Nancy and Ten (access until April 4, 2014)

[Alana McGee]

Welcome to class Nancy!

This is the forum topic where you will post your questions and homework videos for feedback from the instructors.

Please take a moment to tell us about yourself, your dog and your interest in truffle hunting.

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[Alana McGee]

Welcome Nancy.

We are very excited to have you and Ten in class 🙂

Please let me know what supplies you need so we can get them out to you right away!

[Alana McGee]

Hi Nancy! Your First Quiz has been graded. You can hover over the grade to see your comments.
Let us know if you have any questions!

• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by Alana McGee.

[Alana McGee]

Hi Nancy. Your Lesson 2 quiz has been graded. Hover over the grade to see comments where applicable. There is one additional question to be answered. Please view the quiz and submit one more answer.

[Nancy]

I’m not sure what the additional question is? There appear to be three without answers showing, so perhaps I missed more than one?

[Nancy]

I have a question; Ten seems like she’s guessing at the boxes. She pounds on each one and if she’s not rewarded moves on. Eventually she gets the “right” one but I feel like she’s just guessing. My instinct would be to continue on at this level of discrimination until I see her dispense with the incorrect boxes with less input and using her nose not just flying into them with paws blazing . . .

[Alana McGee]

Hi Nancy

I would say your natural tendencies and inclinations to stay at this level are spot on. For now.

There are alternatives we will suggest that involve removing the visual aids, but when possible we like to allow the opportunity for the dog to have that ‘a-ha!’ moment as it will make the skill learned more ingrained as this stage of training is really about solid foundations.

Pay very close attention and see if she gives any other subtle clues or even inhales over/near any of the boxes as opposed to acting like it is a slapping game.

Did you happen to have taken any short videos of even one pass at the boxes. I have an idea you can try which may help her make the connection, but it would be good to see her in action first.

Here’s the scenario however if you want to try:
You will need 3 scent boxes/hides, one truffle odor target. This exercise is all done in one session.

Start by playing the scent imprinting game. After a few successful nose or paw targets, place the scent tin on the ground nearby close enough for Ten to easily get to it without much movement. Ask Ten to find the target. When she does, reward. Do this a few times.

After the last successful find where she can see the target and alerts on it while it is in close proximity to her, now place a box on top of it (or the target inside the box depending on your set up) and ask her to locate it again. This is all done with her watching you.

If she does that, great. Reward. Then lift the box off of the target, ask her to locate, she does, reward. Then place the box back on top of the target, ask her to locate, if she does, reward.

We are trying to make her ask the question ‘why is that one box so special?’

Now lay down the other boxes on either side of the one you are working with. Remove the box that is currently covering the truffle odor, and ask Ten to locate the truffle odor. When she does, reward. Then place the box back on top of the scent tin, and ask Ten again to locate. Ideally she will still keep hitting on the same spot as you haven’t moved anything around really. After she does this, you will now have 3 boxes in a row with the middle one containing the scent odor that she has been hitting on positively. Now you can start walking her down the row and only rewarding on the middle box which is the one hiding truffle odor.

Keeping your truffle odor target under the same one, keep rewarding her for hitting on that one special box. Then you can progress from there to walking her down the row and only rewarding on the ‘special’ box. After that, you should be able to move the location of the hot target and have her alert with success.

Try it, but also shoot us a video, even a short clip so we can see your set up. It will help us know what to focus on to help you problem solve.

[Nancy]

Well, classic me, I’ve gone way off plan. I think though she understands now that she’s “looking” for the scent.

I’ll go back to the box hide discrimination tomorrow and video and check in to see how we are doing. 🙂

[Alana McGee]

Sounds great. Looking forward to video!

[Alana McGee]

Hi Nancy. Your forum access expires in 4 days. Do you have questions or video you would like feedback on before then?

[Alana McGee]

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