Saturday Noseworks class

Steeler loves this class! This week we ran through each exercise twice. Our first exercise was the standard box drill with 7 boxes in a straight line. I think the first time the food was in the first box and the second time it was in the last box. Lots of dogs completely bypass the first couple of boxes in their hurry to get through the line. When they start doing that you start putting the food closer to the front of the line until they start to get the idea that they should check all the boxes and not rush too much. This class is definitely a balance between getting the dogs to be excited about working (ie pulling to the line) and control - working the boxes in a methodical manner. The first time through Steeler was very excited and I didn't exert much control when he got to the end of the line and started back down the line. Scott stopped to say he had seen several dogs do this and that we should not have such a frantic behavior at the end of the line. Unfortunately I missed that on tape so I am not sure I am describing what Steeler did very well.

Our second exercise was much the same as the first, except we now had boxes on top of boxes. The idea being to get the dogs to search at different heights.

Our third exercise is what I think of as the most fun. We turn over chairs and get the food out of the box. The first time you can see in the video where Steeler catches the scent of the food. Then the second time he immediately went back to the same spot to make sure there wasn't anything there.