Today started off pretty normal, walks doggy exercise and ball chasing, breakfast for all.... Then it was house work and organizing for our 8th and last class of the Nosework session. The next class doesn't start again until mid Oct so we will have a vacation of sorts for a couple of weeks. Tomorrow I have to show up for jury duty so I won't be able to get anything done all day and then I have a beginning obedience class to teach tomorrow night so it will be hectic. I had to get all matter of things done today.
20 minutes before I was going to put the dogs in the car and go and pick up Donna and Ginger, my neighbor a few doors down waved me over to her house. She had found an injured dove partially hidden next to her front gate and wanted to ask me (or so I thought ) what SHE should do about it. I told her to put it in a box and take it to Project Wildlife where they would take care of it. I have taken many injured wild birds and animals to them and I always give them a nice donation to help cover the costs. They are terrific and the money actually does go to help the animals, NO JIVE! My neighbor looked at me like I had holes in my head and said ," I can't do that, do you think I should put some water and bird seed next to it and see if it is still alive later on?" I said," well I would hope that if some one found any living creature injured by the side of the road that they would not just give them a sandwich and a glass of water and then leave them there suffering and in pain. I'm on my way to Los Angeles, so I don't have time to do this, can't you take it to Project Wild life? It's the opposite direction from where I have to go but it's only 10 minutes from here." She said," No I can't." No explanation. Now I knew the real reason she called me over. I didn't say another word, I was pissed. I got a small box from my garage, lined it with newspaper , gently placed the dove in the box and didn't look back. I piled everyone in the back of the car , put the dove in the box in the front seat and ambulanced it to Project Wildlife. They took it in and found it had a deep puncture wound in it's back like from a crow or hawk. I gave them a donation and then zoomed off to Donna's house . Everything worked out alright, but it just annoys me when people have that attitude about injured anything and foist the responsibility off on someone else. If it had been a dog or cat, would she have left it there suffering? I was happy to take care of the little bird but I will never really be much impressed with the so called niceness of my neighbor again. Nuff said on that!
In class we did a container search of 20 different types of containers, everything from shopping bags to suitcases, boxes, athletic gear bags soft and hard coolers, you name it . We were timed and Ginger came in first with a less than a minute find for two scents, Elmo had the 2nd fastest nose at an impressive 1 minute and 3 seconds. Monty, the Scotty came in 3nd at 1 minute 4 seconds so it was a close one. Gus the Tibetan Terrier was fastest at the vehicle search , & I can't remember who was fastest at the exterior search. It was the hardest as the find was a single Q-Tip scented with Birch that was wedged into a crack in the concrete in the parking lot and it was covered by what looked like a piece of random tape. Ole and Duncan ( a schnauzer), the two newest dogs to scent work had different areas to search than the the rest of the group as they are both still having their hides paired with treats. Ole beat Duncan in each contest, one was a container search and the other was an interior room search. Duncan thought he had won with his 9 second find in the containers, but Ole trumped him by finding it in only 8 seconds! Way to go Ole. Ole got a bag of treats as his prize and shared one with Duncan . Ole was strutting around and wanted to do more searches.but Alas, we were out of time and had to pack up and head home. No more driving to Tustin for a few weeks!
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Hmmmmm, mystery barf
Just another day in the life of a multiple dogs owner! It started out fine, a Sunday with no big requirements out side of meeting all the doggie needs,ie: walk them , feed them , take Ole to the local park for a solid 30 minute game of fetch with his favorite orange and blue ball toys. Abner with Elmo and Shelly showed up after about 20 minutes and all 3 dogs competed over who would get the ball first and bring it back to me. I have to get a head start with Ole on the fetch game because once little Elmo shows up Ole won't compete with him over the ball. Now, Elmo is very fast but I've noticed that Ole hangs back and lets Elmo get every one. Then it was home again for actual breakfast. They enjoy everything, especially seeing their arch enemy stroll by our house. The enemy is a small black and white probably border collie mix of some sort. We've never learned her name as usually her owner is too busy yelling at her to cease and desist as she snarls menacingly at my pack of 3 goof balls. Shelly views her with great distain and Elmo and Ole think it is all great fun. Everyone ate their breakfasts like it was the only food they'd seen in a month except for Shelly , who started off doing real well but after she had eaten 2/3rds lost interest and wandered away from her bowl. The land sharks were circling (Elmo and Ole), and as I did not want Elmo to eat any more (he's gained 2 lbs since Ole got here!) I put the bowl up on the kitchen counter and went about my other morning chores. Abner always worries that Shelly will starve to death if she doesn't eat every morsel in her bowl, so he apparently put the bowl back down and SOMEONE ate it all! I don't think it was Shelly. I was upstairs working when Abner told me he had to go run and errand on his bike. I came down after he left and , There it was...a large pile of dog barf in the middle of my beautiful wool carpet. Yes, I'm glad it wasn't poo but...no one stepped forward to confess the sin saturating my area rug...Expensive area rug I might add with partially digested barf. I have strong suspicions as to who the culprit is but I guess it doesn't matter. All 3 engulfed their dinners tonight so whoever had the upset tummy quickly recovered. While Elmo and Ole are downstairs watching football with Abner ,Shelly and I are upstairs getting ready to do a little reading of one of the Steig Larsson mystery novels.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Ole goes out to dinner
Ole has been meeting up with Luna the 6 year old German Shepherd and her owners at the park by our house every morning for several weeks now. Luna basically ignores Ole and spends all of their time together making sure Ole doesn't get hold of her favorite ball toy. Her owners use one of those plastic ball launchers to toss the ball for Luna and Ole became enamored of not only the type of ball Luna prefers and the ball launcher. This led me to a shopping trip to Target to get him his own special launcher and ball toys. Big success! Ole is hooked on his new toys. We spend about 30 to 45 minutes in the morning chasing and fetching his ball and at least that much time in the evening. In the PM Elmo and Shelly also participate. Elmo is so fast that a lot of the time he scores the ball before Ole can get to it. Elmo then struts around and proudly brings it back to me and lays it at my feet.
