What I Did On My Very First Vacation. Fort Stevens State Park part 1 (nosework)

This day on our OR coast vacation we decided to explore Fort Stevens State Park

Fort Stevens was the primary military defense installation in the three fort Harbor Defense System at the mouth of the Columbia River (Forts Canby and Columbia in Washington were the other two). The fort served for 84 years, beginning with the Civil War and closing at the end of World War II. Today, Fort Stevens has grown into a 3,700 acre park offering exploration of history, nature, and recreational opportunities.

There are a lot of trails in this park. You need more than a day to explore the whole thing. We have been here a few times and it seems like we always figure out one more cool trail to walk on and we did find some new territory this time too!

We found a large empty parking lot and so we decided to do a little nosework with the dogs. I got some good video of Skip doing his stuff.

Boring pic I know, but this is part of the parking lot where we were doing the nosework with the dogs. This is just a very small portion of the parking lot and we did hides in the lot and also down the trails.

We hid 5 hides (odor hides) and let Skip do some off leash searching, his favorite way to search (opposed to being leashed). He found all the hides in his own chosen order and I am sure it had to do with the way the odor was traveling that day.

As you can see Skip is a natural and it might seem easy but this is a huge parking lot and he had to do a lot of bracketing and thinking to figure it out. He is an amazing boy...

It is also interesting to think about that all the hides are in the same general area so the odor is coming off each one and co-mingling with each other but Skip has been doing this long enough now he has learned that once he finds a hide he is done with that one and needs to continue looking for another. Dogs are so smart!

In this next video you will see Skip start to go down one path then turn around the end up finding the hide down a different path. He was correct when he started down the first path (there was a hide down there too)

 

And in this last video he finds the last hide. The funny thing is he stopped to pee on the way to finding the hide and if this had been a trial he would have been disqualified! Luckily for Skip we were just doing this all for fun!

Next Tim took a turn and found all the hides in close to the same order as Skip! He also loves nosework and this was something that helped him to feel confident in this new place. After both boys took their turns we headed out the path to see what we could see!

Jenny says "mom are you coming?"

Tim sniffs a piece of sea grass that hangs over the trail, he is certain an animal has passed by recently. There were deer or elk tracks in the sand so I bet that was what he was smelling.

What could be at the end of the trail?

"Mom hurry, there is something I want you to see!"

Skip and Tim make us promise we will go down to that beach way down there.

We did go down to that beach down there, but you will have to check back to see our next adventure!

Nosework is for Everyone! Part 5 Jenny-Boo

As the title to these Nosework posts say.....Nosework is for EVERYONE! It is true. Skip and Tim have been spotlighted as they are the dogs who are going to the formal classes with mom and dad.

When we practice in the yard or house we have to put everyone away because all the dogs, yes all 5 of them, want to take a turn... And what I mean by "want to take a turn" is we have squealing, whining, barking, pogo-ing, and general mayhem from those who are waiting to take their turn. ha ha ha...

I mean to a dog what could be funner? Hanging out with mom and dad, searching for food that is hiding in a box. This game is a terriers dream! And our "mature" girl Jenny-Boo doesn't think this is a game just for boys, oh no. Jenny is hard of hearing and her sight isn't what it used to be, but boy-oh, oops I mean, girl-oh-girl does her sniffer still work. She could find the smallest of morsels anywhere-anytime. When we were practicing with novel things, Jenny was in the house barking up a storm saying "not fair not fair, I WANT a turn!!!!!!!". So that is exactly what she got. This is her very first time finding treats in a box in a more formal way and she was on it like a pro. Did someone say "find food?", Jenny's in!

I started with her by tossing treats in the grass for her to find and to lure her toward the search area, this isn't really the official way to get a dog started on this but we were just having fun with what we had out. She isn't going to be doing this as a profession so we weren't so careful with the way we were working with her. Treats were involved and that is all she cares about. Jenny also has very few teeth so the treats we happened to have were taking her a little time to eat. I would normally use a very soft treat for her in the future. Jenny didn't care though, Cheese Please happens to be a favorite of Jenny's. As you will see she did figure it out and really quick! This was her very first time ever!

Her second try and what a pro! It also came in handy that she is hard of hearing because there was a loud noise right when she found the box and I am glad it didn't scare her.

Jenny really has no fear in so many ways. If you knew how she was when we first got her 6 years ago, you would know how amazing she is doing. Finding a box under a chair is something that would still be nerve-wracking to Timken. Good girl Jenny-Boo!

Look at that 14 year old rattie girl.

Work it Jenny-Boo! Work that nose...

Found it! Jenny wants everyone to know that Nosework is for everyone....including her very proud and beaming mom and dad. Woof!

