Bailie and I were supposed to be half done with nose work 1 now but they cancelled class last night because of the cold! Boy were we bummed out! We still love the class and we love doing our homework! We are lucky as we have a large unfinished basement, so Mom put a bunch of boxes in one area for us to practice our nose work. I’m not going to go into all the techniques and stuff as I am still a nose work newbie, but I will give you some general information. This has been a really pawsome winter activity for Bailie and I. Nose work works our brains really hard, so we are really tired out after searching a few times. This winter with all the temperatures far below zero, it has been a fun activity for us to do indoors! The course I will be barking about today is a course with two source boxes using puzzles and forts for the hides. Mom has to choose two specific source boxes that always hold the find. Today I am using one simple box and one more tricky box with a lid. For our hide we use 1/2 of a Zukes Mini, so it is really small!
Source box one with the hide is the easy box.
Source box two with the hide is tricky because of the cover that I will have to work around to get the hide.
I am in a kennel when Mom places the boxes, so I can’t see what she is doing. She did one easier hide with the open box, but by placing the boxes on the sides, it blocks the flow of odor making it a bit more difficult for me to sniff out.
The second hide is a fort where the covered box is inside other boxes that are covering and blocking the scent.
It sounds real simple, but this is the second level, we started with just open boxes and one hide. Each week we add to the mix and will eventually move on to scents. I have strapped on my Sony Action Cam so you can ride along with me as I do my nose work. Mom took a video as well, so we combined our films to make the video on this post. It may not be the most thrilling and we cut out some of the search time, but you can get a quick idea of how the search goes. I just love it and would like to work on my homework 24/7 but Mom says that would be a bit much!
My posts are just to give you an idea of what I am up to with Nose Work. If you really want to get into it with your human, you should take a class so you learn the proper techniques. Bailie and I take our classes through Active Dog Sports Training here in the Twin Cities.
I’m joining Fitdog Friday, the blog hop sponsored by SlimDoggy, Peggy’s Pet Place and To Dog With Love! Stop by and see what other dogs are doing to stay fit.
Must do that for Mollie, what super fun and good stimulation for her. Have a super weekend xxoxxx
Mollie and Alfie
The only problem is we don’t want to take turns and we don’t want to quit.
That is a great activity to do while it is so cold outside. Love the pictures and the video rocks. Have a great day.
Thank you. Mom is trying to get me more involved in filming, but it is a learning curve.
Loved the video especially the part Emma shot…lol. That sounds like so much fun. I am really ready for Spring. We want to get out and start field training. Our basement is getting boring…lol.
I am working on adjusting the camera angle. The Sony Action Cam is lots of fun but we are still finding out the best way to use it. The basement is still fun for us since we are brand new to nose work and learning new stuff each week.
Great idea for a cold or rainy day. We must give that a go as well. Have a fabulous Friday.
Best wishes Molly
Or a great way to stay warm when the high temp is -5F!
What a great way to stay sharp during the cold weather. Looks like fun.
We can’t get enough of it.
Great video, it was fun to see you at work, Emma. You really do have a strong nose if you can find those tiny treats! It’s great that you and Bailie are enjoying it so much too.
We can sniff out a needle in a haystack, Mom says. It is great mental stimulation and uses our scent hound instincts.
Good girl, Emma!! Great at scent and great at videography! Way to go! XOXO Panda the Boston
Mom needs to work on my camera angle, but it will keep improving 🙂
PS. Love the mystery music in the video 😉
LOL – thanks 😉
This is great, in the video you can see just how focused you are on sniffing out those treats. Nice work! I also liked your little victory tail wag once you found the treat.
Mom says some day that tail is going to fall off from wagging so much!
Now that’s great! I think ANYTHING with boxes is fun!
Sometimes my cat bro Bert is down there with us as a distraction. Cats and boxes…well, you know how that is.
School and homework sound like lots of work! Gald I don’t have to do that! WOL! Woooowoooooo!
Mom says it is getting to be a bit much with working full time, helping me with my blog and social media and then two classes with homework for us dogs, but it is fun.
Hi Y’all!
That looks like a real fun! I love to find my bumpers and retrieve them. I also love trackin’ critters who have invaded my mountain, when we’re there. I find good scents at the shore too.
BOL! I’d be more likely to run around carrying the boxes! ‘Course I’d eat the treat first!
Y’all come by now!
Hawk aka BrownDog
We track critters all the time outside…we have out heads in the snow these days looking for a good scent!
