Nosework Thread

[Katyusharocket]

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!

yes, I was just thinking to get her in my back yard with outdoor things happening as they do, with me planting the hide. That's interesting about finding it quicker when planted by their human. I think there is a nosework competition for that at higher levels, but I can't remember the name of it right now. It's where the dog says which glove it's owner wore or something like that. Those introduction in the wild ideas are good ones, too.

 

[Ravenbird]

Trained Final Response - This is how I train a TFR down on an object. This is called a shaped TFR, meaning the dog offers behavior and when it's what you want to see you click & reward. I use to like to use the word yes, but find the clicker somehow is more definitive with zero wavering in tone like a voice can be. (I still use "yes" when my hands are full with leash or toy rewards etc). So there is no hiding or finding - the target is right there. Your mushroom should be in a container with holes so the odor is there but she can't put her mouth on it. Set it down and when she goes to it click/reward. Toss the food a few feet away so she leaves the target. She'll come back and when she looks at it or smells it click/reward. Progress with silence, no verbal "good dog", no nothing. Without asking she will offer more behavior if looking at it and looking at you doesn't work, she may try sitting - click/reward at offered behavior, soon enough she will down. toss food further so she has to come back and start at square one approaching the target. then add duration - staying down with eyes on the prize, not looking at you for several seconds before the click/reward, then make it 10 seconds and so on. Make this a training session all on its own, don't do it while using hides. 3 - 5 minutes max, quit while she's still enthusiastic, if she gets frustrated back up to any good alert click/reward and stop the lesson. Appears she has excellent drive for food reward and I think she'll pick it up quickly. Remember that this has nothing to do with hide & seek or hunt drive or odor. It's about training a response to an object, so keep it separate. Later she'll associate it with the odor and begin doing it when she finds it in a search.

In this video, Asha had already been trained to down on a human scent article, so it came a bit faster to this new object, but even the very first time I taught this, she picked it up super fast. You have to watch with the sound up to hear the clicker, because the clicker timing is most important. If your dog has not been loaded/charged on a clicker, you would have to do that first and totally separate from any clicker training. Super important that the click happens before you reach for the treat so it's the sound that indicates the correct behavior, NOT your body language.

Most of all, have fun!

 

[Ravenbird]

I think there is a nosework competition for that at higher levels, but I can't remember the name of it right now. It's where the dog says which glove it's owner wore or something like that.

In AKC it's called Handler Discrimination. I never did it because I thought I might be doing the IGP tracking or Article Search and both of those the first level is your own scent and after that it's a random persons scent (because it mimics finding an article dropped by a person you would be searching for). In AKC it is ALWAYS the handlers odor and it starts by the dog finding your article (glove) in a container amongst blank containers and works up to finding a cotton ball with your scent amongst other cotton balls with other peoples scent. They can never be allowed to indicate any persons odor but yours. That was in conflict with my plans and I'd already trained her to indicate articles with other peoples scent on it and didn't want to undo that. It would be great fun to do, I'm pretty sure UKC that you do has something very similar.

 

[Ravenbird]

has nothing to do with hide & seek or hunt drive or odor. It's about training a response to an object

I should clarify that the "object" actually IS odor, not the container your mushroom is in. So when I say it's not about odor, I meant it's not about searching. In the wild the object will be a mushroom with that very odor, and not a similar mushroom with a different odor. So that might lead to a different proofing if you ever went pro on hunting morals! Making sure she doesn't alert on any ol' mushroom means you don't reward on any ol' mushroom if you only want morals. I hope I'm not complicating things, it's actually easy once you're doing it. I mean look how quickly Z picked it up. Mainly I'm hoping to give you ideas of making things very clear to your dog sooner rather than trying to fix things later. Working mostly on my own I found the hardest thing to do is fix what I had wrongly rewarded my dog for, then later realized it was faulty in trial or in real life.

Cheering you on in the mushroom biz!

 

[Ladydi]

Fun to watch her find the cone.
Nice that you waited her out hoo-man!
Nice work.
I love nosework its just such a natural thing for dogs.