong. You might have set a hide in a public bathroom on the top edge of the stall wall, and - only after running your dog - noticed that several small windows high up on the walls of the bathroom seem to be causing the odor to stay high and travel out the windows. 

Maybe you placed a hide inside of a drainage pipe on the side of a building, but the odor was trapped in the pipe so completely that your dog wasn't showing any signs of smelling a hide in the search area. 

You might have thought it was interesting to place a hide in a cedar birdhouse hanging from the roof of your front porch, but your dog struggled to find a surface to work the odor off of, and ended up alerting all over, except for where the birdhouse hung.

A hide on a chain link fence can become perplexingly difficult if the wind is blowing the wrong way and there's no way to get around the fence and downwind of the hide to work the scent trail back to source.

The best thing you can do when you have a hide placement go wrong is to make success possible for your dog. This can be achieved by manipulating the environment (e.g., placing a trash can or other object next to the pipe opening on the building to get your dog detailing that specific area). You can also choose a time to stealthily move the hide to an easier part of the search area (lower a high hide), and use your leash or your body positioning to keep your dog working a smaller, more productive area. Take note of these searches that were too difficult and try to set up slightly easier versions in other locations so your dog has positive learning experiences. Keep in mind that the best challenge for your dog is one he has a chance at winning.

You and your dog will learn more if you're watching another dog and handler work the hides you've set out and if you and your dog are working another handler's hides. As often as you can, try to practice with at least one other person.

Above all, make sure your dog is having fun when you set out hides for him to find and he will surprise you with how quickly he works his way up to those searches that seemed impossible.

Happy Sniffing!

The K9 Nose Work® Practice Group

If you're in a weekly K9 Nose Work class or you've attended a workshop, it's safe to assume you're hooked on the activity and you want to practice more than just once a week. You can always practice with your dog alone, but you'll be missing out on the many benefits of practicing in a group. Luckily, the K9 Nose Work culture and community of handlers make it easy to form a group (or groups) that will enhance your overall K9 Nose Work experience. Here are a few ways you can start a group, and a few things you can do with your group.

1. Make a Group Out of Fellow K9 Nose Work Students

The easiest way to start a practice group and know from the beginning what you're getting into is to look to the handlers sitting to the left and right of you in your weekly class. K9 Nose Work promotes a culture of mutual respect and support, and this is what you will find at classes and trials. If you're the extroverted type, you should have no problem forming friendships with your classmates and organizing a group. If you're more the wallflower (me), just relax and be open to any invitations you get from those social butterflies and you'll be just fine.

2. Use Social Networking to Form a Group

If your classmates have hectic schedules or live too far apart from each other and you can't seem to bring a group together, turn to the internet. There are official yahoo groups for K9 Nose Work (ask your CNWI/ANWI for invitation to the groups) where you can find people in your area training at the same level as you.

3. Go to a Drop-In Class

If you're not having any luck getting a group together, then try attending a drop-in class offered by a CNWI/ANWI. You'll get extra practice in, and chances are, you'll meet a few K9 Nose Work enthusiasts like yourself and be that much closer to forming a practice group.

As you continue to train in K9 Nose Work weekly classes, at workshops, and once you begin competing in trials, you'll meet more and more K9 Nose Work handlers and become part of the greater K9 Nose Work community, forming friendships and increasing your opportunities to start or be part of a practice group.


What To Do With Your Practice Group

Once you've formed a practice group, you'll want to have a loose agenda for each training session. Since you're all attending a weekly class, many of your ideas for the practice group can come from exercises/searches your CNWI/ANWI teaches, but you'll still need to get a little creative to get the most out of your practice sessions.

1. Take Advantage of a Variety of Training Locations

A big part of training in K9 Nose Work is to practice the activity in new environments. By yourself it can get tiring looking for new places to  do searches. Each person in your practice group has at least one new location or object to contribute: a house or office, a car, a park no one else knows about, etc. If all your practice group does is get together periodically at a new location to revisit the searches done in the most recent class, the experience gained for all the members of the group and their dogs will be well worth the effort.