I hope everyone reading this series will try Nosework with their dogs, in a formal class, or at home. Everyone wins when they are doing Nosework!

There will be more in this series, Birdie and Liza get into the act too, and Tim and Skip continue with formal classes and continue to hone their skills.

Nosework is for Everyone! Part 4 Novel Things

You can see parts 1-3 here

Nosework is for Everyone! Part 1

Nosework is for Everyone! Part 2

Nosework is for Everyone! Part 3

When we walked into the class and saw all of this stuff out I knew we were all going to have some fun! Tim and Skip knew all about the game of Nosework  when it meant looking for treats in boxes and they really get excited when they see the boxes come out at our house. So this is called "upping the criteria". Now that the dogs in class all were very familiar with boxes around it was time for them to learn that "the place where a treat (or odor) could be hiding for them to find is endless!" 

This is what we saw when we walked in the facility that day.

The find was still in a box but there were so many things to check out in between!

Even this hand was one of the novel items.

Skip working

Wow this makes Skip have to really get working....

 Skip loves this game!

So of course we have to practice during the week so here are a few videos of us doing our own novel thing hides and finds. Now we are using food inside a container with holes in it which raises the criteria a little more as it is harder to smell what is inside. Tim, unlike Skip, is worried to stay with the raised box so that is why I took it off the chair to reward him for finding it. At first I rewarded him away from the box (wrong on my part) so then I remembered to put the box down on the ground and reward right at "source". There is a good reason for this which I will explain in a future blog post.

Because Skip seems to really like to work at this game I decided to put the hide inside a toy squirrel tree and see if he could figure it out....of course he does, he is a rock star! Because there is no reward that Skip can eat when he gets to the find it is up to Dave to reward him as quickly as possible so that Skip gets the point that when he finds the hide he gets a reward, even if it is just an odor he is searching for. This is all building up to something so hang tight it will make sense. Also it is good to note that right now we are telling each other where we are hiding the treat box, but when you really get into Nosework Trials the hides are blind hides, meaning we will have to learn our dog's alert signals telling us he/she has "found source".

 Stay tuned as another little terrier gets into the act.....

Jenny-Boo wants to share something with you......coming soon!

Nosework is for Everyone! Part 3 First Formal Class

You can see parts 1 and 2 here

Nosework is for Everyone! Part 1

Nosework is for Everyone! Part 2 

Note: this post represents Tim and Skip in the first couple of weeks of class a couple of months ago now.

Now that we had prepared Tim for what he would be facing when we went to our first class, as far as  searching boxes for food rewards, we were ready to go! We knew Skip would be fine going to class as long as no one got into his personal bubble without him being ok with that. Tim on the other hand, who is noise sensitive, worries about new people and environments, we knew he would have a lot to take in when we went to class. Our Nosework instructor, Erica Wells, is really awesome though, and she knows how to work within each of her canine student's comfort zones. So Tim had a special "dirty box" (only box that holds the food treats), that was low and had no flaps. And Skip gets all the space he needs without anyone getting too close to him until he was comfortable. He got comfortable with Erica, our instructor, right away as she is super dog savvy and so Skip was fine with her reaching toward him and the boxes from the beginning. 

Here is Skip doing his stuff in class on the first day.

I didn't get an video of Tim in class. When he is taking his turn it is important for us to be fully present to his needs. So I put the recorder away and camera and just focus on Tim. Erica and I are always making sure he is feeling safe and within his comfort zone. In class he can worry about noises and movements he is not expecting. But here at home in our yard where he feels safe he shows lots of progress with the game.

                                      

I like this video. Tim takes a moment to "think" and then he picks up the odor of the treats in the box and goes right to it. Learning in class how odor moves and pools depending on air current, temperature, even things blocking it or splitting the odor, is so fascinating.

As class sessions go on we were given "threshold" search as a homework project. The goal is for our dog to begin searching the instant he enters the search area or room. So putting the box where the dog will be walking right by, or just outside a threshold really challenges them to be using their noses all the time when we are doing a search. So you can see Tim blows right past the box and goes out into the yard to search the other boxes he sees out there. Just means we need a lot more practice.

In this video Tim takes a quick notice that the box is right there when he crosses the threshold and he comes back around to find it. He might not have caught the odor when he came out of the door. Odor moves in different patterns so it could have been more in front or to the other side, again it depends on air current and temperature and any blockages in air current too.

