Today there was nosework for everyone! I picked up some wintergreen and some new containers. I also built Perrin a platform for our TEAM stuff, but haven’t tried it yet.
Sei
Sei is pretty much were we we left off with this. Often choosing the right one, but not consistently. Both him and Perrin do super well sniffing a single container out in a room, but less well picking the right container from many.
Perrin
I have had several surprises on behaviours I thought were broken, but they weren’t. I was sure Perrin was solid on this but he wasn’t!I tried this once before the session I took video of, and Perrin looked at me like I was bat shit crazy. It seems that he has lost everything on this exercise, so we are starting from the beginning.
Chance
Chance did some nosework and some muzzle work. He did pretty well at both!
Dex
Working with the beginning steps of nosework with Dex and Chance is interesting. The initial step using this approach is for the dog to choose the scent in one hand rather than the cookies in the other. Neither of them have done any sort of IYC/Zen work, where they have learned to understand that moving away from the cookies is the gateway to the cookies. Chance did pretty well with this exercise regardless, but Dex struggled a lot. He was really obsessed with the cookies. The other approach to nosework is to start the dog searching immediately with food, then pairing scent with the food, then moving to just the scent. This is the approach I think I would take with Dex if I were really interested in doing nosework with him.
Adventures in Dog Training 