Hi Karen 🙂
Thanks for the great feedback. It’s great to see that you are also instructing–I am glad to receive your insight! Scentwork is pretty new to me, so I am glad for all the help I can get!
Tooz is really fun to work with, and you’re right, it’s all in the tail! She has a very different tail & hip motion when she is on odor. She wags a lot anyway, but this particular wag is how I can tell if she is really on odor, or just crittering, sniffing scat, etc.
At 0:57 when I reach down, I am picking up the target. She retrieves them if I can’t get there fast enough. (She is getting better at waiting, as I am introducing a “wait” command to get her to wait for me to get there before she does anymore pawing/mouthing.) She really isn’t interested in food rewards just after finding the target–all she cares about is getting the ball. So I don’t usually reward her at the source with food. Maybe I should try it anyway?
I appreciate your thoughts on throwing the ball and maintaining stamina. I am definitely going to experiment with this! Will be getting out to a forested setting to practice in the next day or 2.
Thanks Karen!