NOSE WORK – CLASS 4 OF 5 – 12.05.2010

Class was fun today!  Dee did some new stuff with us that we loved!  I arrived to class a few minutes late because I had an all-day fitness workshop.  Orso has really taken a liking to nose work.  He enjoys searching by scent and gets excited when he knows it’s his turn to “go find” the hidden treats.  Dee set up the boxes tonight lined up from the very beginning, almost the way luggage would be arranged at an airport security checkpoint.  Only 1 box was baited and Orso did a great job of finding it pretty quickly.  She added some plastic boxes covered with fabric to the line-up and again Orso did great.  He has gotten really good at alerting us when he finds something.  He will either paw at the container or he will sit and stare at us.  What was really different about tonight’s class was that Dee wanted to teach the dogs to search for items outside of the area we have been working in up until now.  She bungeed plastic boxes to trees surrounding the parking lot and placed treats in all of them.  One box was high up in a tree.  Our job was to reward Orso when he’d show any interest in the boxes.  Orso did really well with this new exercise and although it took him a few minutes to figure out that he was supposed to be finding something in or on the trees, once he did, he started to alert me immediately.  He’s so smart!  Below is a short video clip of me working with Orso at the beginning of class and a few photos from the rest of the time in class, including a couple of shots of one of Orso’s classmates.  Enjoy!