Moon Follows Her Nose

Nosework is an awesome sport. It is a great sport for any dog. We started to notice after a few walks with Moon where she started to feel comfortable, even completely enjoying her time out in nature, that she almost always has her nose to the ground sniffing. She sniffs animal trails, fern fronds, anything an animal has walked by and touched or peed on. She sniffs rocks and water and mud. She sniffS sniFFS SNIFFS everything she can and all the while her tail is wagging or up at attention or relaxed but not slung under her body like in the beginning when she first arrived. Sniffing and seeking is her game so I thought Nosework a game where she would figure out which box held a treat would be right up her ally. It is a quiet sport so she wouldn't be overwhelmed by noise, it is a self rewarding sport, find the box with the treat and eat it! Sounds good to me! And because she has to maneuver boxes and new things in her environment she gets a good dose of confidence building :) The cool thing is we can do this at home.

Today has to be the nicest day of the year so far and Moon was enjoying the warmth of the sun as much as anyone.

More exploring....

This first video is the very first time I threw the boxes out for Moon to see what she would do. My dogs were in the house and Skip and Liza were having fits that they were missing out, but this was Moon's turn to shine and shine she did! The thing is I am not supposed to help her or say anything. This makes it all about her and she can take the time she needs. I made sure to keep an eye on her tail position, I wanted this to be ok for her and not stressful. By the position of her tail, relaxed I think she was just fine with the boxes. Moon is so smart she didn't take any time at all to figure out what to do.

In this second try video Moon checked a couple boxes out but then stops. My camera was running low so I stopped and then picked back up once she got interested again, but the waiting is just as important as the finding, the dog really has to think about what they need to do.

This third video is super cool. You will see her sniffing the air. A breeze had picked up and she was catching a whiff of those yummy treats on the wind. She wanders around a bit, pondering the scent wafting in the air, then she hones in on it. My camera battery died but I got most of it.