Luna and her family live in Phoenix most of the year but also have a vacation home near us for the summers. It's too hot to even go for a walk in Phoenix in the summer so they really enjoy themselves while they are here. It was 108 degrees there yesterday and only got up to around 72 here. We are so lucky to live in San Diego! Anyway, Ole will have to find a new park fetch play mate until Luna comes back.
Last evening we were invited to a friends home in Elfin Forest for dinner. Elfin Forest is about a 50 minute drive from here and we did not want to leave Ole in the crate for what could easily have been 6-7 hours so we asked if he could come along. They are dog people and said yes. Elmo and Shelly stayed home to guard the roost and chew on bones. Our friends, John and Lee, are currently dog-less so Ole got to be the dog de jour. He was such a good boy, didn't get into anything, didn't jump on anyone or goose any one in the private parts. I'm so proud! I took his new ball and launcher with us and he showed off his fetch skills for about 30 or so minutes when we first got there and that tired him out real well. We were treated to a fresh Maine lobster feast by our friends and he was very good about staying on his towel and chewing on his bone while we feasted. He had a small lapse in manners toward the end of our meal ( came over to John and gave him the" surely you won't be needing ALL of that lobster?" look. I made him go lie down and he settled down and left us to our meal.
This morning Ole and I had our last fetcha thon with Luna and her owners as they are heading off to Phoenix for a while. Ole would chase balls thrown by me but preferred to have Luna's dad throw them for him. Some kind of male bonding thing I guess. Today , Shelly gets a bath and Shelly and Elmo will be assisting in puppy class tonight. Yes, I know it's labor day, but some of us have to labor , not all of us get it off.
Luna and her family live in Phoenix most of the year but also have a vacation home near us for the summers. It's too hot to even go for a walk in Phoenix in the summer so they really enjoy themselves while they are here. It was 108 degrees there yesterday and only got up to around 72 here. We are so lucky to live in San Diego! Anyway, Ole will have to find a new park fetch play mate until Luna comes back.
Last evening we were invited to a friends home in Elfin Forest for dinner. Elfin Forest is about a 50 minute drive from here and we did not want to leave Ole in the crate for what could easily have been 6-7 hours so we asked if he could come along. They are dog people and said yes. Elmo and Shelly stayed home to guard the roost and chew on bones. Our friends, John and Lee, are currently dog-less so Ole got to be the dog de jour. He was such a good boy, didn't get into anything, didn't jump on anyone or goose any one in the private parts. I'm so proud! I took his new ball and launcher with us and he showed off his fetch skills for about 30 or so minutes when we first got there and that tired him out real well. We were treated to a fresh Maine lobster feast by our friends and he was very good about staying on his towel and chewing on his bone while we feasted. He had a small lapse in manners toward the end of our meal ( came over to John and gave him the" surely you won't be needing ALL of that lobster?" look. I made him go lie down and he settled down and left us to our meal.
This morning Ole and I had our last fetcha thon with Luna and her owners as they are heading off to Phoenix for a while. Ole would chase balls thrown by me but preferred to have Luna's dad throw them for him. Some kind of male bonding thing I guess. Today , Shelly gets a bath and Shelly and Elmo will be assisting in puppy class tonight. Yes, I know it's labor day, but some of us have to labor , not all of us get it off.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Ole has a spa day
We started today with a training session in the park by the house. We ran into Tracey and her three pugs on the way there. Her little tribe is looking very good these days all trim and slim. Ole was happy to see them and was particularly intrigued with Bamboo (the tan pug) for some reason or another. I'm just glad Ole likes small dogs so much. It's not pleasant having a big dog that doesn't like small dogs when you live in a crowded area like we do. We then played fetch and leave it and catch the frisby as well as the ball with Ole and then we practiced him staying in a sit and then a down while I hid the ball. Ole had to wait until I came all the way back to him and told him to get it, before he could seek out the ball. He loves all those games. Abner came over to the park with Elmo and Shelly and we finished up the walk together. then everyone got to have their well earned breakfasts.
