First try with a tea bag. Shares in Earl Grey just went up.
10x bringing the mug down from above and marking her sniffing it/sticking her muzzle in it.
Then added a second one and started back where we were - tremendous amount of confusion, duration touches, and finally a paw whack. This scent isn't pertinent.
I took the tea bag out of the mug and took Syn in another room. I put her around the corner, put the tea bag about 5' away on the floor and asked her Which One? She ran around the room looking (LOOKing) for something to retrieve. When she found the tea bag, I got hysterical before she had a chance to pick it up, lots of physical praise, dancing around, and kibble.
We did that a few more times with me hiding the tea bag in plain sight in various places. A couple of times she was reluctant to go looking - I think because I had gotten hysterical while she was trying to pick the bag up (she's a VERY soft dog) - but I encouraged her and helped her out when she needed it by waving my arm towards the correct side of the room.
Then I hid it a bit behind the leg of a chair and she started snuffling, clearly using her nose for the first time to find it. More hysteria.
So the next time I really hid it behind the leg of another chair where she wouldn't be able to see it at all before she found it. She came in looking on the wrong side of the room, got stuck, and I had to wave my arm again.
Then I had the pure pleasure of watching the tea bag reach out and grab her by the nose as she went by about 4' away from it. It took her another 30 seconds or so to find it, and she had to duck around a coffee table and through some more chairs, then went right by it, got 6" past it, startled and ducked back to get it. I got a nice gentle/excited "Down" out, we had a nice party and stopped.
She's got it. She doesn't have it tonight or tomorrow, but she's got it right now. This is a pertinent search for her. I can see the duration muzzle-touch and different scent searches coming out of this.
Oh, now I remember. THAT's why I did tracking when I could still walk. For nothing else than the joy of watching the scent grab the dog by the nose.
No comments:
Post a Comment