Reply To: Alyssia & Spring (DRTDT)

[Alana McGee]

Here is our video from last night. It was 4 hides in a small area, they were still just sitting in the ground, but I covered them up more. Ground was drier, so dirt wasn’t as packed. They didn’t cook long, maybe 5 minutes as I was losing light quick.

Around 45 seconds, she does check out the empty hole I dug, but she never dug at it, so I kept quiet and let her work it out. The first two hides she did not vocalize, but I did get her a bit more frustrated with the last two and got her to bark. With the 3rd hide at 2:20 she got excited and jumped on me and when I asked her where her truffle was, she went back to it.

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mQua42aHoc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mQua42aHoc[/url]

Based on your latest feedback, I do agree that Spring is doing much better with the hides with me talking to her, she is no longer giving me the is this right look, but I am not sure how that will carry over to nosework, where you pretty much keep quiet and let the dog work it out. I also had another question come to mind that is also from nosework. Do you ever “present” an area to a dog to search that they may have missed or you want them to check again? I know this is probably easier to do with a room or a car and not a stand of trees 🙂

I am hoping on Friday my friend can do some blind hides for me at her house. Will make sure I keep it simple and if I think Spring is onto odor, will talk to her and see what happens.

Aside from that, should I continue to keep the area small, but make the hides deeper, or make the area bigger and keep the hides the same depth? With losing the light I did have a hard time finding them, so will need to mark them, but thankfully Spring found them.

Thanks again.