Sometimes the clue to solving a container puzzle is not the container itself....it's how odor moves. By allowing Brooks to to work this out in her own way, Valerie provided support which builds confidence and independence.
Threshold Hides MBDPC AKC SW Trial
👉Threshold Hides👈
Vi and I had a very successful weekend at the Metropolitan Baltimore Doberman Pinscher Club AKC Scent Work trials held in Lancaster PA. It was an awesome opportunity to test our training in a variety of challenging searches in several elements and at various levels.
One of the skills that was tested quite often was the Threshold Hide. Of the 16 trial runs and demo dog runs that we did, 7️⃣ had threshold hides !!!
Incorporating specific concepts through systematic training will build those skills for both you and your dog.
📶Train those thresholds!!!
What do you do when you find a giant snowball in a field? ⛄️❄️
You put a hide on it!!!
What fun sniffy games did you play in the snow?
So what exactly was that game with all the boxes?
There are two parts: the first part is set up so that dogs work through pooling odor on adjacent boxes and learn to problem solve, working towards the strongest concentration of odor, which is the hot box in the middle. It could be considered a "deep accessible" hide, and gives us valuable information about classic behaviors associated with deep accessible and inaccessible hides.
The second part challenges the dogs' contextual assumptions, by removing the hot box and placing the hide somewhere else in the search area. By leaving the cold boxes in place, we can assess whether or not the dogs will assume the hide is still among the boxes based on context and the previous search, or follow their nose to find the hide that is now somewhere else.
This exercise also gives us valuable information about a dog's response to spatial pressure and how he/she will solve the puzzle using different problem solving skills.
Then the boxes all go to the recycling bin !!! 😃
Today I did this exercise with Axel 💙and Vi 💜.
Vi reacted to the spatial pressure of the boxes all close together and tried to solve the puzzle as an inaccessible hide, since the tight spaces were challenging and she chose not to step in the boxes. When I opened the space between two of the boxes, she moved in closer and reached as far as she could to get to the box.
Once the hide was moved to a different place in the search area, she realized how to work the scent cone and dismissed the boxes fairly quickly.
Axel had no trouble stepping in the boxes to solve the puzzle, but he worked really hard discriminating between pooling odor in adjacent boxes and the boxes in the periphery which were in his way. Once the hide was moved, he still did a thorough check of the boxes and then started working the odor in the air, getting to source very nicely. (Video posted in the Comments).
Different search styles and lots of great information
