Nosework Thread

[Ravenbird]

I think we’ve trained enough that now we can test how well I can read him when I’m unsure of where the hide is

I'm sure you can. Novice will be a breeze for him (and you). It IS good to start doing some blind hides, and with boxes and buried (if you're doing that) is no wiggle room so easy yes or no from your hide-setter. Interior & Exterior your alert should be very close to source, and judges can ask you "where?". In my videos one thing I noticed on me & my friends is that when we know where the hide is, our body language changes. When the dog gets close, we get still, we get ready to reward and the dog knows it. I also noticed that when I set hides Asha finds them a bit faster than when one of my friends sets them, whether I'm running blind or know where they are... Is she following my odor as well? my footsteps? I don't doubt it, but it's true with the other dogs too. The one that sets the hides almost always their dog is a bit sharper. So yeah, if you're going to enter this fall, have someone do hides for you. Video so you can study how you look/act when you don't know where it is.

 

[Rits]

I have not "worked on" setting hides on purpose like this, and don't know enough theory to know exactly how to make sure it's going to work like I want it to.

Get a decent length of PVC pipe with holes drilled into it about 6" apart. Stick a fan on one end. Stick your cotton swap in a hole. Work her going into the airflow so its blowing scent towards her. She will immediately pick up the pooling scent all at the end walking into it and think thats it but its not correct. Ignore her and let her keep working. When she pinpoints source, big party!! Change what hole in the pipe it is in and work her again. You are teaching her to find HOT and not "warm".

 

[Ravenbird]

Get a decent length of PVC pipe with holes drilled into it about 6" apart. Stick a fan on one end. Stick your cotton swap in a hole. Work her going into the airflow so its blowing scent towards her. She will immediately pick up the polling scent all at the end walking into it and think thats it but its not correct. Ignore her and let her keep working. When she pinpoints source, big party!! Change what hole in the pipe it is in and work her again.

Brilliant!!! Thank you!

 

[Rits]

Asha always blows through the start, not a good habit, but she will then settle and I had every intention of bringing her back to that area, but we NQ'd before we got a chance.

This is Ripley So much enthusiasm, its hard not to laugh nor do I necessarily want to discourage it. Yeah in trial, I would have called that alert too. Now you know where she struggles that you can start doing some purposeful training opportunities to help her distinguish between hot and warm. You guys are doing great for self taught!! Goes to show ya you can do a lot on your own even if its just for fun!!

 

[Ravenbird]

Now you know where she struggles that you can start doing some purposeful training opportunities to help her

I know where we struggle, it's solutions of how to fix these things (creative hide setting with purpose) that I need professional input. And like that video in the kitchen (post #44 in this thread) she worked hard on that step stool to pinpoint the exact spot of the hide, so I feel like she knows to work it to source before alerting. So to see her alert a good 8 feet away is totally ... I love the idea of the PVC pipe you described. That'll be on my to-do list. Also converging odors: Asha alerted right in the middle between two hides on an Interior, instead of finding the two different hides separately. And that's the thing about higher levels, they are setting hides to be harder puzzles, as they should. The Q rate was never over 50%, most runs were 25 - 30% Q rate for Excellent, Masters & Detective. Detective had zero Q's on day 2. I didn't take time to look at results on Novice or Advanced.

 

[Ravenbird]

Reckless and her handler accomplished their 2nd NW3 - it's different than AKC, but it is the highest level before adding elites and summits. If you get the NW3 three times it's called Elite and they just need one more now. Impressive team for sure, Reckless is 10 and handler just turned 84. I think working together and having goals is the key to living.

 

[MichiH]

Reckless and her handler accomplished their 2nd NW3 - it's different than AKC, but it is the highest level before adding elites and summits. If you get the NW3 three times it's called Elite and they just need one more now. Impressive team for sure, Reckless is 10 and handler just turned 84. I think working together and having goals is the key to living.

