Nosework Thread
- Thread starter Rits
- Start date
This is something that Asha does occasionally, but especially with certain conditions. The main one being a recent heavy rain and a breeze. It must bring out smells that are newly released and you can see the wheels churning in her head, reading the all the news that's just been released.
We got caught in the rain today on our hike, we were soaking wet and cold. Half the sky was still blue, but I had to stop and video a few seconds of this. She had to stop to smell the wind several times once the rain passed. She slobbers freely when her brain is processing odors, plus she's soaking wet and muddy. I know what the action of this is regarding nose to brain, but I can't remember what it's called. Do any of you see your dogs do this "in the wild"? ((It's not anything they would do in scent work sports))
We got caught in the rain today on our hike, we were soaking wet and cold. Half the sky was still blue, but I had to stop and video a few seconds of this. She had to stop to smell the wind several times once the rain passed. She slobbers freely when her brain is processing odors, plus she's soaking wet and muddy. I know what the action of this is regarding nose to brain, but I can't remember what it's called. Do any of you see your dogs do this "in the wild"? ((It's not anything they would do in scent work sports))
I have actually noticed that myself, even though our sense of smell is a fraction of what a dogs is. I'm sure if you've had a lack of rain, Asha is smelling all sorts of things after the rain brought it out.
BG1
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Yes, Bonnie does this a lot, "reading the breeze"
and I'll stand and watch, and
ask "what is it?"...and look thst way...
to let her know I'm into it too.
This is something I do when we go hike - take an article that I keep in my pocket, so my scent only. I've previously taught Asha to down on articles found, which is a different alert than what we used for essential oil scent work trials. Yesterday when Asha was way ahead of me on the trail I tossed the leather article as far as I could without taking a step off the trail. Then I called her back to me and point her that direction and my command is Find the Article - so she knows what she's looking for. She heads out and gets the scent after just a few seconds, takes a hard right and finds it within another few seconds. This was too easy. Next time I'll try to toss it out on my way out and send her to hunt for it on the way back so it "cooks" for an hour.
That's a neat way to work her nose when she isn't looking for oils in competition! I am guessing the command you use for the article is different than when you have her look for oils?
Zastava's sister Dutchess was always a bit "handsy" responding to oils in competition so her owner turned to barn hunt so she can dig the find out. Barn hunt is neat and we would like to try it with them but Zastava never wanted to touch the oils so I would need to think about ways to train her to touch the rat but not touch the oil finds.
Zastava's sister Dutchess was always a bit "handsy" responding to oils in competition so her owner turned to barn hunt so she can dig the find out. Barn hunt is neat and we would like to try it with them but Zastava never wanted to touch the oils so I would need to think about ways to train her to touch the rat but not touch the oil finds.
Yes, I say "Find the article!" In scent work trials I say "sook!" and when we learned searching hidden people it was "search!"
I'm not sure but I think you don't want them to touch or disturb the tube the rat is in. I know they can't disturb it, not sure about how much touching is allowed. There's a thread here on Barn Hunt and a lot of basics on the sport. Asha is nuts over a rat/chipmunk/mouse in the wild, but was not interested in barn hunt at all. We went to an intro class and she indicated the tube, climbed the bales, tunneled, did all the things, but the rat smell did not excite her, I think because the rats are use to being sniffed and huffed at and they just stay still in their tube.
Also it was one more thing I couldn't practice at home so I couldn't get too excited about it.
jazzies mum
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I love this. It shows a Doberman who has a job, does it well and is delighted with themselves! What a team!
I got some Morel mushrooms from a fellow Doberman owner/mushroom forager, and got Zastava's nose successfully attuned to them. I am working with her a lot this weekend and she's doing great! She might be field ready by the time those are in season. Nosework with a real paycheck! I am a little afraid to show my home because it's in a state of disarray and stuck in a started but stopped renovation, but here goes, the moment she catches the scent is just too good.
