the warehouse

So I went there today and did a bunch of different kinds of hides for both dogs inside the warehouse. Both dogs worked beautifully. I did learn that Dax can get very distracted with any other sounds in his search area, but he did eventually go back to hunting when the sounds stopped. Dylan‘s hides were confined to one smaller area, so he found them with no problems!

I am hoping to trial with Dax in August, so I am thinking about all the components of a trial. I am only really worried about the vehicle hides because it is something we haven’t done a lot of practice on. Dax searched the company’s two big trucks and my boyfriend’s car, and he did GREAT! It is making me more and more confident that Dax is ready to trial!

Dylan had never searched a vehicle before. I had tried last week on my car, but as my car is a small SUV, it is still too tall for his little nose to reach. But my boyfriend’s car was the perfect height! So I introduced him to vehicles:

DYLAN‘s First Vehicle Hides: Food in a medium tin.

I had Michele’s voice in my head remembering to start a pattern around the car and to keep the session short. Dylan had no idea what we were doing next to a car, but I started him close and down wind then just waited until I saw his little nose go. Once he found the odor (food) he took off straight for the car and sourced it in no time flat! He only had 4 quick and successful hides, but he rocked them! The only one he struggled with was the last one which I placed on the other side of the bumper, but when I say he had trouble, I mean he actually sniffed for almost 20 seconds unlike the others where he caught it at the start line!! =) I just love my little master of the hunt! Maybe he will be ready to trial soon too? (hey, a girl can dream!)

Here are the photos from the meetup:

Unfortunately there was one person there who soured my afternoon. She is a rather rude lady who was a “know-it-all” about beagles just because she was friends with a very well known beagle breeder and her father was a judge. She rudely started up a conversation with me by interrupting another one I was having, then drivelled nothing but insults about her over-weight beagles; followed by carefully picking out all the things that were wrong and not perfect with Dax and Dylan. How there was too much white on Dax’s tail and they would throw him out on that alone. (Which I then looked up on the AKC website and there is no specifications of color only of how it is carried!)

It took all I had not to make any disparaging remarks about her grossly over-weight beagles whom she toted could be returned to the breeder and made a fine stud dog. And she only talked about returning her dog because he was so fat and she had been promised a regular sized champion beagle. She also had a female who was twice the size of her male. I don’t even know how you let a dog get that fat without doing something about it!

She had me so grumpy afterwards, I was so happy when others shared my feelings of dislike for her. I just hope she doesn’t rope me in another conversation at another Beagle Meetup, or next time I might not be able to hold my tongue.

We met at an elementary school. We pretty much had the place to ourselves which was really nice and meant we could hunt anywhere. Michele set up eight hides in all different places along the school. Dax was up first and totally rocked my world! There was new smells and a new place with blowing wind and he was a total champ!! He did so well on all the hides hitting one after another so quickly:

HIDE #3: A single birch q-tip in a crack in the concrete.

Dax surprised me by how quickly he went from his start line to the odor. He made a straight line, only lagging to detail. It was this hide that told me he was ready for an exterior hide in a trial!

HIDE #4: A tin with 3-4 birch q-tips in the outlet cover.

Dax worked hard on this hide, blowing right past source, but working his way back with some help from his handler (me!). He worked the odor from the left but ran into cobwebs and I learned that Dax doesn’t like cobwebs as much as I do! He actually walked around them and hit source from the right.

MULTIPLE HIDES #5-7: Three hides in the lunch table areas, one under the bench; two, on the side of a planter; three, on the handle of a garabage can.

Dax taught me I need to help him more on multiple hides. He hit the first odor tin which was under the bench part of a picnic table, however he had a “HEY STUPID HUMAN” moment when I didn’t believe him. I thought the hide was under the table part of the picnic table and just kept staring at him. But he kept insisting on the bench and I meekly said ‘Alert.’ Of course, trust your dog!, cause he was right! I generously rewarded him and then sent him off to find the other two hides. He started searching for the second, but wasn’t strong enough not to want to go back for the first hide, and I didn’t have the best handling to keep him from it. He didn’t hit it again, but I got that little reminder from Michele to ‘hold my ground and not let him go back.’