Today Ole and Elmo had baths at Noahs. Elmo won the dirtiest dog award...made Ole proud. Lots of brown water came off that small guy. I don't know what he's been rolling in but he definitely was the winner. Shelly got a repreive and spent the afternoon helping Abner do work at apartments. Ole probably wished he could either join Shelly or move back to the farm where real dogs splash in the creek instead of getting foo foo baths. He was pretty good in the tub, only semi leaped out of it once. Hannah who works there, was able to help me get him back in and i actually scrubbed him up pretty well. Elmo was as usual, a little gentleman both during his bath and with his blow dry. Ole did not get a blow dry and is proud of it. I got some pretty cute photos of Ole in the tub but I'm too computer stupid to figure out how to post them on this blog. Maybe some day I will figure it out.
Yesterday was Nosework in Tustin day and it was a really fun class. Each dog got at least 4 turns to search which is a lot. There were only 6 dogs in class so it was nice. We also got to practice container searches. In a container search the dogs search a series of suitcases, shopping bags , paper sacks ,totes, kind of like search dogs at airports do when they look for contraband. It was neat to do and to watch. Elmo went first and found the right container in 26 seconds. I was very proud of him. Then Ginger found it in 10 seconds so Donna was the proud one until Shelly beat out Ginger by finding it in 9 seconds! Ole did not get to do the container search because he isn't experienced enough yet with birch scent. He is still searching boxes with scent paired with hot dogs or the scent containers hidden with hot dogs on top of them. He still had a ball. He is so fired up that I can barely hold him back. Peggy and Julie the instructors want me to get him a tracking harness so that I can control him better. He is BIG and STRONG! I got Elmo a little harnass and have him wear it whenever we practice his scent work and at class. The harness to him means "this is serious work not time for play." He gets very excited when I put it on him. Ole will be the same way I know. Shelly is just in this for the mind stimulation. She enjoys it but isn't as serious about it as the boys and little Ginger are.
Today Ole and Elmo had baths at Noahs. Elmo won the dirtiest dog award...made Ole proud. Lots of brown water came off that small guy. I don't know what he's been rolling in but he definitely was the winner. Shelly got a repreive and spent the afternoon helping Abner do work at apartments. Ole probably wished he could either join Shelly or move back to the farm where real dogs splash in the creek instead of getting foo foo baths. He was pretty good in the tub, only semi leaped out of it once. Hannah who works there, was able to help me get him back in and i actually scrubbed him up pretty well. Elmo was as usual, a little gentleman both during his bath and with his blow dry. Ole did not get a blow dry and is proud of it. I got some pretty cute photos of Ole in the tub but I'm too computer stupid to figure out how to post them on this blog. Maybe some day I will figure it out.
Yesterday was Nosework in Tustin day and it was a really fun class. Each dog got at least 4 turns to search which is a lot. There were only 6 dogs in class so it was nice. We also got to practice container searches. In a container search the dogs search a series of suitcases, shopping bags , paper sacks ,totes, kind of like search dogs at airports do when they look for contraband. It was neat to do and to watch. Elmo went first and found the right container in 26 seconds. I was very proud of him. Then Ginger found it in 10 seconds so Donna was the proud one until Shelly beat out Ginger by finding it in 9 seconds! Ole did not get to do the container search because he isn't experienced enough yet with birch scent. He is still searching boxes with scent paired with hot dogs or the scent containers hidden with hot dogs on top of them. He still had a ball. He is so fired up that I can barely hold him back. Peggy and Julie the instructors want me to get him a tracking harness so that I can control him better. He is BIG and STRONG! I got Elmo a little harnass and have him wear it whenever we practice his scent work and at class. The harness to him means "this is serious work not time for play." He gets very excited when I put it on him. Ole will be the same way I know. Shelly is just in this for the mind stimulation. She enjoys it but isn't as serious about it as the boys and little Ginger are.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Ole learns some new tricks
Ole has been concentrating on catching the tennis ball when I throw it to him. He's getting a lot better at it . At first he would wait until it hit him in the face and then grab the ball as it rolled onto the ground. BTW, I wasn't trying to hit him in the face! Now, he is actually catching it. I tell him to "Wait"' then i step away from him and lob the ball to him. He even seemed surprised the first time he caught it but I made such a big fuss over him when he did that now he does a victory lap after he catches it. Cheers and clapping are expected. Yesterday we found an old forgotten Frisby laying on the grass in the park and I started tossing that to him after he had been fetching the ball a few times. He seemed to kind of like it but had a very difficult time picking it up off the grass . He finally figured out that if he pressed down on one end of it the other end would pop up and then he could grab it. After that he had a great time with it. Tonight I alternated getting him to fetch the ball and then get the frisby. Next we played catch the ball. Catch the frisby he doesn't quite have yet. i think I will introduce him to a soft cloth frisby tomorrow and see if he does better with that. We've been meeting up with a female German Shepherd named Luna and her owners every morning and together she and Ole chase tennis balls until their tongues hang almost to the grass. Luna's owners get a big kick out of Ole as he is so careful with his manners around Luna. All Luna has to do is give him a look and he backs way off and gives her as much space around the ball as she wants. Whatever Luna wants, Luna gets!
