Nosework Training
August – November 2024
Scroll to the end to see some photos of Spirit, Varoom! and Zest on October 6th.
My friend, Denise, and I are training every weekend at our favorite place, the storage yard at Craftco Metalworks. They are always moving completed work out and bringing in supplies, so new places to hide scents are everywhere.
Denise is going to retire in October and told her employers that she would no longer work weekends, so we are able to work every Saturday and Sunday. She brings her three dogs (2 Shelties and a Cockapoo who are all competing), and I bring three of mine. Each day I bring an experienced competitor (Spirit, Mercy or Lovely), a younger dog with whom I’m competing (Hopeful or Justice) and one of the beginner dogs (Pascha, Zest, Zeal or Dakuya) who won’t start competing until next year. These practices that we’re photographing are their introduction to real searching, so we don’t yet ask them to do the harder hides (either high or hard to get to).
The young ones also do not yet wear the tracking harness, which is itself a pre-command, as I only put it on just before the starting cones, or in a trial, when the dog ahead of us goes into the search area. And I take it off as soon as we finish our search, so the dogs know when the serious work time has ended. Instead, their cue is a box with a cocktail of all 5 scents, set by the car, so that they come out of the car and have a reminder what we’re going to do. Pascha is about ready to graduate to the harness. The other three will hopefully be ready to wear it before the Craftco training ends for the winter.
You may see photos of me helping the young dogs when they’re struggling – and rewarding them at times for a partial indication because they just can’t remember to do the required sit or down with everything else going on around them. Beside the stimulation of a BIG new place, bunnies occasionally dart out under their noses, people walk their dogs past the training area and often several people go by, talking away. Zest was really distracted on August 24th because the airport (next door) was having an airshow and people were parking along the road and walking everywhere as they headed to the gate. Zest also has trouble focusing at any time – she tends to bounce around excitedly and have difficulty kicking into nose mode. She always craves petting, so I am using it along with treats for rewards. It has been tough on all 4 of the pups whom I kept last year because they have to share all the extra attention that comes with forming them into working dogs, but Zest seems more needy than the other three.
I also rotate Varoom! occasionally. She was supposed to have had a litter in August but failed to conceive. With luck, she’ll be busy with a litter next May when we have our nosework trial, so there’s no rush on her training. Spirit, Mercy, Lovely, Hopeful and Justice are entered in our October trial.
We start training at 8 a.m. so that we finish before it becomes unbearably hot. We usually finish about 11 a.m. We get lots of shadows in the photos of the earliest runs, and glare in the later runs, so some photos are much better quality than others.
Another reason to train early is to finish before the hornets get too active. They, unfortunately, target us for our training treats. I swear they target our vehicles and know when we arrive.
We set two separate searches so that each of us gets to run “blind” (not knowing where the hides are). Each search contains all 5 UKC scents and 1 or 2 distractions (balls or treats). You can often see some of the hides in the photos, when they’re in little silver tins or copper-colored “bullets” that reflect the light.
All the dogs do both searches. I have organized the photos by dates, so you can see how the competition dogs handle a search area if you don’t quite understand what the “baby” search dogs are doing. Denise sometimes gets a whole series of photos of a search, while other times she just gets one or two photos, but by looking at the photos of both the other dogs on that day you get a good sense of each search.
I work with the pups in the house several times during the week, working on indications. Since I have no puppies, I set up a bunch of “clean” articles in the whelping room and put down two “hot” articles. I put other “clean” articles in the back bedroom where I store dog food and supplies (great distractions!). We practice our start routine (Are you ready? FIND it!) at the door, and then I let the pup in to search. After we do both rooms, we search another area of the house (office, bathroom/washer/drier area), or kitchen. That’s a little more difficult because the other dogs are barking, wanting their turns, so we work a little bit on focus. That should help them remember soon to do a real indication at Craftco.
I am always surprised, as I edit the photos, at how many show the dogs’ tongues out as they leave the indication to receive their treat. Some of those photos are extremely cute. I never notice that when I’m working my dog. I guess I’m too busy reaching for a treat and, in Hopeful’s case, preparing for her enthusiastic body slam.
Training Sessions
Names that are enlarged and bolded contain links to photos.
Check back frequently for new photos. I edited some days out of order because the light was so fantastic that I had to see how the photos turned out, so scroll to the bottom so you don’t miss any!
8/10/24: Lovely, Justice and Dakuya. I didn’t think to take my camera, so the only photo we have is a really cool one of Dakuya that Denise took on her cell phone.
