Reply To: Lois and Monza (August 2014)

[Alana McGee]

TDC Instructor:

Hi Lois

That was fantastic Lois, from you & Monza.

This was a very nice set up, and again, great as it is a room she is familiar working in. Well done. I really like how you are giving her space and allowing her to problem solve. She was on her A game, and watch closing and you can see her narrowing in on the scent column on the hide that is in the life jacket. Really nice to watch. We really like to watch her staying at source! Yay!

Good work!

The saw horse hide was also good because it provides physical barriers (think tree branches- this will be a common hazard on orchards you may work) and shows us she is generally very comfortable alerting in tight spaces.

We are going to be interested to see moving from one target to the next in the next lesson in succession to see if she returns to the site of previous hides. You can see in the final one how she checks out the location of where the tin was behind the saw horse but it doesn’t slow her down.

Now try practicing in unfamiliar rooms for the truffle game. We suspect it won’t pose much of a challenge, but will be fun to see!

Some dogs are very impacted by contaminated space. We would suggest you try working her first and see how it impacts both dogs. Knowledge is power.

A smaller tin/vial would be good if you have it. She is not using visual ID at this point, but yes, smaller would be good to practice for YOU as later we will be working with small targets and real truffles and handler skills (in terms of extracting the truffle) come into play more and more.

As you switch rooms, just be aware of other distractions that may be present and that may pose challenges to focus. Also be aware of open windows or doors and how that may change how scent pools in that particular room.

Fun to watch! Great work!