We met Donna and Ginger today and a local rec center& with all 4 dogs and practiced nose work. For Ole, we hid containers with Birch scent and placed treats on top of them. For Shelly, Ginger, and Elmo we hid 6 different containers, 2 of each of the 3 scents. We picked some bleachers to hide most of the scents around and the dogs did really well. Ginger boldly climbed up and around on the bleachers to get to the hides which is something she never would have done 6 months ago. Her confidence has really soared with nose work. Ole had never seen bleachers before but he willingly climbed all over them to get to his hides. On one of the 3 sets of outdoor bleacher a big old bulldog was laying about 2 steps up the bleachers none of the dogs initially knew he was there but they all handled his presence really well. At most , Ginger and Elmo barked at him once or twice but then went on about their task finding that precious scent. he just lay there and watched them. There were a lot of people walking around , a few bums were crashed on the lawn and a dodge ball game was being played right in front of the bleachers but the dogs ignored all the distractions and stayed on task. All in all it was a good session.
Today was suppose to be dog bath day for Ole and Elmo but I just didn't get to it. I had a private lesson at 10:00 then did a bunch of house work and just couldn't get motivated after that to scrub them up. Tomorrow will have to do I guess.
We met Donna and Ginger today and a local rec center& with all 4 dogs and practiced nose work. For Ole, we hid containers with Birch scent and placed treats on top of them. For Shelly, Ginger, and Elmo we hid 6 different containers, 2 of each of the 3 scents. We picked some bleachers to hide most of the scents around and the dogs did really well. Ginger boldly climbed up and around on the bleachers to get to the hides which is something she never would have done 6 months ago. Her confidence has really soared with nose work. Ole had never seen bleachers before but he willingly climbed all over them to get to his hides. On one of the 3 sets of outdoor bleacher a big old bulldog was laying about 2 steps up the bleachers none of the dogs initially knew he was there but they all handled his presence really well. At most , Ginger and Elmo barked at him once or twice but then went on about their task finding that precious scent. he just lay there and watched them. There were a lot of people walking around , a few bums were crashed on the lawn and a dodge ball game was being played right in front of the bleachers but the dogs ignored all the distractions and stayed on task. All in all it was a good session.
Today was suppose to be dog bath day for Ole and Elmo but I just didn't get to it. I had a private lesson at 10:00 then did a bunch of house work and just couldn't get motivated after that to scrub them up. Tomorrow will have to do I guess.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Ole gets a taste of the farm
We've had a busy few days. Emma , a little 10 month old Brussels Griffon, (all 8 lbs of her) came to stay for 3 days while her owners were away on a trip to the Bay area. Ole was besotted with her and she detested him. Elmo however was just her cup of tea. Elmo was cool and calm with her and she liked his style. Ole kept flinging himself at her feet which would cause her to snap in his face and yap at him which in turn would get him all flustered so that he would pat at her with his plate sized feet. She HATED it and could find nothing at all endearing about his attempts at play. She mostly followed me around like a little shadow or hid under the couch or other pieces of furniture. She actually handled the whole staying with a stranger and 3 unknown dogs very well all things considered and ate really well and was immaculate in her potty habits. She wasn't big on the nightly fireworks shows but didn't completely freak out. I got Ole up extra early every AM and did at least a 40 minute power walk and training session to take the edge off so he would be calmer with Emma. For walks, I did two dog walks combining Shelly and Ole and then Emma with Elmo. It was impossible to walk Ole with Emma as he was too excited about her. She was I think rather happy to get picked up by her owners on Sunday night. I've only done one practice session for nose work since last week. Did 6 hides for Shelly and Elmo, all outside in the alley and then 4 outside hides for Ole on our lot. For Ole I hide the birch scent which is in small containers and put food treats on top of the containers so that when he finds the scent he gets instant rewards. He is still pretty new to scent work so I want to make sure he understands that he has to find the scent right at it's source and that he associates the scent with his reward. I'm going to try to do another training session tomorrow if I have time.
I took all 3 dogs to Fiesta Island today and Ole found a pile of horse manure . He grabbed a mouth ful as a snack before I could stop him...shades of his old life on the farm!
Tonight I had a puppy class to teach and Abner could not watch the dogs while I was at class. The SUV is in the shop so I had to cram all 3 dogs plus my X-Pen and puppy agility tunnel all in the Mini Cooper. It was like clowns in a Shriners tiny car. None of the dogs seemed to mind but I will be glad to get my bigger car back. We have a really cute class of puppies. There is a 10 week old blue merle Great Dane, a cute black chow mix, a labradoodle and a little cattle dog mix. Elmo especially liked the only little girl in the class named Joey who is the cattle dog mix. Elmo is very romantic being that he is 1/3rd poodle.
Ole is at least as tall as Shelly now and you can tell he is going to get probably at least 3 or 4 inches taller than her. I need a bigger car! His ears are staying up now but I think the right ear will always be a little weak and wandering. I love it as it has such personality. He is a very sweet boy.