If you run out of locations, start thinking about businesses that might allow you to work your dogs on the premises. Petco and Home Depot are two great locations to train, and they come with plenty of distractions! Penny Scott-Fox, CNWI, was the first K9 Nose Work handler to train at big box stores and other busy locations. She dubbed the training, "Extreme Nose Work!". You can read a feature article about her and her dog, Turner, here. Just remember to ask permission before searching on private property, and always take care to leave the property in the same condition you found it so that all K9 Nose Work handlers can continue to have access to the greatest variety of search locations.

2. Set Hides to Surprise Each Other

Whether your practice group is made up of handlers who know each other very well or you're all just acquaintances, you can help each other immensely by all participating in setting hides for each other.

If you know your fellow handler has a habit of ignoring his dog's behavior changes when the dog's working bushes or trees (maybe the handler has experienced false alerts in these areas in the past) setting a multiple hide search with one hide in one of those problem areas can help confront his false alert fears and begin to trust his dog again in those areas.

If you're setting hides for a handler you've never worked with before, you'll probably set something you're familiar with, but the handler may never have encountered that type of search, and without too much effort on your part you'll have introduced this handler to a new search scenario. It's great for the team searching, and great for you, because you get to see how this team works the search and if it's different than what you've seen before.

3. Run Exercises For Each Other

To give your practice group some variety you can work in a few exercises here and there. One of my favorites is what the founders of K9 Nose Work call "running bunny". This requires at least one person in addition to the handler performing the search exercise. You can do running bunny with one hide or several. The game works by moving the hide(s) during the search so the dog is chasing after the odor as if it were a live rabbit darting around a field.

Another great exercise to do when you have extra bodies is a reward timing exercise - no clever name. Set up several hides on a desk or table and use a couple of people as spotters to confirm the dog's sourcing of odor for the handler. This allows the handler to focus on the dog and bring a timely reward, and it gives the spotters more practice recognizing the exact moment a dog finds source odor.

Practice groups can be a great supplement to your regular training, but they're also just a great way to develop camaraderie among fellow K9 Nose Work handlers. Wether you meet on a regular basis, or just get together occasionally, you'll be enhancing your overall training in K9 Nose Work and having a lot more fun!

Happy Sniffing!

What's A K9 Nose Work® Handler To Do?

When starting out in K9 Nose Work, the dog has all the advantages: a hunting instinct, superior sense of smell, an olfactory information processing center in the brain that's forty times larger than in humans, and to top it all off, the dog can self-reward. With these advantages, the dog makes huge leaps early on, learning new skills and gaining tons of experience. As a handler, you are mainly an observer in the early stages and you're learning what not to do (cuing your dog, etc.); but soon enough, you'll need to prove your mettle as an indispensable member of the team. This means you'll have to learn some new skills of your own or risk holding your team back and having less fun. If you're eager to learn from the start, you'll find it fun and easy to pick up new skills and your dog will be happy to have you as a true partner in K9 Nose Work.

Handling Starts With Observing

Observing your Dog - The self-reward process used to start off a dog in K9 Nose Work is a wonderful opportunity for handlers to observe how their dogs work and where they will best fit in to be of help down the road. Here, you can see if your dog is a methodical searcher or a wild, whirling dervish. You can observer the behavior changes he makes when he catches a scent trail, or when he's found source odor.

Once you're delivering the reward, you can still get opportunities to watch your dog work with you out of the picture. Set up a container search and place a chair at the threshold, send your dog off to search then take a seat in the chair. Be sure to jump up and provide a timely reward when he finds source odor. If your dog doesn't want to search without you by his side, start things off with a hide very close to the chair, then move the next hide a few feet further away. You and your dog will be much happier if he's comfortable working away from you - even if it's only five or ten feet.

Important things to look for when you watch your dog are: does he naturally check corners, does he speed past parts of the search area without actually searching, does he get stuck going in the same direction, does he have a hard time locking down odor in cluttered areas or on a flat wall. These are all issues you can use your handling skills to address. 

Observing Others & Being Observed - Enroll in a group class. Watch how other handlers work. See what seemed to help the dogs and what made things more difficult. Ask your fellow students to observe you and point out the positive things you're doing as a handler.

