Nosework

Since Doggy Daycare is no longer Caleb's happy place, I decided it was time to find something new that we could do together. At least then if he gets traumatized I will be there and know what happened, as opposed to taking the word of a college student trying to keep an eye on the interactions of 30 dogs. Whoops, did that sound bitter? Sorry. Still a sore spot. If I were a dog, I would need a cone to quit gnawing on it. Cone of Shame for Julie! Moving on...

I found out about Nosework through our new individual trainer, Michele (You knew I would immediately hit the interwebs looking for a new trainer to counteract the trauma of the daycare situation, right? Of course you did!). She is awesome, and I am really enjoying working with her. When we had our first chat I told her I had no desire to send Caleb back to Daycare, but I wanted to make sure he was getting enough mental and physical exercise. We already walk or run at least 2.5 -3 miles a day, but even with that, I was afraid he needed more. Michele told me about a Nose Work class she co-teaches and instantly I knew that we needed to give it a shot.

Nosework is a sport developed in Southern California by three people with many, many years of experience in narcotics and explosives detection, as well as every sort of dog training and canine sport imaginable. You can read more about them here, they are all kinds of awesome. Essentially, they took their years of rigorous professional training for working dogs and created a sport around it designed for pets. In this version, dogs are taught to search for natural essence oils, instead of drugs or explosives, and the idea is that any dog (read: dogs with issues) can participate!

Caleb and I are a few weeks into the Introduction to Nosework class. In this class were are learning how to encourage Caleb's desire to hunt through sniffing out yummy things hidden in boxes. As the class progresses, the instructors throw in more distractions, and manipulate the box with the food in it to make the hides more or less difficult, depending on the dog. Sometimes are are 6-8 boxes by themselves, sometimes there are boxes surrounded by cones, exercise mats, step ladders, Rollerblades, just about anything they can get their hands on that will hold on to smells differently. They manipulate the size of the search area and the external distractions in such a way as to always make sure the dog succeeds, so they will want to come back and keep playing this fun new game. The next level of classes involve teaching the dog to sniff out particular natural essence oils, but we have not gotten that far yet and are still building the foundation with delicious high value treats (Bambi In A Can, in Caleb's case).

This takes a lot of work mentally; I was pleasantly surprised at how tired he was after class. It is also worth noting that this is a different sort of tired than when he would come back from Daycare. Allow me to anthropomorphize for a bit: After Nose Work Caleb is tired, but it seems to be more of an accomplished tired, like I would feel after a busy but productive day. After Daycare, Caleb would come in and collapse, completely drained and exhausted, like I have felt these past few months (see previous post). I wonder if the same is true with dogs as it is with people, we are more productive when under a bit of stress, but only up to a point, then our work product and productivity take a nose dive as the stress increases?

There is another benefit to Nosework for those of you who may have doggies with issues around other dogs: No meet and greets. No doggy to doggy socialization at all. No doggie to people socialization either, for that matter. The class is run in such a way so that only one dog is working the course at a time. The other doggies are hanging out in their cars or crates. I know this sounds odd at first, but I promise you, it is actually a fantastic way to run this sort of class. You can be one of three places in class: In the holding area with your dog about to do the course next, In the course itself, or sitting down in chairs observing the other students doing the course while your dog is hanging out in his crate or car. This is great because when I'm not in the holding area or in the course with Caleb I am able to relax and focus on the other students and their dogs. I learn so much by watching others take their turn, but if I had Caleb right next to me the entire time I would be focused on keeping him quiet, not learning from the other students. Even with all the going back and forth between car to holding area to course and back again, you still get plenty of chances to do the course, and doggies that would otherwise not be able to participate in something like this due to their issues get a chance to participate! I really cannot speak highly enough about the whole program.

What does Caleb think of all of this? Well, for Caleb, the sniffing is not the difficult part; Caleb is a world class sniffer! The difficult part is getting him to stop sniffing every spot that may have ever had a molecule of pee on it within the last 500 years and look for his high value treat that has been hidden in the box. At home, he is much better because we practice indoors where Caleb has sniffed everything that needs to be sniffed and he can focus on finding Bambi. In class, an outdoor location next to a horse pasture - aka: distract-o-rama, he struggles a bit more. He eventually finds his treat, and is improving week over week, though, so I am not worried. I already know we are going to repeat this intro class at least once more to make sure the foundation really sticks with him, as the classes only get more difficult as we progress.

If you are interested, check out their website for more details. I will definitely keep you posted on our experiences with Nosework, there may even be video coming soon!