I took all 3 dogs to Fiesta Island today and Ole found a pile of horse manure . He grabbed a mouth ful as a snack before I could stop him...shades of his old life on the farm!
Tonight I had a puppy class to teach and Abner could not watch the dogs while I was at class. The SUV is in the shop so I had to cram all 3 dogs plus my X-Pen and puppy agility tunnel all in the Mini Cooper. It was like clowns in a Shriners tiny car. None of the dogs seemed to mind but I will be glad to get my bigger car back. We have a really cute class of puppies. There is a 10 week old blue merle Great Dane, a cute black chow mix, a labradoodle and a little cattle dog mix. Elmo especially liked the only little girl in the class named Joey who is the cattle dog mix. Elmo is very romantic being that he is 1/3rd poodle.
Ole is at least as tall as Shelly now and you can tell he is going to get probably at least 3 or 4 inches taller than her. I need a bigger car! His ears are staying up now but I think the right ear will always be a little weak and wandering. I love it as it has such personality. He is a very sweet boy.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Ole meets a ghost and Elmo wins a title
It's been a very busy 4 days since last I blogged. Thursday and Friday I spent a good deal of time working on my art piece, made 2 trips to Fiesta Island with the dogs, and Ole spent 4 hours on Thursday at Daycare where they found a flea...DRAT! I had to give him another Comfortis pil on Friday to keep the critters at bayl. I've tried several organic flea repellents but they weren't hacking it apparently, so had to bring out the big guns. We had no flea problem until it finally got a little warmer just a few days ago. At daycare they have a strict no flea policy so they gave Ole a bath. When I came to pick him up he was relaxed and happy. Hiromi said that after his bath Ole ran around in circles to celebrate his flea freedom.
Friday night I spent getting ready for the Canine Nosework Trial in San Pedro. Donna and I had both entered our dogs in the nosework trial1 event on Sunday and had also signed up as volunteers for Saturday morning so that we could both help out and learn the ropes. I left Abner and Elmo and Shelly sound asleep on Saturday morning, none of them even raised their heads. I had to get up at 5:00 AM to get ready and Ole tried to help by also getting up and being as under foot as possible. While Ole was outside doing his AM potty, I came back in the house and bundled up a large sheet that was laying on the floor and placed it just in front of the back door which enters into the garage. When Ole came back in he lay down in the hall in front of the back door to get his morning cookies. All of a sudden he started barking and leaping backwards . I looked and saw the sheet heaped in the corner and quickly ran over and stomped on it till it was dead! Ole wagged his tail kind of sheepishly and then tentitively came over and sniffed the sheet completely relaxed and I praised him for being a big brave German Shepherd that even his dad Rex could be proud of. He is very sweet. He was sure that he would be able to talk me into letting him go also but alas, I was hard hearted and left him home putting him in his crate with some biscuits .
It was a long drive up there with a bit more traffic than we were expecting, but that's LA for you. We had a bit of a problem figuring out which toll exit to take to pay our toll for the 73 toll road which ended out costing us an extra $1.50 in fees but after a few wrong turns we found the place the Trial was being held right about the time we were suppose to be there. Corrine from nosework class was waiting for us and had saved us a spot in the parking lot by some trees. We were real happy to get out of the car and we now knew how to get to the place when we drove up with our dogs on Sunday. We all signed in as volunteers and were given our assignments for the day. Donna was to be the time keeper for the exterior search , I was the time keeper for the interior search, and Corrine was to be the container mover for the container ( suitcases, purses, boxes and bags) search. The trial we assisted in was for the most advanced and experienced handlers and dogs called NSW3 (Nosework 3). There are 4 components to all nosework trials: the container search where the dog handler team must find and alert on 1 or up to 3 odor hides., the interior search which involves the search of 3 rooms with 2 or 3 hides & one of the rooms has no hide in it and the team must find all the hides as well as figure out which room is clear of any hide ( very difficult!), an exterior search which can be in a grassy or concrete surface. It is about 1000 sq feet of marked off space, and the vehicle search which has 3 or 4 vehicles and 1 up to 3 hides. The handlers and dogs must determine which vehicle/s have hides on them , which vehicles are clean and the dog must locate exactly where the hide is and alert near it. The difference between Nosework 1, 2, and 3 is the number of odors the dog must identify and the degree of difficulty of the finds. Each of these searches is given a time in which it must be completed, anywhere from 2 minutes for a container search to 4 minutes for an exterior . In our interior search, the teams had 4 minutes to search each of the 3 rooms ( total of 12 minutes). If they went over 4 minutes in any room they were disqualified. (In nosework 1 only cardboard boxes are used in the container search with no distractions such as food or toys placed in any of the containers like they do in NWS3.) These guys had it tough! We tested 12 dog/handler teams and it took until 2:00 in the afternoon. With me in the interior judging, was the judge,named Nicole, the steward and myself. both the judge and I had stop watches to back each other up on the timing and the steward photographed the search of each of the 3 rooms by each team. It was a tough one and I think only 4 maybe 5 of the dog teams passed this particular part of the test. In order to title in nosework you must pass all 4 elements of the trial with a score of 100 points. In Donna's group(exterior search) only one team passed and in Corrine's group (containers) only one passed! In fact no one passed the NSW3 trial at all and we heard later that only one team passed the NSW2 test which was given after we left to drive back to San Diego at 2:00. Speaking of that drive., the traffic was hideous!!! It took us over 4 hours to do the 2 hour drive back to San Diego and there is only one rest stop between San Pedro and San Diego. Bladders were tested for sure that day.