Have your certified instructor (CNWI or ANWI) give you handling tips before & after a search - and sometimes even during a search. Your instructor is a keen observer and can help you change the outcome of the search for your dog just by telling you to change your position within the search area.


Pick Up A Few New Moves

Moving In & Moving Out - Watch enough dog and handler teams work and you'll see some patterns emerge. One of my favorites is what I'll call the crowding effect. This happens when a dog is locking in on a small area, working the odor and nearly to source, only to have the handler creep in and crowd the dog causing him to lose the odor. Handlers most often exhibit the crowding effect because they've acquired some habits from the early stages of training; namely, worry over a timely reward and wanting to support their dogs for fear they won't commit to source odor. Unfortunately, when handlers crowd and dogs fail to find source, the handlers assume their dogs need more support and a faster reward - so they want to be even closer!

The way to break this cycle and be a truly supportive handler is to know when to move in and when to move out. When you see a behavior change in your dog indicating he's caught a scent trail, move in slowly to support his investigation of that area. Once you can see that he's committed to working the area, begin to back away and give him space. If he needs help, move in again, but pick a spot off to one side of the area he's working. If that doesn't help, try the other side, then make the choice to move on and come back later if he's showing no interest anywhere else.

Long/Loose Leash Handling - Think of the leash as a wet noodle. Hold it carefully and try to avoid putting any unintended pressure on your dog. Use this type of handling when your dog is clearly working scent and needs to be free to cover a lot of ground and change direction quickly. Using a leash 10ft in length or longer takes some practice, so start with an open exterior area and a single hide and be ready to run with your dog. As you get a feel for handling the long leash, move to areas with more clutter. You'll know you need more practice if the leash gets in the way of your dog going to source odor (gets caught on an object, trips up you or your dog, etc.).

Short/Tight Leash Handling - If the long leash is a wet noodle, the short leash is a three day old french baguette - indestructible, but it still has a soft spot at it's core. Working your dog on a tighter leash requires that you be able to observe your dog's behavior changes and respond to them immediately with a loosening of the leash. A tight leash is great to keep an eager dog from outrunning his nose at the threshold. It's also useful when you're searching an area that could have multiple odors and you don't want your dog to blow by one odor in favor of another, giving you the impression he's covered all that ground and ruled it out.

Make sure to avoid shackling your dog with a shorter leash. He still needs some freedom - and sometimes he needs to leave an area altogether and come back. Remember your observations of his earlier searches without you in the picture, and try to handle him in a way that helps him learn, but that is not at odds with his instincts.

Body Positioning - Dogs are very aware of their surroundings when searching. They know if something in the environment has moved or changed, and they know when you have moved or changed position - even when they're busy sniffing into a corner and you're halfway across the room. You can use your dog's awareness of his environment to make your own moves in a search count towards success for your team.

If you see that he's working scent in a specific area (along a wall), but can't seem to lock in on the source odor, you can help. Just place your shoulder against the wall six or eight feet from where he's working to form a new, little wall. This minor change to the environment may give your dog what he needs to find source odor. Be sure to do this type of body positioning when he's not working source odor, too. You don't want your clever dog deciding that every time you turn into the human wall, it's treat time.

You can also use your body to give your dog "permission" to search different parts of a search area. Your dog will generally work a certain distance away from you, as if on an invisible leash. You need to make sure you're moving through the search area in ways that give your dog the "okay" to work deeper and gain access to all parts of the search area.

Agility people will be familiar with using their shoulders to communicate direction changes to their dogs - the same works in K9 Nose Work. If you want to have your dog move down a wall and check a corner, instead of placing yourself in the corner (which handlers often do), just lead him with your shoulders. This will avoid the confusion that occurs when your dog goes to meet you in the corner and you move out, prompting him to follow you back out of the corner, and prompting you to move back in, and on and on... add music and you'll be doing canine freestyle dancing!

Handling The Elements

Container - This element is always on leash, so your handling skills play a big part in your dog's success. First, learn to stop caring about the configuration of the containers - two rows, a circle, 'x', spiral, trapezoid - they're all the same. Instead, focus on imagining a grid overlaying the search area. This grid should always extend a few feet beyond the containers and should always have corners. For example, if you have containers in a circle pattern, imagine a larger square outlining the circle.