MichiH
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Nice job and I agree that you have a gold mine there if you find a nice patch!
I don't see a thing wrong with it.
All I can say is keep at it. My son trained his dobie girl to hunt morels and she was amazing at it. I forgot what the going rate was for them at the time but that girl made some serious money!
I am told the rate now is $80/lb. At this time, I intend to only work her for what myself and friends will consume, but I guess one never knows, if she's good enough she might find more than that. I will be sharing my Morels now with another dobie family and have been asked by the supplier of the Morels to train her dobie, too.
I took her for a walk in the city last night, it was the same walk we usually do, but last night she showed nose interest in a small, untended garden type area around a business. I wondered what that was about. Looked at the tree in the garden and sure enough it was an elm tree. We will be watching close there as spring develops into summer.
She has great hunt drive in your videos and you set up some difficulty (on purpose or not) with the floor fan going - that can change a lot of things in the room swirling the target odor everywhere and her having to pinpoint the source!
Fun things to play with setting the hide with the fan off, and take her for a walk around the block so she is not in the house while it "cooks". The term "cooking" is when the hide sits for a while and the odor pools around it if everything is still, or the odor swirls with the air if it's in a room with a fan, a heater, an air conditioner, an open window etc. - So while you walk around the block 10 - 15 minutes or just put her our in the yard, anything so she's not in the house while the odor is doing it's thing, then bring her in at a "start line" with your search command. I didn't have the volume on when watching the videos, but assuming you have a different command than you use for essential oil scent work. Video just as you did here. Then do another hide with the fan on and let it cook again for the same amount of time and again with her away from the odor and watch your videos to see differences in hunting down the target. It's not so much that one way is much harder or not, it's that you can study your videos and begin to see how her behavior and hunting changes with different environmental changes. Easier to see when you set up the controls rather than trying to figure out what happened outdoors in the wild. Since the end result will always be outdoors the weather will be a factor and the fan is a great way to alter odor movement while still having a bit of control for training her and training YOU to watch for behavior changes that she indicates with!
I don't know anything about mushrooms, but if the morals only grow in the ground, I'd keep your hides at ground level (looks like you're already doing that) - so if in the wild the sun is taking the odor up a tree trunk or a wall, she will have figured out that the target will never be found up there. Also, if they are always found on the ground, you could train a final response like a down or a sit so it would be entirely different from your trial scent work, clarifying that this is a different ballgame.
So much fun, I'm excited for you and so glad you're sharing!
thanks! You have noticed a lot and also presented some good ideas! I, so far, have been using the same search command that I do with the oils, but I should probably change that, as hunting in the wild will be a very different experience for us both. I decided after this morning's runs that I do need to teach a tell. She has shaved about half the time off of any search since yesterday morning, so she would be ready to learn one. I am not a hugely experienced mushroom hunter, but I think Morels are always found on the ground, so I have been keeping it at ground level. I never realized how much is going on in this world with air currents until I started watching my dog follow a scent. Convection is everywhere, even when we don't notice it, but I can see it when I watch her look for a hide. Up and down her nose goes, even inside in a retail or home environment. It's probably time to get her outside to search, too. I think she would be ready for that. It's going to be way different for us both to go into an unlimited search area, and really not even knowing if the Morels are out. From what I gather, the window of time is pretty narrow on them being found in the wild. Here is one of this morning's searches.
Excellent!
Outside for planted searches, yes. I would be careful about a real wild search this early in the game. If your friends know where the morals might be in the wild and you can go with them to search, find the mushrooms first, then bring your dog in at a distance and set her up with your search alert to find them just as they grow, untouched by human hands, and preferably no footsteps leading to them. I did discover in practicing nose work that Asha was much faster to find hides that I had planted than hides my friends had planted. Then we all started taking notes and every dog found hides faster if their owner had planted them than one of the other people. So they are "pairing" your scent with the hides - which is OK when introducing any odor, but has to be proofed off for trials or real hunting!
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