Sunday was a tough one. I got up at 4:15 AM and quickly got dressed and cleaned up and slugged down my AM breakfast drink. I carried Elmo who was in no way ready to get up, downstairs, put him down to take him outside to potty and he sprinted back upstairs and burrowed under the covers of my bed. He woke Ole up so I had to sneak Elmo back downstairs and put him on the leash . I put everything in the car and made sure Ole was quiet in his sleeping pen and Abner was asleep in bed, before Elmo and I headed off to Donna's house to ride up to San Pedro with her and Miss Ginger. The ride back to San Pedro was much easier this time and we had Donna's husbands pride and joy to ride in , his immaculate1960's ?? volkswagen camper van. We got robbed by the coin machine at the toll road toll booth and had to pay twice to get through the barrier. There were no attendants at 6:00 in the AM on a Sunday. Once we got to the Trial things went a little smoother. Corrine had the shady parking spot saved for us so we set up camp, pulled out the vans awning and set up chairs and dog crates. There were 48 competitors for NSW1. They divided us into 3 groups A,B,&C. Corrine and I were in group B and Donna in C. I was designated as number 7 to do the box drills and then exterior search with Elmo, Corrine and her Tibetan Terrier dog Gus were #8 and poor Donna and Ginger were # 48! That meant she had to wait 4 hours or more before she and Ginger had their 1st turn at boxes and vehicle search. Dog sports in general are like this, hours of waiting for only a few minutes of competition. At least we had a good comfortable place to hang out in between our turns. Elmo was a real little pro and ready to work. As soon as we walked into the auditorium were the 18 boxes were set out for him to search his nose was working. I said "Find It!" and he trotted purposely to the first line of boxes, dismissed them as unimportant and headed to the 2nd line. He hesitated slightly and glanced up at me at the second one from the end but did not alert to it. I thought it was probably the one but that he just wanted a chance to sniff them all and we had a whole 2 minutes for the search so I went with him to the rest of the boxes and as soon as he kind of gave up on them had him take me back to the box of interest and sure enough, he tapped it with his nose,
gave me his AHA! look and sat right next to the box. I called "Alert "to the judge, she said"Yes!" and we had it, our first leg of the trial journey. Elmo got his hotdog pieces at the box and a butt rub and lots of praise and the steward sent us off to the exterior search area. Oh, I forgot to mention that before the trial started they also divided us all into groups of three and each of us in the group had to pick either interior, vehicle or exterior as an element. at the end of the trial the group with the fastest combined scores would be the winning team. Elmo and I selected interior search as our part of the team competition.
At the exterior search area we had to search an area of about 800 sq feet that was located outside between two classroom buildings and was divided in half by some school lockers which had an awning over them. It had a concrete surface and was hedged in the back and sides by shrubbery. Elmo was ready to go! He practically leapt across the start line and immediately checked out the east side of the lockers. as we got to the far edge of the lockers his head snapped to his left because he had caught the odor and he honed in on a picnic table . He circled one end of the table and stood on his hind legs up under the table and tapped the underneath surface with his nose. He then sat right down and gave me his most happy I did it look. I said "Alert" and the judge asked me to tell her where the hide was . I said under the table top next to the metal bar supporting the top. She said "Yes", and Elmo once again got to celebrate his successful find. We were both thrilled to say the least. The interesting thing about this all to me was I was not nervous at all during the whole day, a little excited , but not nervous and I think it helped Elmo because he was the same way. Dogs pick up on their owners energy and tend to mimic it. After that we had to wait until 2:30 for our next turn at the vehicle and interior searches. Corrine and Gus didn't have as much luck as Gus did not alert at all in the box drill but got the exterior search, and Donna, when her turn finally came at 2:00, Ginger aced the box drill but was 4 inches off her find for the vehicle search so did not pass vehicle search. After a late lunch, Elmo and I were up for our vehicle search. Once again I could just feel his confidence rolling up the leash and he found his odor with in 34 seconds no problem. One of the observers said that Elmo made it look easy, and I was amazed at how much he was enjoying the competition. Corrine's dog, Gus had problems with the vehicle search( usually Gus's best event) and did not pass it . Elmo and I were 3 for 3 with interior search to go which was also our team event. I had my fingers crossed that we wouldn't let our team down. Elmo sailed into the room gave his head a flick to the left to check a corner of the room and then (this was our off leash search) zeroed in on a big work table near the center of the room. He seemed very interested in a stool just under the table, stuck his head under it , and Bingo sat and smiled at me. I said" Alert", the judge said "yes", and we had it!!! our first title, NSW1! The long and short of it is , out of 48 teams 17 passed the NSW1 trial and Elmo and I were one of them . Our team won first place in the team event, also a ribbon. Donna and Ginger won everyones hearts with Ginger's determination and work ethic and charm but did not pass the trial this time. They did a great job however and if Ginger had been two inches taller probably would have passed. GInger couldn't reach the exterior search hide to alert properly at it but knew where it was. She worked so hard and with such enthusiasm that the observers all cheered and clapped for her at the finish and she strutted out very proud of herself. She was mentioned several times at the awards ceremony afterwards. It was a long exhausting day and fortunately there was very little traffic on the way home, got there in 1&1/2 hours. Ole was thrilled to see us and is very proud of his big little brother Elmo. He wants to grow up and be just like him , without the girly tail of course.