Another search is the "elevated" search. In an elevated search the odor is most likely not on the ground or even close to the ground, so again the dog has to learn how to try to catch odor by sniffing higher than they might normally do. Beagles who normally are very "nose to the ground" really have to practice this a lot to learn to think differently. In this video the dirty box is in the chair and even has a couple of other boxes blocking the odor from the top. It might look like Skip is aimlessly sniffing around but what he is actually doing is catching the odor and following it back to "source". He has to do a couple of rounds to hone in on it and follow his nose to it. Then it is like magic and he figures it out just like that!

Stay tuned! Class #3 was searching for the food treat among all these novel things. So fun!

Nosework is for Everyone! Part 2 Tim Getting Comfortable

Once Tim began to get excited to play the game of eating treats off of flat pieces of cardboard it was time to see how he would do with trying to locate a box with a treat inside and eating the treat out of the box. So I picked a low sided box and taped the flaps down tight so there was no chance of any accidental flap movement. And I made sure to have some super yummy treats, cheese!

Tim really took to the game and although in these videos he is still not 100% comfortable he was continuing to want to play the game and he was getting more and more comfortable each time he practiced.

You will notice I am not saying much or acting excited (even though on the inside I am always beaming when I watch my dogs work). Nosework is not a game that is meant to be energetic. I don't even have to ask Tim or Skip to "find it" or "search" as they know when they see the boxes that it means to search and find the box that, in this case, holds the reward. This is another part of the beauty of Nosework, the handler isn't teaching the dog anything, the dog is actually teaching the handler how he searches (many dogs search in unique ways). Our instructor Erica Wells reminds us frequently "trust your dog" and the more we get into doing Nosework with Skip and Tim the deeper I am coming to understand what a powerful statement that is.

Tim waits patiently behind the gate for me to shuffle the boxes again, changing where the "dirty box" (the box with the food reward) is for him to search and find.

In this video you see Tim sit in front of me and look at me for quite a while. At this point he was still not sure what he was supposed to do so he was checking in with me for direction. I didn't say anything or point him in the right direction and you can see the lightbulb go on in his head, he caught a whiff of the treats and turned on his own and started to search again. Sometimes we need to just let our dogs have a moment to think and process for them selves and Nosework really helps to remind us of this.

You will see that I put the treats in the corners of the box. This is only because I was wanting to push Tim's comfort zone a bit as I knew he needed to start to be comfortable with where the rewards were in the box in case in the class the treats were not always right in the middle. You can see he is not comfortable yet and he really tries to make sure he doesn't touch any of the boxes with his paws, but he is making progress.

A definite Timken Lean showing me he is still not comfortable with putting his head in the box.

Stay tuned as you will see Tim really start to rock Nosework. And there will be video of Skip who is the Nosework King!

Nosework is for Everyone! Part 1 A New En Deavour

I am very excited to share our newest venture with you, Nosework! If you don't know what the heck Nosework is I encourage you to read all about it here http://k9nosework.com/ . The absolute coolest thing about Nosework is that any dog can do it. Does your dog have a nose? Then your dog can do Nosework. The other really great thing about it is that any human can easily learn how to be your dog's handler. Also it is good to know that your dog does not need to know any cues/commands whatsoever. Your dog can be the most shy, reactive, deaf, blind, old, young, active, sedentary, pick a label, that dog can do Nosework and will be accepted in a Nosework class. Perfect! So not that we like to use labels but just to bring the point home, we signed up Timken (our soft, fearful boy) and Skip (needs his space from new people, can be reactive) for a 6 week Nosework session with Erica Wells Certified Nosework Instructor.

We have almost finished our first 6 week course and I would love to encourage anyone reading this blog to consider a Nosework series with your dog/s, you won't be sorry.

We had played around with Nosework in our home quite a few times in the past. Birdie and Liza have taken a series of Nosework classes about a year ago. I have fellow New Rattitude foster parents and adopters who have been doing Nosework with their personal and foster dogs and I have been in awe of the progress the dogs have been making in confidence and in their work ethic (they all love to search). So we wanted to see how Nosework would help our two boys, Skip and Tim, each with his own personality that could use a little fine tuning. :)

To get Timken ready to begin Nosework I took the advice of a peer foster mom who suggested starting Tim out with treats on a flat piece of cardboard to begin. Tim can be afraid of novel things. And so boxes and especially boxes with flaps were a real hang up for him. In beginning Nosework the dogs are finding treats in boxes so we needed to make sure Tim could feel successful in class so we practiced at home for a few weeks before our first official class.

I worked with a few different sizes of flat cardboard and then combinations of boxes and cardboard. Tim was hesitant as you can see in the videos but he was able to work through it.

In this video I was just doing some simple cues with Tim that he knows, "sit" and touch" while we were near the cardboard. He is so sweet.

And in these two videos I had a couple of boxes in the mix and again he is hesitant but he did great!

Here is a glimpse of what happened next...