8/11/24: Mercy, Hopeful and Pascha
8/17/24: Justice, Varoom! And Dakuya
8/18/24: Spirit, Hopeful and Zeal
8/24/24: Lovely, Justice and Zest
8/25/24: Mercy, Hopeful and Zest
8/31/24: Spirit, Hopeful & Pascha
Denise got some GREAT photos of Hopeful’s extremely expressive tail movements when she’s doing an indication, as well as the faces she makes. She is such a fun dog! In the series of the hide on the big orange trash container, the hide is in plain sight – you can read the “M” (for myrrh) written on the hide. On a couple of the searches, Denise also caught Hopeful’s signature body slam as she excitedly comes in for her treat reward. Ugh!
Spirit LOVES searching, and you can see that in her photos.
Pascha continues to struggle with remembering to do an indication (sit or down) when she makes a find in this great big search area. Sometimes she can properly indicate (sit or down and stare at the hide) – and I give her heaps of praise and treats. Other times I’ll work to get her to indicate, but if she starts stressing, get her to show me the find and then reward (but more moderately). Since the whole purpose of this is to have her LOVE the game, I’m not going to push her. It will soon click.
9/1/24: Lovely, Justice and Dakuya
Denise got some nice photo series of my start-line routine of putting on the harness as a signal it is time for serious work.
I edited Justice’s photos out of date order because we had seen that Denise got some good photos of him being a dork, and I wanted to use some in the weekly letter that I write to a bunch of nursing home residents who enjoy funny stories about my dogs. They know his silly side because he’ll sometimes act like a goof on therapy dog visits. I was pleased to see that we also got some photos of him seriously working. He is finally beginning to mature. What a relief.
Lovely was her usual accurate self. She loves nosework and does her best to get her nose directly over the hide. Denise got some fantastic back-lit photos of her today. AND she got photos of me putting on the harness both times so you can tell her two searches apart.
Dakuya is now giving very nice indications. Today she got some good experience locating high hides. She’s going to be an excellent nosework dog like her mom, Lovely.
Mercy is always a fun dog to work because she’s so enthusiastic and accurate. She was the first dog to search. The lighting – since the sun now rises later and at a lower angle – made for some beautiful photos with her lit from behind, and some that emphasized her beautiful eyes.
Zeal did much better today, used all of the 15’ leash length to search and was really enjoying the searches.
Not much improvement in Zest, who continues to struggle with focus and even interest in the game. She usually does better on the second search than on the first. On the first, I again quit when she finally indicated on one scent but refused to search for another. No ball session to end the search, just put in the crate with no praise or treats. My hope is that, as she sits in her crate in the car, she’ll connect the use of her nose to all the fun – ball session, delicious treats and special loving from me. When she DOES indicate, she is now finally willing to stay on the scent and re-indicate after her treat-and-petting rewards. Hurrah!
9/8/24: Hopeful, Varoom! and Pascha
Varoom! did fantastic, the best, most enthusiastic she has ever been. I decided to try Pascha on the 15’ line instead of the 6’ leash, to see if she would take more responsibility for searching. She did fantastic! We continued to work on good indications and by the end of the morning she was doing very nice ones. I think she put everything together today – first you search, then you indicate, then you’re released and rewarded. She was a little wild on the container at the beginning of each search session. I had to throw it away when we got home.
Hopeful was her usual enthusiastic, comic self, with lots of eye rolls during while I put her harness on and also during indications. We got some great photos of her, including some with gorgeous lighting. She is such a fun dog to work!
9/15/24: Denise was out of town this weekend so no photos. My handyman finally came on the 14th so I was unable to go train, but on the 15th I took Zeal, Zest and Dakuya training. I tried the 15’ lead on the three of them. Zeal and Dakuya did well, but Zest continues to struggle with distractions.
9/21/24: Lovely, Justice and Pascha
I decided to see if Pascha was ready for the harness. She did great! I was SO pleased with her. Justice did the best that he ever has and searched intensely. Lovely, as usual, was spot on. She is so dependable, it’s a joy to work her. It was a great day of training!
9/22/24: Mercy, Varoom! and Zest
Mercy, as usual, put on flawless search performances. Varoom! was much less intense than last time. I tried throwing the ball a couple of times after each find and that seemed to help. Zest was her usual unmotivated, very distracted self. She wouldn’t even try on the first search, so I put her back in the car. She did better on the second search, and I tried throwing the ball after each find to better motivate her. She liked that, so I’ll try it again next time.
9/28/24: Spirit, Mercy and Zeal
I tried the harness on Zeal and she did great. So proud of her. She definitely has decided she likes this game!
9/29/24: Hopeful, Justice and Dakuya
It is definitely fall now. Sunrise is later, and the sun is at a lower angle, especially in the early morning. The lighting in a lot of today’s photos was gorgeous. We got a lot of photos where the dogs were backlit by rich gold light, so that they shone beautifully.