Friday night I spent getting ready for the Canine Nosework Trial in San Pedro. Donna and I had both entered our dogs in the nosework trial1 event on Sunday and had also signed up as volunteers for Saturday morning so that we could both help out and learn the ropes. I left Abner and Elmo and Shelly sound asleep on Saturday morning, none of them even raised their heads. I had to get up at 5:00 AM to get ready and Ole tried to help by also getting up and being as under foot as possible. While Ole was outside doing his AM potty, I came back in the house and bundled up a large sheet that was laying on the floor and placed it just in front of the back door which enters into the garage. When Ole came back in he lay down in the hall in front of the back door to get his morning cookies. All of a sudden he started barking and leaping backwards . I looked and saw the sheet heaped in the corner and quickly ran over and stomped on it till it was dead! Ole wagged his tail kind of sheepishly and then tentitively came over and sniffed the sheet completely relaxed and I praised him for being a big brave German Shepherd that even his dad Rex could be proud of. He is very sweet. He was sure that he would be able to talk me into letting him go also but alas, I was hard hearted and left him home putting him in his crate with some biscuits .
It was a long drive up there with a bit more traffic than we were expecting, but that's LA for you. We had a bit of a problem figuring out which toll exit to take to pay our toll for the 73 toll road which ended out costing us an extra $1.50 in fees but after a few wrong turns we found the place the Trial was being held right about the time we were suppose to be there. Corrine from nosework class was waiting for us and had saved us a spot in the parking lot by some trees. We were real happy to get out of the car and we now knew how to get to the place when we drove up with our dogs on Sunday. We all signed in as volunteers and were given our assignments for the day. Donna was to be the time keeper for the exterior search , I was the time keeper for the interior search, and Corrine was to be the container mover for the container ( suitcases, purses, boxes and bags) search. The trial we assisted in was for the most advanced and experienced handlers and dogs called NSW3 (Nosework 3). There are 4 components to all nosework trials: the container search where the dog handler team must find and alert on 1 or up to 3 odor hides., the interior search which involves the search of 3 rooms with 2 or 3 hides & one of the rooms has no hide in it and the team must find all the hides as well as figure out which room is clear of any hide ( very difficult!), an exterior search which can be in a grassy or concrete surface. It is about 1000 sq feet of marked off space, and the vehicle search which has 3 or 4 vehicles and 1 up to 3 hides. The handlers and dogs must determine which vehicle/s have hides on them , which vehicles are clean and the dog must locate exactly where the hide is and alert near it. The difference between Nosework 1, 2, and 3 is the number of odors the dog must identify and the degree of difficulty of the finds. Each of these searches is given a time in which it must be completed, anywhere from 2 minutes for a container search to 4 minutes for an exterior . In our interior search, the teams had 4 minutes to search each of the 3 rooms ( total of 12 minutes). If they went over 4 minutes in any room they were disqualified. (In nosework 1 only cardboard boxes are used in the container search with no distractions such as food or toys placed in any of the containers like they do in NWS3.) These guys had it tough! We tested 12 dog/handler teams and it took until 2:00 in the afternoon. With me in the interior judging, was the judge,named Nicole, the steward and myself. both the judge and I had stop watches to back each other up on the timing and the steward photographed the search of each of the 3 rooms by each team. It was a tough one and I think only 4 maybe 5 of the dog teams passed this particular part of the test. In order to title in nosework you must pass all 4 elements of the trial with a score of 100 points. In Donna's group(exterior search) only one team passed and in Corrine's group (containers) only one passed! In fact no one passed the NSW3 trial at all and we heard later that only one team passed the NSW2 test which was given after we left to drive back to San Diego at 2:00. Speaking of that drive., the traffic was hideous!!! It took us over 4 hours to do the 2 hour drive back to San Diego and there is only one rest stop between San Pedro and San Diego. Bladders were tested for sure that day.
