Day 188

Started articles this morning. I decided to try something totally different from the way I have trained all my previous dogs or the way I teach. Normally when I start introducing scent work I spend a couple of weeks teaching the dog to retrieve first the metal and then the leather article. Once the straight retrieve is in place and the dog is picking the article up the way I want it picked up, I move on to hiding a single metal article. How long I work with a single hidden article is completely up to the dog. There is no change until I can see that my dog is comfortable and secure in finding what I want found.

My problem is one of timing. I need to be outside using natural cover to hide my article, but I won't work a dog on metal articles outside in the wintertime. Even in a winter as mild as this one is turning out to be is too cold as far as I am concerned. I could wait until spring, BUT that would put me behind a self-imposed eight ball. You see, I really want her working scent well enough to act as my demo dog when we go to Columbia, MO the end of May so I can teach a 5-day school for Balanced Trainers. Enough on that. Here is what I am doing.

I saved several large bites of filet mignon, yes you read that right. Filet mignon left over from a special dinner. I cut those bites up into tiny little pieces and stored them in a plastic container. Then this morning downstairs we went to the training studio and the first of what I suspect will be many, many sessions.

For the introduction I had her place on one of the training tables and we worked on a fetch the very same way I started her out with the dumbbell. This is all familiar work for her, so the only new thing was the metal article and my insistence that it had to be taken in only one manner. I didn't have to worry about introducing metal as a new material because she is already retrieving metal drink cans, metal flatware and keys. I got 10 good fetch responses and that ended the article part. Normally that would end the training session but not this time.

This time I moved to my "Plan B". I let her have a sniff of the meat. Just a sniff and not a very big sniff at that. I have the really nice PVC end caps that are supposed to go on the bottom of the legs of my little training tables. Never one to pass up a good training tool these caps got pressed into service. Remember the old thimble game? Well, the caps became my thimbles and I put a single bit of meat under one of them. The first time there were just two caps, one without and one with meat. I sent her using the command "find it" and a fetch signal. Since she had been sitting there watching me place that bit of meat, I very much doubt that it really mattered what I said; because she was on her way with the first sound from me. Quick like a bunny she found the correct one. I had to help her turn the cap over the first couple of times. By the end of the session, she was finding the correct cap when it was one of eight caps and she was picking the cap up with her teeth to move it out of the way. Seemed like a perfect time to stop the training for the first session.