Probably the key event of the last two weeks was Venn’s development of a sit.
“Not so special”, I hear you cry, but this was no ordinary sit, this was an M&S sit. This was the sit to let me know that she had found a plate marked with the same smell as the one I’d showed her as a scenting item.
We had been playing around with scent-box work for a week or so. This in its simplest form involves laying out three boxes (in our case, plates) one of which is marked with a smelly substance. We started with “artificial” scents that would be out of place in the outdoors, like toothpaste, coffee, ginger etc. Venn was then shown the same scent in the form of a swab in a plastic bag, and then invited to investigate the plates. She had shown interest in the correct plate from the outset, but, out of the blue, one day she decided to sit to show me her choice. Plenty of fuss was made, and she has continued to use this “indication” from that point onwards. This is a very key skill, and we are very happy that she has made the association.
These simple scent-box exercises are used to teach the dog to seek and find the same smell as the scent item, separate that information from other smelly things and ultimately be able to identify the start of a trail. But that is all a long way in the future. However, if the missing person has just cleaned their teeth and is dropping crockery, we’re the team for the job.
As usual, the news is not all good. This apparent flourishing of interest in using her nose seems to have coincided with excited nose-to-the-ground activity on our walks, and the first examples of her running off for an achingly long time (but in reality a hand-full of minutes).
We once again were invited to attend the SARDA Wales December training for some pre-acceptance test assessments this weekend. As suspected, Venn performed reasonably well again, but was let down a little by her walking to heel. It looks like we will possibly be going for the actual acceptance testing at the January training weekend, so we have a month to put things right. No pressure.
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