Well, I think we are slowly improving… I’m realizing that Salu’s personality is what it is…. (and a laid back personality is what I asked Bridget for and he it works perfectly with Lola)… When he feels rushed or pressured he shuts down (I should know this from taking the TDI and CGC tests) and he needs lots of belly rubs and breaks in the task. It’s not disinterest as he about breaks the door down getting outside when he sees me going to hide the scents – it’s just his “style and personality”. I’m going to have to be creative and find ways to work with his personality as he likely won’t be adjusting much for me.
The first scent he found was semi buried, then there was one in the grasses and the last was a ground cache.
I will say he’s not feeling up to par here (sour stomach etc.) but he does pretty well.
There a 5 scents placed within a small area – my thinking is to give him more successes within a smaller area. Two scent balls, the ground cache (which I was originally using for Lola and he started finding them on his own so I’ve been adding them) and flat disc and blue tea ball is summer truffle and the red tea ball is Oregon truffle scent. He seems to do well with both scents – no real preference for either. In this video he found 3 scent vessels and after we stopped recording he found the other two. Oh, and I changed the treat to a fresh rotisserie chicken which probably didn’t hurt either (I was out of his favorite peanut butter). It’s also cloudy and cooler. The next few videos Salu will be cooled down with water as it will be very dry and 90 deg. I will be at my son’s house doing blind hides.
I’m going to start randomly placing scents in grasses when we take walks and let them “cook” until we head back and see how that goes.