Bloomington sets at the foot of the San Bernardino Mountains. It is desert, you see rocks and no green except for the occasional planted tree. It's barren; It's California desert. I enjoy taking my dog to classes at the Orange Empire Dog club. A nice size lot with maintained grass and a club house. It is like a doggy oasis in the desert. It is with clean floors, nice painted mural, a small kitchen, bathrooms, conference room and the main room on a concrete floor. A well kept facility.
Today started out cool, with the overcast keeping the intensity of the sun hidden. We did Nose Work searches on vehicles. We did a variety of patterns starting with two cars, with a hide in the middle on one vehicle. After the first run, one car was moved to the other side of the vehicle with the odor. Thus, odor didn't move, only the picture changed. We wanted to see how the dogs would respond to the changed picture, but the odor in the same place on the same car. They all figured out the problem.
For the next vehicle search, the odor vehicle was turned around, but parked in the same place. Instead of the odor being exposed, it was now next to the other vehicle. Picture changed. Odor changed space, but not position on car. A new problem, but some dogs found it fast, some dogs took a little time to work it out, but all dogs found it within 2:30 minutes.
The next search we added two vehicles and an odor. Now we were working 4 vehicles. This is the most vehicles Mickey and I have ever worked. In an NW3 level, we can have up to 5 vehicles.When I found the two hides, Kim had me search the other vehicles I haven't covered. This is because in an NW3 trial, we can have an unknown number of hides, up to three hides. If we don't know how many there are and we find two hides, there is a possibility there is another out there. Good skill building to get use to doing this.
Our next hides were wall hides. Kim used something that made it really difficult to see on the wall. This exercise was to get the dog to use its nose rather than spot find something with their eyes. This hide had an interesting odor trail. It was going around the corner to the air conditioning which is behind a metal perpendicular fence. Many dogs caught the odor there, sniffed between the fence slots. Then as you worked them along the wall, it was a challenge for them to find the odor. Kim video taped this exercise to use it as a training tool for herself. This hide did take Mickey awhile to find.
The next hide also a wall hide on the outside corner of the building. Mickey found this much quicker and when the hide was moved in the inner corner, Mickey found this even faster. I've done a lot of corner hides with Mickey.
Good skill building exercises and problem solving for the dogs. Duffy did the same exercise but more appropriate for his level.
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