#nose work

Fish made me so proud today! He searched well in a new environment and was definitely taking his job seriously. For 3 of the 4 searches he actually found the hide so fast I asked him to search more just to confirm lol But I’m not mad about it, I’d rather confirm and get the Q than maybe get a good time/placement.

He absolutely killed me on his interior search: We’re in an elementary school library and he’s working this bookshelf over real well, like he has me convinced it was on one of the shelves and then he just whips around 180 and nose freezes on this giant connect4 looking plastic folding wall. He then like looks up at me like :D yeah? That was good huh? and I’m like dazed like what just happened and then he’s like oh yeah wait and nose freezes again on the wall so I just shrug and call alert and he was correct. Like what an absolute ham. He was all business on his other searches, but the judge and timer gave him the eyes and he couldn’t resist trying to love on them and they loved it so of course in Fish fashion he had to put on a performance. This dog 😅😭 he cannot resist being a clown. The judge for that run said she loved his energy and said he suffered from chronic happiness 🥰😭 Like day made

Miss Dolly earned her NW2 title with an overall 2nd place finish for fastest total time, and a 1st place finish in containers…! (There were 4 NW2 titles earned out of a total of 27 teams.) The judges also recognized our two container searches and our one interior searches as pronounced.

We are very thankful to our judges, CO, hosts, and volunteers.

Dolly is…

AKC: RA FDC BCAT CGC TKI (with 3 “points” in AKC agility, iykyk 😆)

Nose work or scent games are basically exactly what they sound like. Your dog trains to find a hidden scent source and you can even compete in official competitions once your dog is good enough at the game.

Your dog will learn the game by finding treats hidden around a search area. Eventually, the goal is for your dog to find the source of one of three scents (birch, anise, or clove) hidden in a container in a search area. You are typically scored in competition on time it takes for your dog to find the source.

Uji is still a lil baby in training! We have moved from food, to food paired with scent. She still has a long way to go before she’s on scent alone, but she’s really impressed me. :)

I entered her in nose work classes purely to work on her confidence. Dogs with anxiety tend to build confidence in this game since they need to be far away from their handler in some cases and be able to trust themselves when hunting.

I’m rambling at this point so I won’t keep typing lol. But this photo is such a big way to show the difference in Uji’s anxiety. The first image? That was Uji’s first day in class. She was terrified, her body language was uncomfortable and stiff, she did not want to be there. The second image is her tenth class. Look how happy and confident she is! She’s relaxed, her tail is up, she was cocking her head and excited to go play!

Nose work has helped Uji grow in so many ways that I didn’t even think were possible. My heart is so happy and I’m overwhelmingly full of pride over this girl. 💖

Scent work will NOT be a sport in his future lmao

But, Willow and I have been working her indication (down) at distance on my scent (ft a pair of my gloves). She's pretty instant with her down in general so we've been working further and further away. She had a really hard time today - she was going past them, sniffing but not indicating, giving half confused sits and yelling at me. So I thought maybe the distance was too much, we'll do one or two more and take a break. Upon our break, I realized I was not using my black gloves, but my brother's black gloves - identical in appearance but different enough in scent to confuse the heck outta poor Willow.