Now that you have a grid pattern laid out over the search area, have a loose strategy in mind for working the containers - work in rows or columns, work in quadrants, etc. If your dog is highly motivated to break your pattern, go with him, but remember what you've bypassed on the way to whatever it is he smells, just in case it's not source odor.

Make sure to pass containers from multiple angles and don't just be satisfied to see your dog work the containers on the outside edge of the configuration, get yourself outside of the configuration, too.

Be mindful of the speed you move at as you and your dog check containers. Too slow and he may decide to take an interest in the luggage someone's cat used as a bed. Too fast, and that little hitch in his gait when he catches odor will be too subtle for you to see and slow yourself down so your dog can check the area more closely.

Since you control the leash, you control where to go and how many times to go there, this control comes with great responsibility. No matter what level you're playing the game at, there is always the possibility you'll have your dog check the wrong container or area too many times and he'll false alert out of exasperation. This is where strategy helps. Know where you've been, know which direction you've gone, and look for your dog's behavior change signs to tell you which containers or areas might be more productive. Unless you're attempting a very challenging search (shouldn't do this without an instructor), you shouldn't be passing your dog over the containers more than a few times before he and you can agree he's found source odor.

Exterior - This element is usually on leash, but if the search area is secure you may have the option to go off leash. One plus of going on leash is that you control the pace of the search and may be helping your dog detail the area by slowing him down. One plus of going off leash is that you won't be preventing your dog from working scent with heavy-handed leash work.

Exterior areas are tough because handlers tend to forget they have a middle. You beautifully work the perimeter, then turn around and beautifully work it again. Searching the perimeter is great, but leave yourself time to work diagonally, in an 's' pattern, quadrants, zigzag, etc.

Have a plan for when your dog picks up scent, but can't seem to source the odor. Outdoor areas are subject to many factors that can make sourcing the odor a little harder, so when your dog seems to be struggling, don't panic, the source odor may not be too far away.

Let's say your dog is working a three foot high retaining wall at the edge of a search area, sniffing like crazy, detailing all over the corner. You could choose to move on and come back later, but, first you may want to try backing up and moving to your left or right, opening things up for your dog . Your goal should be to turn this section into it's own little search area. Odds are, if you can shift things so that you're moving in where the wall is and your dog is now working back towards the rest of the search area he'll probably follow the scent to source odor at a ground hide twenty feet away from where it all started.

Interior - You'll almost always have the option to go on or off leash. In general, you'll want to start off leash and stay out of the way. Most interior areas have lots of surfaces and corners, lots of clutter. Be thinking about what direction your dog is moving through the area and make sure the two of you don't get stuck on the merry-go-round. Don't just reverse direction, try different angles. Don't just work obvious corners, work the little corners formed by a bookcase against a wall or a chair pushed up to a table.

Vehicles - Like exteriors, this is an on leash search unless the area is secure. Ideally, you want your dog working ahead of you, but you want to keep the leash short enough to prevent excessive wandering. What's excessive? A dog who bounces off a vehicle to a nearby wall - or just out into open space - sniffing with purpose and quickly returning to the vehicle is working the scent in an honest way and should be allowed to follow his nose. A dog who stops sniffing halfway down a vehicle, lunges ahead and blows past the rear bumper with his eyes fixed on something in the distance, or a dog who sticks his nose to the ground, is not chasing the scent.

Try to use the leash to prevent your dog from picking up too much speed or getting more than a few feet away from the vehicle. If you see he's covered the side of a vehicle, but not really searched it, turn him right around and search it again from the opposite direction. If you are both too eager to keep on moving, make a mental note to go back and cover that side of the vehicle if you still haven't found the source odor elsewhere.

Just like with the container search, have a strategy and keep note of where you've been and where your dog has actually searched. If you're having trouble, step away from the vehicles and assess the wind - if any - and pick a new place to "restart" the search.

Also, like containers, be careful how many times you go back to an area that your dog really hasn't told you he's picking up odor at - keep him moving and keep covering ground until you see a clear behavior change and focus on that.