That looks like so much fun! Mom just read an article on how to do it because she wants to try it with me. Our walk today got cancelled, again! We don’t have as much room as you so we may need to improvise some! Good job! Love Dolly
You don’t need a huge space really for what we have learned so far. It is a good idea to at least take one class so you learn to do it properly. We are hoping to go into nose work competition in the future.
Wow, you guys are really good at nose work! 🙂 If you join Camp I’m sure you’ll be one of the top campers!
We love K9 Kamp! We will definitely be there and I plan to have some more advanced lessons for that Kamp post. 🙂
Neat. Too bad your class was canceled. We took a trial nosework class and there was a Sheltie who was really shy and did not want to work at all. Her owner had brought chicken nuggets as the “hides.” Mr. N was like I can find those nuggets! Let me at them!
I know, the other four dogs in class all have some personality issues, and some get real chicken to search for…sometimes it pays to seem disinterested, but we love the search so much we settle for anything.
Oh, that looks like so much fun! You should never use Jones chews for nose work, though. The meat smell is pretty obvious and you and Baillie would go right to their treats without even trying!
Jones Treats are for after stuff like walks when we can sit down and relax while eating and enjoying them 😉 This nose work treat stuff is pretty much inhaled, not enjoyed!
Wow, you really had a whole obstacle course to go through. Maybe I should clean out the garage and get back to nosework with my pups. It really is hard to find stimulating games when the weather’s bad!
It is lots of fun and we sure love it when Mom says nose work!
Really well done! Cute blog.
Thank you 🙂
What a great idea! We don’t have that much room to spare, but I can certainly find places to hide some goodies around the house. =)
Yeah, not too many basements in Florida. Mom loves a basement for storing stuff, and of course, building nose work areas. Thank goodness we don’t have a finished basement!
Noseworks is great fun isn’t it?!? I love the action cam…are you going to compete?
We have only had two weeks of course one at this point but we want to compete as long as we keep doing well and Mom wants us to start tracking class in the spring too.
So happy to check in here today and find you all doing Nosework. Glad you finally got to start…I know you’ve been looking forward to it.
Pretty cool camera you got there too….much more fun than Meadow’s still shot one.
It is pretty cool, but we are still working out the finer points of using it most effectively. I actually won it last summer but we just recently started trying to use it. Nose work is so awesome for us and Mom. We hope we keep loving it and can try competition down the road.
You certainly are two clever dogs. And you seem to enjoy the nosework homework. Hugs from Laika.
We will do nose work anywhere Mom sets it up!
We should try this since we can’t spend much time outside in this cold weather. We loved your video too.
Millie & Walter
Thanks, I’m trying to learn to use my Sony Action Cam, but it is not as simple as it appears! It is lots of fun for indoors and it makes you really tired.
Love the video, especially the action cam! We love Nose Work too. I took a class with Cosmo and he loved it! Can’t wait to see how you progress!
Your pals,
Diane and Rocco
We are excited to get more classes behind us and the hope is that one or both of us will try competition in the future.
What a cool lesson! But…the dog ate their own homework! LOL
That is why this class homework is awesome!
How awesome! I may have to set something like this up for Petal, just for fun. 🙂 You are a smart girl Emma and it looks like you have a blast with your homework! Loved the video. 🙂
Thanks. We love doing this! The hard part is taking turns and then Mom always wants to quit after we each have 3-4 runs and we want to search all day!
Good job Emma! I loved the video! You are so clam when doing this! I could just imagine Leroy trying this, all the boxes would be destroyed!
LOL! I almost destroy boxes to get the treat out, but otherwise boxes are pretty boring. You would need a big area and big boxes for those boys!
Emma, I’m pretty sure before I could find the treat, Leo would have stepped on all the boxes and destroyed everything. Your video was really great – I’m such an Emma fan – Harley
Thanks Harley 🙂 We are just focused on finding the treats, no interest in the boxes. I did almost destroy one at class, though, as I couldn’t get the lid off, so I crushed and bit it.
Great job, Emma! That really does look like a lot of fun. But I agree, 24/7 is not such a good idea. Too much training can get really boring.
I guess we just love it so much we can’t imagine being bored!
Boy! That was sure fun tagging along on your big test. I could almost taste those treats! Thanks for sharing!!
They were mighty tasty!
I can put a steak in front of Katie and she would not find it. Loved watching the video.
Maybe take the clothespin off her nose 😉 Some dogs have a “nose” and some don’t I guess!
Great video! You two are so good at this. What a great indoor activity.
Thanks, Mom and I are both working on video skills. It has been great with so many extremely cold days, keeps our minds busy.