Nosework Dogs

04/01/2025

I had a lovely day doing some informal training today with the Worcester Dogs team. I had missed a step in Jerrys training as I hadn't had anyone to do blind and possibly blank hides for me. There are 2 videos here, the 2nd will be in the comments. It's his 1st time working in the building. We had done one blind hide to make sure he was happy to work in the area and then we did 3 blind and possibly blank. A randomiser was used and this determined whether the area would be blank or not. I am then working them blind and have to decide whether to click or not, without the hide being confirmed and without knowing if odour is there. The 1st video was the 1st blind search (I knew odour was there but not where). The video in the comments is the 1st blind and possibly blank (I didn't know if there was odour or not) but it was a blank search. In the 2nd video you can see him start to try to offer an indication where the hide had been, he quickly works that out by himself. I had decided with the size of the area I would work him about 90 seconds before calling it clear as we are starting to teach him that he may not always find. I was very happy that he went to a new venue and really tried and that I was able to call finds or the area clear accurately.

28/12/2024

Jerry is back on the wall. We have worked with 5 low value distractions out, with one target odour with no trouble. Here I have 5 high value food distractions on the wall. They are a couple of dog treats, a madeleine cake, a piece of dried liver and a sausage. All the distraction odours are on the right hand side of a brick so that I can keep track of where they are. The odour is a very small piece of kong in a glass bottle. I use tweezers to move the bottle. The target odour is just off camera on the bottom brick, so left hand side of screen. What is interesting here is at about 2 minutes (when the video starts)and when he hasn't thought to search low, he locks on to something on the left hand side of a brick. I leave him to work it out himself and after quite a few determined indications he eventually moves on and although he works across the brick again doesn't indicate. When he does finally get to the target odour he indicates nicely. I let him continue as he seemed happy to carry on and wasn't getting frustrated. If I had stopped him I would have just called him away and moved the odour to another spot. I now know low hides, need to be a slightly higher frequency of finds. I have put the whole video in the comments if anyone is interested.

22/12/2024

A selection of this weeks gummy treats for the dogs. I didnt have any festive moulds but they seem to appreciate the fruits and dinosaur ones! The worms are also very popular.

20/12/2024

I have been working on some environmental resilience with Margo during her search and we have been going to different places. Although outside of Jerrys training plan I thought - why not. Well it is a risky strategy and makes a bit of a mockery of my plan but that is still ongoing. We have been to a village hall, a feed store and todays search was at the front of Waitrose but in a quieter corner. My aim is that he learns that search means search wherever you are. My plan is no more than a 30 second search and he is on a piece of kong that will announce itself quite well, but still require his nose to work. I will only ask once in each environment, if he says no, then no it is and we will come back on another day. Usually I do this sort of training as a hunt and grab, so a toy is thrown and the dog can go and find and self reward. Because Jerry is a working line spaniel I suspect my main issue will be too much run in his search. So I am asking for a search where he doesnt see odour placed and only a brief indication. If I need to add some run, I can do it later!

19/12/2024

Well done Ann & Kenzie for winning an NNA elite today. 2 badges as well!

19/12/2024

Happy Xmas!

15/12/2024

Jerry is 6 months old now. I have followed Jens Frank for some years and was determined to use his philosophy to train Jerry. I have taught the indication according to a training plan and I am now teaching him the foundations of search. He got very stuck last week. The idea is you break your training plan into very small steps and once the dog can repeat a step 3 times in a row you move on to the next step. if the dog goes wrong you restart your count of 3. Me walking 3 steps whilst he was indicating completely threw him, coinciding with a little fear stage so i had to break it down into further subsets. I do like that the plan shows up little things that you can miss and that may become an issue later on. It took us 8 days to achieve that one step, doing 5 minutes most days. We then rattled threw blind and possibly blank containers and here we are just starting buried hides. We are down to an eighth of a kong in an area that should be roughly a 2 metre square, a smallish area but that helps build a high expectation to find at the beginning. Although I think I went a bit large here! Every correct 3 reps we go down by half on the kong size but keep the area the same size. He has been working much smaller pieces of kong on his indication training and can find the larger peices tricky. Jerry is a lovely little (not so little!) dog to work with and is thoroughly enjoying himself

13/12/2024

Wow Sara Hutchings & Marvelous Meg 1st place in Level 8 SWUK. Only 2 qualifiers so a tough day at the office!

10/12/2024

Well I was very excited to hear that Carole and Olaf D Mcfloof had won an NNA entry trial today. Unfortunately Olaf doesnt seem thrilled!

22/11/2024

Well done to the fabulous team that are Peter & Minnie for winning an NNA enhanced trial today. Lots of badges for other Nosework Dogs teams and some real personal achievements. Its not all about the wins but still nice to celebrate them!

17/11/2024

17/11/2024

It was clients only trials today at Nosework dogs. We had 3 groups Triers, Aspirers & Flyers. 18 dogs took part across the 3 groups.

I will put the trier and Aspirer searches in the comments.

Flyers
7 dogs in this group. I saw some beautiful searching from the dogs and on the hoof planning from the handlers.
The results were
1st Place Bev & Delilah 99.55
2nd Place Ann & Kenzie 97
3rd Place Rosie & Slinkydog 79.5
4th Place 78.5 Peter & Minnie
Bev & D did one of the most faultless and beautiful searches I have watched in a long time. They called the area clear correctly with just 15 seconds to go.
Ann & Kenzie were hot on their heels with just a few marks lost on indication and area coverage and a cheeky false alert.
Both Rosie & Slinkydog and Pete and Minnie were in close contention but missed the converging hides.
All the other teams covered the area and had a go at calling it clear which was great. As mentioned in the video it was so much fun watching dear old Prue power the area, lovely that such an old Doris can still have a good sniffing workout.

Aspirers
6 teams took part in this and the standard was very high. All but one team called it clear correctly and no teams went back over areas unnecessarily.
The results were
1st Place Marney & Chutney 89.5
2nd Place Kate & Pip 89.3
3rd Place Bev & Morty 89
4th Place Judith & Eddie 88.8
Not placed but worthy of a mention Rosemary & Dotty 87.75
This was Marney & Chutneys 1st go at Aspirers and the little girl came out and searched beautifully with perfect to die for indications. The only blip a short snack stop on the way round. Kate and Pip were so close, a quick wee and a single indication that scored a 9.5, whereas the others were wonderful 10's. There wasn't much between the other teams.

Triers
5 in this group and a range of experience. Every handler had a go at calling it clear. There was one hide on the gate that only Tide got so only Rosie called it clear correctly.
The results were
1st Place Rosie & Tide 79.8
2nd Place Fiona & Theo 58
3rd Place Trish & Havok 57.5
4th Place Ann & Midge 57

Rosie & Tide produced a lovely search with a great balance between independent searching and clever, thoughtful tasking. Fiona & Theo also produced a well balanced search with Fiona stopping Theo from getting too excited. Trish & Havoc did one if the best searches I have seen them do and the improvement for this team was huge. Ann & Midge are a new team, Ann has lots of experience with Kenzie but Midge is very different. They both did a great job with a lovely relationship starting to form. Marney and Mistard came and had fun but the area was a bit tricky physically for Mustard.

13/11/2024

Jerry started searching vehicles today. Still working on indication but nice to also see the searching growing.

07/11/2024

Puppy is doing really well with his indication training. I had put the odour in a shell that wasn't giving out much odour here. An error on my part but nice to see after searching for much longer than he has been used to he was still able to offer the indication. He had been struggling a bit as we go lower to sit rather than down but we are both really enjoying the process.