Starting nosework with Jones and Enzo

[CharlieDog]

Well, I forgot you can't embed in GDC, so here's the link.

Jones did about two searches before I started filming. He's a rockstar.

Enzo is obviously very used to looking to me for direction.

 

[JessLough]

Jones is a rockstar!

Enzo.. well.. she gave it a try... :rofl1:

 

[DJEtzel]

Nice! Is this your first session doing nose work or did you do previous work with them?

I only ask because I've never seen this method before in early nose work; small search area with treats hidden.

 

[CharlieDog]

Enzo has done a very little nosework a couple years ago.

Jones had never done it before.

I'm attempting to do something a little bit different than how you'd take a class in Nosework. If it works, great, if not, not a big deal because I'm not planning on competing in it with any of my dogs, it's just something to keep them entertained when it's pouring outside.

 

[DJEtzel]

Gotcha! I was just genuinely curious.

 

[AdrianneIsabel]

Can they see the kibble? I'm having trouble telling on my phone. Looks like fun! Enzo is just calmer and more dependent, like Arnold.

 

[LostAndConfused]

Can they see the kibble? I'm having trouble telling on my phone. Looks like fun! Enzo is just calmer and more dependent, like Arnold.

Definitely want to hear the answer here. Mud season is just around the corner and I'm always looking for fun brain games to play with Hudson

 

[DJEtzel]

I wondered about being able to see the food too, but IME, dogs don't care if they can see it or not... they're searching 100% by nose.

Recon is a great example of it... we've had a lot of searches lately where the food is in plain sight, but he just can't find it! The other night the trainer put three treats along the back side of the middle grooming tub on the ledge where he could easily see them, but he got into the tub and was sniffing below the ledge on the inside, all along the temperature controls, etc. He could have seen them easily, but was in nose mode!

 

[Laurelin]

We have put several hides out in one round and the dogs find the most visible one last. Once they 'get' it they're not going by sight at all.

I would worry about some dogs (like Summer) initially starting out looking for the treats.

We generally start with container searches.

 

[CharlieDog]

Can they see the kibble? I'm having trouble telling on my phone. Looks like fun! Enzo is just calmer and more dependent, like Arnold.

No, the lids are clear, but when there's stuff inside of the containers, it's hard to see. I'm going to black out the lids after a few more times anyway, but right now I have the "food" container marked so I don't end up cross contaminating it with scent, because I'm not using kibble, I'm using ground beef, cheese, hot dogs, ect, really stinky stuff. Even I can smell the difference in the containers lol.

Enzo is a weirdo lol, I only filmed her last few runs because the first several she was FLAILING around going "WHAT ARE WE DOING?! HUH?! WHAT'S THIS GAME NOW?!" LOL

I'm going to be getting some different hides soon, but I wanted to teach this more like actual detection work at first. I'm going to be getting a few different types of tins, and I want to be able to send them down a row or a line of containers and have them indicate which hide it is. Then we'll start on room searches.

I'm trying to teach a passive alert, Jones is getting there, Enzo is not ready to learn to alert yet, I'm trying to teach her to use her nose, and work interdependently of my direction. She's starting to get it, but she still looks to me about 75% of the time before she actually starts searching.