Dax is my little rockstar nosework dog, but he is getting some competition with Dylan! We ended the day with some quick hides in the grass for the puppy, which is something he had done since he was 9-weeks old! Dylan was all over the food tin! I am very hopeful that he will live up to his name as “Master of the Hunt”!

Today, everyone kept the dogs out of our “classroom” which was a gym area. Michele prepared two hides in opposite corners of the room. We had to search the entire room for birch and a birch/anise combo. The hides weren’t blind, but it was easy to act like it was. All the dogs in the class are getting really strong and had no problems finding the hides. Dax spent some time “crittering” (sniffing one spot on the floor for critter smell and not odor), but I was able to get him to refocus and he rocked it out. He even surprises me at times, since he is the smallest dog in the class I alway worry about elevated hides being too high for him, but he always manages to strech his little body to reach source. He streched up into the corner and wasn’t able to touch source but he was generously rewarded at maximum strech!

The second hide in the room was the birch/anise combo which made me a litte nervous. Since during last week’s field trip, Dax had a similar combo box hide, which he found but only alerted to the birch side of the paired odors. I was worred a similar thing would happen again, but Dax found it anyways.

Then to my delight, we did two ORT-like box drills since Dax‘s ORT was coming up quickly. I freaked out a bit when Dax didn’t find it as quickly as I know he could. But Michele quickly reassured me that it was because the “hot box” was located just below her odor kit and all the dogs seemed to have issues. I have a feeling I’m going to be on ORT boxes until Dax‘s actual ORT test in May!

I am completely hooked on the sport and I can’t wait for Dylan to start as well!

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!

Here are the photos from the meetup:

See the entire album here.

I had convinced my friend Janice to spend the 2.5hrs each way in the car with me because I was just so nervous to go alone. So as soon as she showed up at my apartment, I loaded up Dax we left. It was a long drive up to Auburn and I couldn’t seem to get there fast enough, but as soon as we pulled into her drive-way I didn’t want to get out of the car. I eventually did and then I met Julie and her brood of puppies.

They were the cuties things I had ever laid my eyes on and I wanted to bring home every one of them, but as soon as my eyes found my little one, I fell in love. He is puppy #5 in the CJ x Topanga Litter:

and is to be called Dylan, named after a sci-fi character Dylan Hunt. I spent a while in her little puppy yard as there was another family picking up another Auburn Beagle, so I got plenty of time getting a good puppy fix.

Then it was finally time to fill out the paperwork and pack up the puppy. I got Dylan in his little crate in the car and off we were on our way back home. Little Dylan cried almost the entire 2.5hrs home, only taking breaks to nap. Janice got a headache which she blamed on dehydration, but she was just too nice not to blame on the puppy. I had never believed that beagles were all that noise until I heard Dylan. He was barely 8 weeks old but already had found his voice. I already started to worry that my apartment complex would kick me out cause the neighbors would continuously complain about his incessant barking!

Dax and Dylan finally got to properly sniff each other once we got back to the apartment. I was nervous for the first 5 minutes, but knowing Dax‘s personality, I didn’t foresee any issues. They didn’t sleep in a dog pile like I though beagles just naturally did, but they did both eventually sleep.

So now my pack has grown by one. I can’t wait for him to get old enough to take outside and start nosework!

CJ x TOPANGA litter: Whelped January 3, 2011
CH Alamo’s Claim Jumper “CJ”	CH Alamo’s Topanga “TOPANGA”

Topanga had six male tri-colored puppies:

Boy #1	Boy #2
Boy #3	Boy #4: Auburn’s Number Four “Bernie”
Boy #5: Auburn’s Master of the Hunt “Dylan”	Boy #6

CJ x TOPANGA litter: Whelped January 3, 2011
CH Alamo’s Claim Jumper “CJ”	CH Alamo’s Topanga “TOPANGA”

Topanga had six male tri-colored puppies:

Boy #1	Boy #2
Boy #3	Boy #4: Auburn’s Number Four “Bernie”
Boy #5: Auburn’s Master of the Hunt “Dylan”	Boy #6