Last night, I taught a dog class for the first time in 3 or 4 years. I used to teach traditional Obedience; between (unrelated) depression and dealing with the (ahead of his time) Teabagger co-teacher who liked to preach to me the Word of Rush, I gave it up.
About a year ago, when I was looking for a place to take my older rescue German Shepherd (didn't have the pup yet), I found that Linda - the woman I'd taught with for several years along with Mr. Teabag - was offering classes, and that's where I took Sasha for obedience and Rally.
We were just starting Rally classes when I attended a seminar last July. More over the jump.
The seminar was called Introduction to Canine Nose Work, which is an exceptionally fun way to play scent games with your dog. You start with cartons and treats or toys hidden in the cartons. Once the dog starts to figure it out, they begin to LOVE the game. They get dancy happy when they see cartons, they bark and jump and dance and twirl when they know the game is coming.
We start with food and toys (and it's Shepherd owners I've heard most say disdainfully, "Food? You use FOOD?") and then we train them over to specific essential oils. If we had drugs handy, we could train them to those, or bomb materials, or whatever... but it's a game, and we start with Birch, Anise and Clove - after (and sometimes with) liverwurst, chicken, salmon and cantaloup.
They've been playing The Game in California for a couple of years, and the Word of the Nose has slowly been spreading. :) I'm thrilled to be part of it. I took two more working seminars (Introduction to Odor and Continuing Nose Work) and the Introduction Seminar for teaching classes.
I took Nose Work classes at the (huge, awe-inspiring) facility that offered the seminars, and decided that rather than follow their haphazard, unplanned, push the students too far, too fast class syllabi, I'd teach from the goals presented by the people who invented The Game. So I spent 10-15 hours a week over about a month, creating outlines and handouts (and some extra paperwork) for the first class that Linda and I are offering: Beginning Introduction to Nose Work. Last night was class one.
Brian, one of the owners of the Doggie Daycare where the classes are offered, is stunned: They had a full roster of 8 students signed up for a new class that was not advertised (beyond mentions in class), which has only been 'on the schedule' for a little less than a month. Not only that: when one student found that her job schedule changed on the first day of class, a replacement was found immediately.
Class One plans: Discussion/lecture about the National Association of Canine Scent Work (NACSW) & where Nose Work came from, about how we'll start with basics and grow with practice, and how the classes will run.
Goals: The dogs get to start to learn the game, the owners, to learn how the hide is set up and re-played, to learn to reward at source (and why that's important) and how to handle the leash.
Class is run in rounds, with each team getting a series of a couple to several searches per rounds. Two to three were planned. Round One was to have the instructor working the boxes, the owner handling the dog. Round two was to switch places. Round three would have dogs do the search off leash.
We have eight amazing dogs in the class: Mauzer the Pointer mix, Ava the Mastiff, Zeke the Field Golden, Blue the Catahoula mix, Maggie the Golden, Nutmeg the Sheltie, Bargo the Field Lab, and Chloe the Coonhound.
About half are really good obedience dogs, very tied to mommy or daddy, and spent most of the time staring up into their handler's eyes. They are going to be working off lead soon, or for the instructor(s) more, until The Game becomes clear to them.
A couple of those really good obedience dogs are quite dainty, and walk around the boxes as if they are concerned that stepping to heavily will cause them to explode. I'm hoping that Nutmeg (the sheltie) gains some confidence from this - boxes are a bit scary, and boxes with flappy lids are very, very scary.
A couple of the handlers need to figure out what 'high value' reward means to their dog. The mastiff likes the game, but didn't go right for the treat (though she was sitting in front of the box, looking down at it.) One of the handlers dropped a treat in the hide/food box, and when it went 'clatter' I looked down. A half a Milkbone? :o A half a chicken, maybe!!!!
Two of the dogs got the game after the first search. By their last search, they were looking in/sniffing out each box, until they reached the hide: since another carton was set on top of the hide box, they knocked it off the top of the carton.
It was a good class - and next week will be even better. :)