Hopeful is a fun dog to train and work, with her enthusiasm and bouncy attitude. Today’s photos, with the eyerolls and pounces, definitely showed attitude!
I tried the harness on Dakuya today and she, also, did fantastic. That leaves just Zest to introduce to the harness, but she isn’t yet ready. Justice was on fire today, very enthusiastic with hardly any desire to gawk around the area and watch walker going by. Hurrah!!
A monster wildfire (60,000+ acres with zero containment) about 15 miles from Sheridan was causing lots of evacuations. The fairgrounds, where our trial was to be held, was taken over by people, pets and livestock that had had to evacuate. We had to cancel our trial. Denise and I, plus a friend from Washington who had already left to come to the trial before we canceled, trained both days instead.
10/5/24: Lovely, Justice and Pascha
We were able to train at Craftco. Justice did fantastic today. He has definitely turned a corner.
10/6/24: Spirit, Varoom! and Zest
I edited a few of each for the weekly letter to nursing home residents that I write. See them after the text.
The smoke was so bad that we were forced to go to the arena to train instead. Denise had been in charge of procuring equipment for the exterior searches (I was in charge of recruiting vehicles). The equipment had been in the little trailer that we use for trials, but Sue, our trainer, was on “get ready to evacuate” status so she had unloaded everything in the arena in order to pack stuff from her home. We had a blast using all the trial items for our training session.
Zest did much better today, possibly because in the arena there are much less distractions. We were all very pleased with her. We had 5 search areas. On the first round, we had them work one small and one pretty large area; on the second round we did the other three, small, areas. Out of a total of 15 hides today, Zeal only refused to acknowledge two, a vast improvement. We can all see that she knows there’s a hide there, but she just refuses to indicate. It doesn’t seem to be that she dislikes a certain scent, but so far I haven’t figured out why she’ll go past one hide and then nail the next. She definitely prefers praise as her primary reward, then treats – and today decided she loved to chase the ball after each find, too. She’ll get there. Her dad, Justice, was very slow to begin to enjoy learning. Slow maturation is typical in the East German and Czech lines, so I’m hopeful Zest will come alive and love nosework, just as her dad has done this summer.
Spirit is first, then Zest, then Varoom!
10/12/24: The air quality was so awful due to the smoke from the wildfire that we didn’t train. The fire ended up burning 89,000+ acres. One night I could see flames from my front yard, and the fire was over 20 miles away.
10/13/24: Mercy, Hopeful and Dakuya
The weather was a little chilly, but we had a great time. The dogs loved the cooler temperatures. Hopeful had us laughing at her enthusiasm, silly girl!
10/19/24: Lovely, Justice and Zeal
Zeal has decided she REALLY likes this game!!
10/20/24: Spirit, Hopeful and Pascha
Pascha is really getting into the game. On one search, she jumped onto a flatbed trailer as she tried to find the hide. Good girl!
10/26/24: Mercy, Varoom! and Zest
Varoom! struggled today. She had trouble focusing. I tried throwing the ball after every find rather than treats after each find and the ball after we finish the 5th one. That helped some, but she wasn’t as intense on the ball as usual. She has been shedding like crazy, which usually happens just before they come into heat. Maybe the hormones are starting, and they can definitely interfere with working.
Zest does much better on the second search than on the first one. I can’t figure out just what the weak link in her training is – or if it’s an inability to handle her drive so she just zones out. When she absolutely won’t search or indicate, we move on to the next hide. Sometimes she aces one but not another. She is still wilder than her sister, Zeal, in everything (not just nosework). I found my smaller harness and used it on Zest. I don’t like that one as well as my hand-crafted one that I had specially made in the early 70s by an Amish leatherworker, but it might be more comfortable for her.
10/27/24: Lovely, Justice & Dakuya
Great day of training! Justice keeps getting better and better, more intense and less distractible. Still vocalizes a lot, though – but he does that all the time at home anyway. He’s becoming a lot of fun to work.
Dakuya is doing great! Today I used the smaller harness on her, too.
11/2/24 & 11/3/24: Both of us had conflicts, plus the weather wasn’t good. We’re hoping everything will cooperate for next weekend, though we know at some point we’ll have to give up for the winter.
11/10/24: Spirit, Hopeful & Dakuya
We delayed going until 11 a.m. to let the day warm up after a very chilly night. Amazingly, it ended up being short-sleeve weather. It was Pascha’s turn, but she was in heat, so Dakuya got to go.
Spirit, Varoom! and Zest See photos of the Craftco Metalworks storage yard where we train
See An Illustrated Explanation of Nosework for Those Unfamiliar with It