Reply To: Alyssia & Spring (DRTDT)

[Alana McGee]

Thank you for the feedback on the last video. I think you maybe right about her not wanting something over her, as the ones she was slower finding, two were in the grass by the edging, but with the roses overhanging. I had not been doing a warmup, but did yesterday and today. The past couple days have been interesting. Did not work her Saturday, the weather was miserable with a good steady rain almost all day. Sunday I took her with me to my BC’s obedience trial. Since it was at a fairgrounds, I went to one of the nice open fields and put out 3 hides. They were just laying on the grass, not hidden, about 5 feet from each other. Did the warm up and she seemed excited, she stumbled on the first one, did a long reward and then after that she would not work anymore, stayed right by me and then finally laid down (which you will see a bit of in tonight’s video.) Have never had her do that in nosework, she may not like the environment but she will usually push through it and keep working. So I figured too much too soon and ended it.

Tonight I put out 5 hides – end of the downspout, the dip by the fence, the root, in the grass closer to the camera and hard to see the tree on the left, but you may see the dark green larger tuft to the far left, that was where the 5th was. She finds the 1st two fast, down spout and dip, then there seems to be a bit of confusion on her part at first as to what to do next, but after getting her restarted, she does some hunting, which I cut to save time, and she finds the root one. Between 2:09 and 2:28, she gets stressed, even though she is picking up the odor at the base of the tree, but for what ever reason she won’t go over to it. So if that happens again, do I go with her or lead her and have a big party when she finds it? After that I think she was headed back to the door and she picked up the one in the grass, so I rewarded and did some play tosses to try and get her more upbeat. However after that was done, instead of staying around like she usually does, she did head back to the door. So any ideas what maybe going on? I don’t think I was pushing her beyond her limits and she seemed to be doing really well and now she definitely is showing a lack of confidence. Thanks for the help.

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