When To Be A Helpful Handler To Your Dog

The alternative to being a helpful handler is to do nothing at all until your dog finds the source odor. There are situations at every stage of training where your dog can and will search and find source odor without any need for you, save for dispensing the reward. For every search your dog can do totally alone, there are a hundred he'll need your help with in some way.

In Training - your instructor can set up search scenarios that require both you and your dog to problem solve, making for a stronger team. Once you've experienced such a scenario, you can recreate it at home for practice. Here's an example:

Set a hide in a corner of a room and then place a fan in front of the hide, blowing along the closest wall and away from the odor. The fan will draw the odor through it's spinning blades and push it away from source. Now, deliberately position yourself somewhere on the side of the room without the hide, and don't cross over to the hide side until you've observed your dog work for fifteen or twenty seconds. What you should see is that your dog is catching the scent, but never getting close enough to the wall to catch the strongest scent trail and follow it back to source. As soon as you walk over to the wall the odor is blowing along, your dog should work close to the wall and commit to the scent trail long enough to follow it to source.

The great thing about training this way is that you did not show your dog the location of the hide, you didn't command him to do anything. You simply changed your position in the search area and he reacted to it and solved the problem. He found success and you found a way to help without weakening his drive to find source odor and communicate the find to you. That's a win-win search.

In Trial - When you have no idea where the odor is, you need to rely on your dog to lead you both to source, but for the exact reason described above, your dog sometimes needs your "invisible hand" to get him to productive areas or to work out a problem.

Here's the difference between practicing your handling in class doing non-blind hides, and making a handling choice in a trial when the hide location is unknown: nerves. Under the pressures of trial, you must be careful not to do anything too deliberate or linger too long in any part of the search area; your dog will be eager to make you happy (alert on source odor) and if you give him too much of an opportunity he will take it.

On trial day, you want to limit the deliberate actions you take as a handler to concerns of covering the search area. Finding source odor should be achievable for your dog if you've trained to the appropriate skill level; you just need to make sure he's getting a chance to search everywhere... and luck just needs to be on your side. If you find yourself trying to help your dog make a decision on scent he's been struggling to lock down, it's better to help him expand his searching or to move the two of you out of the area and come back than it is for you to hang out there and unintentionally encourage him to alert on source odor in an area that only has pooling odor - or no odor at all.

Every Dog is Different, So Every Handler Can Be, Too

Many people who teach the activity and sport of K9 Nose Work are fond of the phrase, "it depends", and for good reason. There are as many paths to success in K9 Nose Work as there are dogs enjoying the game. This is why, even in group classes, you'll see a search adjusted or the handler instructed to do something different than the last person, because there are no absolutes in K9 Nose Work.

In previous posts I've talked about unintentional cues and avoiding obedience commands, etc., but sometimes you need to be willing to go with what works, not what you think should work. A handler with a competitive obedience dog might like to have the dog sit tight against her leg at the start of the search, then release her (and the dog may like this, too). Ideally, you want your dog to only be thinking about odor and getting to odor and not switching into obedience mode, but if this dog is a manic mess for the first thirty seconds of a search without the sit start, what's being gained?

Many dogs prefer to search off leash and away from their handlers, but some dogs just want to know that their teammates are hanging on for the ride. Every once in a while a handler believes it's best to be out ahead of her dog in searches - and you know what? Sometimes, the dog really does seem to need his handler/carrot on a stick for motivation. As long as the dog and handler can find success and have fun, a few search quirks are okay.

The thing every handler should have in common is a willingness to try something different. Always be open to new ideas about handling. Don't resist trying out a long leash because you think running fast with a six foot leash is the same thing (guilty). Try working more of a pattern in a container search even if you think the only acceptable pattern is the one freely chosen by your dog. Let your team's performance in the searches determine which techniques stay and which get left behind. Keep in mind that some techniques are good to use just for practice - to increase drive, promote more thorough searching, - and even if you go back to your usual handling style for most searches, you'll likely see an overall improvement in performance.

Have fun knowing that your dog is always ready to take advantage of your increased handling skills and reveal to you a little more of his unfathomably awesome sniffing abilities.