K-9 Nose Work continues to be one of my two main focuses. (The other is the Karen Pryor course. More about that next week.) I am running nose work classes in Maywood and Jersey City, and have one scheduled to start in NYC in February.
I try to get video of every search and then post the videos for the students to see before the next class. This gives the people are chance to see their dogs and themselves in action. In addition to being a lot of fun, it’s also a great way to familiarize the people with their dog’s “body language” during searches.
A few weeks ago I blogged about Harley, a fearful dog that has benefitted from Nose Work. Here’s Harley latest class. I introduced what we (quite logically) call elevation: boxes are now off the floor and the dog has to learn to search both on the floor and on top of other things. For Harley this represented something new, and as a result, initially was a little scary. Watch how being rewarded for searching helps her work this problem out on her own with very little human intervention.
Shadow, however, is ready to interact with her environment any way she can. This video shows a few searches (it’s a little long, but worth watching all the way through) including some slo-mo of her literally following her nose, and ending with a rather funny pair of finds.
Last, here is a video from a “Intermediate Odor” class with dogs that are searching for odor paired with food. Muneca is doing multiple hides in the reception area of the Maywood Vet Clinic.
For information on Nose Work classes in my area see my classes page. For a trainer near you, see the Nose Work Association web site.
It is really fun to watch them figure things out
I know Cali would love to do nose work- we hide her toys around the house occasionally and have her find them – she loves it!!
I watching the VIDEO & they did a BEAUTIFUL job on the DOGS of having them look for their snacks in HIDDEN places. GREAT job well DONE