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Wow that’s wonderful!!! Congratulations!
What a sweet relationship they have too

 

[Ravenbird]

Just some fascinating facts, whether you do scent work with your dog or not!

 

[Ravenbird]

This past weekend we went to a 3 day trial. Asha is in Masters in all elements now. It's tough and my lackadaisical training lately was showing.
It really is coming to a point where hands-on instructors are needed! Anyway, Friday 0 Q's for 4 runs, Saturday 0 Q's for 4 runs, Sunday we got 3 Q's from our 4 runs, one of them being Exterior, so that finished our Master Exterior title.

The judges were excellent and very helpful, almost always showing me where we went wrong (when there was an obvious reason) when getting an NQ. At this level the expectations of handler and dog is so different and you really have to be able to think about what is going on in the search, what your dog is doing and be able to help them work the puzzle. Pressure is put on the handler in the "unknown number of hides" - you have to call when you're finished, you don't know for sure unless a judge puts out the maximum number listed for that element and you've gotten them all. Anyway, we did learn a lot, had a good time, and vowing to do better next time! I was really pleased with Asha's work ethics with a couple of exceptions that were confusing and I still don't know what those were all about.

 

[strykerdobe]

This past weekend we went to a 3 day trial. Asha is in Masters in all elements now. It's tough and my lackadaisical training lately was showing.
It really is coming to a point where hands-on instructors are needed! Anyway, Friday 0 Q's for 4 runs, Saturday 0 Q's for 4 runs, Sunday we got 3 Q's from our 4 runs, one of them being Exterior, so that finished our Master Exterior title.

The judges were excellent and very helpful, almost always showing me where we went wrong (when there was an obvious reason) when getting an NQ. At this level the expectations of handler and dog is so different and you really have to be able to think about what is going on in the search, what your dog is doing and be able to help them work the puzzle. Pressure is put on the handler in the "unknown number of hides" - you have to call when you're finished, you don't know for sure unless a judge puts out the maximum number listed for that element and you've gotten them all. Anyway, we did learn a lot, had a good time, and vowing to do better next time! I was really pleased with Asha's work ethics with a couple of exceptions that were confusing and I still don't know what those were all about.

View attachment 155572View attachment 155573

 

[Katyusharocket]

Friday 0 Q's for 4 runs, Saturday 0 Q's for 4 runs, Sunday we got 3 Q's from our 4 runs, one of them being Exterior, so that finished our Master Exterior title.

Congratulations on your new title! Master anything is pretty far down the road for us, so great job!

The judges were excellent and very helpful, almost always showing me where we went wrong (when there was an obvious reason) when getting an NQ

We got this kind of helpful judge at our last show, it was super helpful! The judge was very concerned that the dog gets the smell of the hide and is rewarded no matter if the team Q'd or not. That, I thought, was a judge who is very passionate about the sport and wanted betterment for the team over time.

 

[BGpa]

This past weekend we went to a 3 day trial. Asha is in Masters in all elements now. It's tough and my lackadaisical training lately was showing.
It really is coming to a point where hands-on instructors are needed! Anyway, Friday 0 Q's for 4 runs, Saturday 0 Q's for 4 runs, Sunday we got 3 Q's from our 4 runs, one of them being Exterior, so that finished our Master Exterior title.

The judges were excellent and very helpful, almost always showing me where we went wrong (when there was an obvious reason) when getting an NQ. At this level the expectations of handler and dog is so different and you really have to be able to think about what is going on in the search, what your dog is doing and be able to help them work the puzzle. Pressure is put on the handler in the "unknown number of hides" - you have to call when you're finished, you don't know for sure unless a judge puts out the maximum number listed for that element and you've gotten them all. Anyway, we did learn a lot, had a good time, and vowing to do better next time! I was really pleased with Asha's work ethics with a couple of exceptions that were confusing and I still don't know what those were all about.

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Great report!

 

[JanS]

That would be really hard for me but it sounds like you and Asha did great overall.

