Reply To: Alyssia & Spring (DRTDT)

[Alana McGee]

Haven’t had a chance to watch the video and respond yet but a comment about hides.

Don’t worry. It’s okay to takes days off.

I also just made a comment in Shannon & Cricket’s thread about blind hides, and it applies here too. Blind hides are great, and a critical part of eventually successfully truffle hunting, but you can move around when, where and how you practice them to some degree, in most situations.

For now, until you can find a helper, just keep building and working towards buried hides. Don’t worry about the blind hides. Spring’s also not really in danger of you pointing out which ones are correct and using that as a cue in of itself as you’ve worked on her alerts more and being clear and concise on when you approach so you aren’t cueing her.

At some point it will be very important to practice blind hides, but you can continue to progress and then hone those skills (which tend to be more handler than dog related) once you have someone who can assist.

*you can also just try to forget where you hide them. I personally am great at that (unintentionally!) when I do it for my own dogs.