Sunday was a tough one. I got up at 4:15 AM and quickly got dressed and cleaned up and slugged down my AM breakfast drink. I carried Elmo who was in no way ready to get up, downstairs, put him down to take him outside to potty and he sprinted back upstairs and burrowed under the covers of my bed. He woke Ole up so I had to sneak Elmo back downstairs and put him on the leash . I put everything in the car and made sure Ole was quiet in his sleeping pen and Abner was asleep in bed, before Elmo and I headed off to Donna's house to ride up to San Pedro with her and Miss Ginger. The ride back to San Pedro was much easier this time and we had Donna's husbands pride and joy to ride in , his immaculate1960's ?? volkswagen camper van. We got robbed by the coin machine at the toll road toll booth and had to pay twice to get through the barrier. There were no attendants at 6:00 in the AM on a Sunday. Once we got to the Trial things went a little smoother. Corrine had the shady parking spot saved for us so we set up camp, pulled out the vans awning and set up chairs and dog crates. There were 48 competitors for NSW1. They divided us into 3 groups A,B,&C. Corrine and I were in group B and Donna in C. I was designated as number 7 to do the box drills and then exterior search with Elmo, Corrine and her Tibetan Terrier dog Gus were #8 and poor Donna and Ginger were # 48! That meant she had to wait 4 hours or more before she and Ginger had their 1st turn at boxes and vehicle search. Dog sports in general are like this, hours of waiting for only a few minutes of competition. At least we had a good comfortable place to hang out in between our turns. Elmo was a real little pro and ready to work. As soon as we walked into the auditorium were the 18 boxes were set out for him to search his nose was working. I said "Find It!" and he trotted purposely to the first line of boxes, dismissed them as unimportant and headed to the 2nd line. He hesitated slightly and glanced up at me at the second one from the end but did not alert to it. I thought it was probably the one but that he just wanted a chance to sniff them all and we had a whole 2 minutes for the search so I went with him to the rest of the boxes and as soon as he kind of gave up on them had him take me back to the box of interest and sure enough, he tapped it with his nose,
gave me his AHA! look and sat right next to the box. I called "Alert "to the judge, she said"Yes!" and we had it, our first leg of the trial journey. Elmo got his hotdog pieces at the box and a butt rub and lots of praise and the steward sent us off to the exterior search area. Oh, I forgot to mention that before the trial started they also divided us all into groups of three and each of us in the group had to pick either interior, vehicle or exterior as an element. at the end of the trial the group with the fastest combined scores would be the winning team. Elmo and I selected interior search as our part of the team competition.
At the exterior search area we had to search an area of about 800 sq feet that was located outside between two classroom buildings and was divided in half by some school lockers which had an awning over them. It had a concrete surface and was hedged in the back and sides by shrubbery. Elmo was ready to go! He practically leapt across the start line and immediately checked out the east side of the lockers. as we got to the far edge of the lockers his head snapped to his left because he had caught the odor and he honed in on a picnic table . He circled one end of the table and stood on his hind legs up under the table and tapped the underneath surface with his nose. He then sat right down and gave me his most happy I did it look. I said "Alert" and the judge asked me to tell her where the hide was . I said under the table top next to the metal bar supporting the top. She said "Yes", and Elmo once again got to celebrate his successful find. We were both thrilled to say the least. The interesting thing about this all to me was I was not nervous at all during the whole day, a little excited , but not nervous and I think it helped Elmo because he was the same way. Dogs pick up on their owners energy and tend to mimic it. After that we had to wait until 2:30 for our next turn at the vehicle and interior searches. Corrine and Gus didn't have as much luck as Gus did not alert at all in the box drill but got the exterior search, and Donna, when her turn finally came at 2:00, Ginger aced the box drill but was 4 inches off her find for the vehicle search so did not pass vehicle search. After a late lunch, Elmo and I were up for our vehicle search. Once again I could just feel his confidence rolling up the leash and he found his odor with in 34 seconds no problem. One of the observers said that Elmo made it look easy, and I was amazed at how much he was enjoying the competition. Corrine's dog, Gus had problems with the vehicle search( usually Gus's best event) and did not pass it . Elmo and I were 3 for 3 with interior search to go which was also our team event. I had my fingers crossed that we wouldn't let our team down. Elmo sailed into the room gave his head a flick to the left to check a corner of the room and then (this was our off leash search) zeroed in on a big work table near the center of the room. He seemed very interested in a stool just under the table, stuck his head under it , and Bingo sat and smiled at me. I said" Alert", the judge said "yes", and we had it!!! our first title, NSW1! The long and short of it is , out of 48 teams 17 passed the NSW1 trial and Elmo and I were one of them . Our team won first place in the team event, also a ribbon. Donna and Ginger won everyones hearts with Ginger's determination and work ethic and charm but did not pass the trial this time. They did a great job however and if Ginger had been two inches taller probably would have passed. GInger couldn't reach the exterior search hide to alert properly at it but knew where it was. She worked so hard and with such enthusiasm that the observers all cheered and clapped for her at the finish and she strutted out very proud of herself. She was mentioned several times at the awards ceremony afterwards. It was a long exhausting day and fortunately there was very little traffic on the way home, got there in 1&1/2 hours. Ole was thrilled to see us and is very proud of his big little brother Elmo. He wants to grow up and be just like him , without the girly tail of course.
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