 

[Ravenbird]

The judge was very concerned that the dog gets the smell of the hide and is rewarded no matter if the team Q'd or not. That, I thought, was a judge who is very passionate about the sport and wanted betterment for the team over time.

all the AKC trials I've been to, this was the case in Novice and Advanced, but saw less of it in Excellent so wasn't expecting it at all in Masters. I think it's not so much they don't want to help, but probably that you already know and have had enough experience to deal with it. Maybe these gals (3 different judges over the 3 days) could tell that I wasn't seeing what they were seeing. Anyway, great experience and more learning.

That would be really hard for me but it sounds like you and Asha did great overall.

It's really not that hard until you get further up in levels, and I can't imagine if I'd had an instructor all these years. Gathering info on the internet and watching a few webinars is helpful and I'd be lost without that, but a teacher in real time is priceless. I'm always pleased with Ashas nose work, she loves it and puts out 110% in every run we do.

 

[Ravenbird]

Gotta put a plug in for J & Reckless - it's been said to go back to basics when things get hard for your dog, not just nose work but anything you're training. Back up, make it fun and easy. So in addition to a Detective trial each day J entered Reckless in an Advanced interior & Advanced exterior. 2 hides, you know there are only two, no complicated puzzles or difficult hides. This allowed Reckless to go in, have a fast fun search, easily successful and highly rewarded. It does freshen the dogs up when they've been going to trials and they just get harder and more complicated. So what happened? She Q'd every day in every Detective as well as placing 1st in ALL three. And of course Q'd in her Advanced level with placements there as well. (A toy comes with every blue ribbon) May I remind you that this team is a combined age of 95 years.

 

[Rits]

Sounds like you guys did fairly well for the high level and Asha really brought it in on the last day!! Glad it ended out on a great note!

 

[Ravenbird]

Sounds like you guys did fairly well for the high level and Asha really brought it in on the last day!! Glad it ended out on a great note!

Yes, most of her NQ's were "close but no cigar". One was on an office chair in a corner where the hide was on the wheel of the chair, odor rising, pooling under the seat of the chair, the corner of the room preventing odor escape. Her nose explored all over the seat, then she ducked her head under the chair nosing the underside of the seat (where the largest pool of odor was stagnated) and alerted on that. It was an NQ even though she was right over it. It's the kind of thing that in practice and knowing where the hide was, I would ignore the alert and repeat the search word and she would keep going until she pin-pointed it. In trial, I have to believe the alert, so NQ. That kind of NQ was getting me down by the end of Saturday! On Sunday the one NQ I got was in Interiors and timed out. We had 1 min 30 seconds for each of 3 rooms, 0 to 3 hides possible in each room. We got the 2 hides in room one, and went to room 2 and got 1 more hide but she was still frantically working odor and I timed out before she alerted. 1.5 minutes is tight for complicated rooms!!! No judges warning on time in Masters, up to handler to wear a stop watch or timer, I had set mine for a minute so I'd know when I had 30 seconds left. Not saying unfair, just saying it can be tough!

 

[Ravenbird]

If you have FB, there's a page called AKC Scent Work Judges Debriefs and it just so happened that the judge of the run I have described above is on it. It's a great learning tool (this FB page) for anyone going into the sport. It was interesting to note that I was not the only one whose dog alerted exactly where she pointed. Usually these debriefs are Masters or Detective but I have seen a few that are lower levels as well. Even if you're at Novice or Advanced you can get ideas about placing hides in your practices from these videos and explanations from the judges.

AKC Scent Work Judges' Debriefs | Chaparral Kennel Club 8/9/25 | Facebook

Chaparral Kennel Club 8/9/25 Master Interior

www.facebook.com

Here's the result sheet:

 

[JanS]

I had to look up what a Sealyham Terrier was but they're cute!

 

[BGpa]

I had to look up what a Sealyham Terrier was but they're cute!

Look like a great companion dog!