I became interested in nose work last spring when I was looking for a new way to keep Pongo active, but for something that would be gentle on his aging body. At twelve years old, Pongo has had two torn ACLs and has arthritis in both knees. His left knee, the one that was repaired by surgery in 2005, has very little mobility now and at times, he walks very stiffly because he has trouble bending it. For this reason, he can no longer go jogging with me. Yet Pongo has always had a high level of energy and need for exercise. Now that his body can no longer perform at the athletic ability that it once did, I chose nose work as a new way to challenge his mind and wear him out. We took an Intro to Nose Work class in the spring, and Pongo immediately took to it. It is so fun to see how much he likes doing this work. He gets excited whenever I bring out boxes, or we drive to the training facility. It's like he's thinking, "oh yea, I get to work!"
Pongo's trainer recommended that we video some of our training sessions so that I can go back and review them. She suggests that this way I can learn to better read his signals, and tell when he is "in odor," as the scent will actually move and flow on the air and the dog has to learn to follow it to its source. Last weekend, I roped my husband into taking some video for me. Here, I explain about getting ready for the ORT. If you look at the way Pongo is sitting at the beginning of this video, you can see how he holds his leg out to the side. This is his modified sit that he has done since his ACL surgery. For this reason, we can't do competition obedience - it's not considered a "proper sit."
Of course, Dewey has to come along and video bomb us! He likes to be in the middle of everything.
Remember, there is one box that is dedicated to odor. You always place the odor in the same box and mark the box so you know which one it is. I marked my odor box with an "O." Odor is placed on Q-tips that are cut in half by putting them in a few drops of essential oil of the desired scent. I keep the Q-tips in a baby food jar until we are ready to work. Then I take a few out with tweezers so I don't contaminate them with my own scent and place them in the odor box, or whichever container we are working with.
Pongo will be testing for both birch and anise. When we registered for the test, we had to pay $25 for each scent we would be testing. There are only three scents in nose work, but I thought that would be a little ambitious for us to train for this summer. So I only registered for two. I typically work with birch first, then switch it out for anise later in our training session. On this particular day, though, we only worked with anise. It was about one in the afternoon and about 75 degrees and humid outside. Pongo was distracted by cars and people passing, and adopted a rather laissez-faire attitude which is not typical of his nose work sessions. When we first started, he just walked through the boxes and didn't work. I went back and paired food with the odor box, and on the second trial, he began to work. Then on subsequent trials, I removed the food and he was only rewarded on finding the correct box.
Here's a video which shows Pongo working.
Notice that Pongo does a good job of working the first line of boxes, but then stops working when we walk back along the second row. I turn him around and have him work that line of boxes again and he identifies the odor by stopping and pawing at the box a couple times. That is Pongo's way of alerting to the odor - which I love because it's so obvious! I didn't teach him that, he started doing that on his own. You see that he actually kind of paws a couple other boxes in the video, but he keeps on going. On the odor box, he actually stops and sniffs longer, pawing the box twice. This is why they tell you it's important to learn how to read your dog. Sometimes, Pongo's signs are really clear and he very quickly identifies where the odor is accurately. Other times, he gives me some false alerts (like that light paw tap in this video) and I'm afraid I won't read him correctly when we actually do the test.
At the ORT, we will be doing blind hides - that is, I won't know which box contains the odor. I will have to say "alert" to identify when I think Pongo has found it. We have practiced this in our private lessons at It's A Dog World, and though we get it right most of the time, occasionally, I'm wrong. Our goal for training right now is to practice in different locations as much as possible before the test to give Pongo practice in new environments with distractions. Today, we went to the park and had a great session working on the sidewalk by the parking lot - until our session was cut short by pouring rain!
I can't believe the ORT is two weeks away! We are counting down! And yes, Mommy is a little nervous. Wish us good luck!
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