Nosework Diary: Practice – April 5, 2011
Upon suggestion of my love nosework teacher, Michele Garlick, I put a tin with a few birch q-tips in my bathroom and let it age for a few hours, then I let Dax search the room. I watched a completely different dog hunt! The whole room smelled of birch and I think I blew his little mind! He struggled finding source, which was in the toilet paper roll, but I could see his determination. He did look at me a few times as if to ask for help, but I just shrugged my shoulders and he went back to work.
HIDE #1: A tin in the toilet paper roll, aged 3 hours.
 |
 |
 |
He did find it and was most generously rewarded! I think he will need more experience with aged hides before we even think about a trial. Then, although we probably shouldn’t have, I put out another hide for him in the birch-smelling bathroom.
HIDE #2: A tin at the bottom of the cracked open drawer.
 |
 |
 |
After the first hide which blew his mind, I think he figured out how to distinguish the aged odor and source. He took only a fraction of the time he did on the first hide. I love watching him learn and grow. I just hope I can be as good a handler as he is a hunter!
