ORT one week, NW1 the following!

Brother Beau (Hank) had a busy week, passing his ORT and then heading north to test for his NW1 (NoseWork 1) title.  Here is what Howard sent me...

Thursday, July 2, Beau and I took a 9 hour drive to a nose work trial in MA.  The drive should have been 6 1/2 hours but the construction and holiday traffic was problematic!  After a relaxing night in the hotel, we journeyed to the NW1 trial in Huntington, MA.  The venue was at a high school.

Our first search was the Interior search.  I was very concerned about the search area because it was in a very small locker room.  The room was less than 20 x 20 with ceramic floor and walls.  There were lockers on two of the walls, two benches bolted to the floor and various other items leaning against the other walls.  Beau was uneasy in this environment.  But he found the hide in 40 seconds.  The maximum time allowed for the search was 3 minutes.

The second search was vehicles.  The vehicles were parked nose to rear with about 3 feet between the cars.  The search area was outdoors with a wall in the left side and a pond on the right.  Talk about environmental distractions!  The search was allotted 3 minutes.  Beau found the hide in 15.33 seconds!

The third search was exterior.  The area was about 30 x 50 with grass and concrete flooring.  inside the area were bicycle racks, bushes, benches, columns and lots of cracks in the concrete!  The allotted time was 3 minutes.  Beau found the hide in 7.09 seconds!  He was smoking!  This search was the second fastest in the exterior.

The last search was interior.  There were 24 boxes arranged in three rows in a gym.  Only one box had the hide.  Beau took me up the first row, batting a couple of boxes out of his way.  Down the second row and he stopped at the second box in the row, pushing it with his nose.  The maximum search time was 2:30.  He did it in 29.75.

To qualify at a nose work trial, the team must pass all 4 elements.  So, Beau now has an NW1 title.

On to NW2 in the future.  In NW2, there are distractions in the containers and one or two hides in each element.  The distractions could be food (human or animal), toys, cat litter, etc.

If you are interested in looking at videos of nose work trials, please click on the link. 

http://www.nacsw.net/trial-calendar-information/video-examples-nacsw-k9-nose-work-trial-searches/nw1-trial-level-video-ex

Vehicle search... nailed it!!!

Congrats to Howard and Hank for achieving this title.  I know that they will be training hard for the next level and I'm confident that the team will get it.  Whether it is being wonderful companions (which they all are as we know), competing and titling in obedience, rally, tracking, agility or earning conformation points, I have to say that the M&M crew is quite accomplished for a bunch of 4 year olds.  Good job to all that love and train this bunch!

ORT pass for Beau (Hank)!

In previous posts we have heard that Howard and Hank have been doing a lot of nose work.  Well this past weekend they attended an ORT test and here is what Howard had to say...

Beau and Howard have been busy in the last two years with a new dog sport called nose work.  This sport has been described as the pet version of canine detection. 

In this sport, the dog is the leader (actually his nose) and the handler reads the dogs signals concerning what and where the dog finds certain scents.  The three scents that are used by the National Association of Scent Work are birch, anise and clove. 

In training, the foundation is to get the dog to find the location of the scent.  The hardest job the handler has is to read when he dog is in the scent cone and working the scent.

Before the dog is permitted to enter a nose work trial, it must pass an ORT (odor recognition test).  There are three ORT tests, first birch, then anise and finally clove.  The dog must pass the birch ORT to be permitted to enter an NW1 trial. 

I am very happy to report that Beau passed his third ORT Sunday in Bloomsburg.  So, we are finished with ORT tests!

He is entered in a NW1 (nose work 1) trial in MA on Friday July 3.  I will report the results over the weekend.  I hope that the results this time are better than the last NW1 trial we entered in the winter.  Beau did his job in all four of the searches!  I read him correctly in the first three searches and called the fourth search early.  I screwed him up! 

I urge all of you to explore this sport.  Dogs noses are amazing!

Hank (Oct. 2011)

Good luck in the NW1 test boys!

2 days + 4 classes = 2 much

Swing stepped into the Rally Novice and Novice obedience rings this past weekend and came away with 2 legs towards her RN title.  Unfortunately lack of training on her partners part contributed to her 2 NQs in obedience.

When it comes to showing my dogs I rarely place the blame on them when we do not do well.  They are not the ones that ask to walk into the ring and they certainly do not fill out the entry blank and write the entry check (sometimes I wish they did write that check!).  I was hoping to qualify but I also knew that I had not trained her down stay enough to expect her to hold it for 3 minutes with me standing at the other end of the ring (if I could have stood two feet from her she may have held it).  So that was our downfall in Novice B obedience, we were 0 for 2 for the weekend.  I'm not too concerned that we failed to qualify, I know what needs work and since the entry to the next show has already been mailed I have a deadline to meet and we'll meet it.  I'm also lucky to have a good trainer to work with who will make sure we are on the right track.  Stay tuned for that report early next month.

A co-worker took this picture of Swing on a recent visit and I think it really shows her personality.  I love that crooked smile and little wink in the shot.  She makes me smile every day.

Happy Birthday to the M&M's!

I was just about to post a quick birthday wish when this arrived in my mailbox.  Take it away Art!

Happy Birthday to the M&M pups. It is hard to believe they are four years old. Milo and I continue our travels to Florida. My dad had to be placed in a nursing home in January and so far this year I have traveled to Florida three times to help with the transition. Milo is my constant companion. He loves to visit Florida. My mom feeds storks, so they come up to the windows of the house. We have to put up chairs and other obstacles to keep Milo from crashing through the windows. He did that once and as I was checking to see if he was hurt my mom runs up and tells me it was all her fault because she fed the storks too close to the house. Milo leads a charmed life. 

I am still working in obedience with Milo. He is almost ready to show in Open. At this time, he can do all the exercises, but not consistently. I have him entered in a show in July, but I think it will be the fall before he gets his first leg. Milo got his first leg in Rally Excellent. Ideally, I would like to show him in Open and Rally on the same day, so it will probably be fall before he is finished in Rally.

As for the dreaded Agility - Milo'€™s instructors, he has a teacher in Maryland and one in Florida, agree Milo is ready, but that I need work. I did not believe them, until one day Milo had to do a jump, jump to the tire. It was set up in such a way that Milo after the second jump was positioned to the left of the tire and would run past it without jumping. I tried to get him to jump the tire, but each time he ran around it. I told the instructor Milo was not ready for this exercise. She asked if she could give it a try with Milo. With her in charge, Milo got it on the first try. I am holding the poor dog back from agility greatness. In any event, I have been deemed ready to compete in novice agility and have myself and Milo signed up for a couple of shows in July. I will keep you posted. As with the broken window, it is never Milo'€™s fault. 

Thanks for sending the birthday wishes Art and thanks for an update on Milo.  Swing and Beau will have a piece of "cake" for all of you when we get together tomorrow.  And it is hard to believe that they are 4 years old!

Rocky Mountain news

Ella, Stanford, Mark and Ann traveled to southern CO for Memorial Day to meet up with good friends for the wives to trial in agility while the guys hiked and biked.  It was a weekend of many firsts for Ella  as it was our first time to trial in the NADAC venue.  It was also our first time to trial outisde on the wonderful scent-filled grass, first time seeing hoops and barrels in agility, a first time trialing in a ring that wasn't fully enclosed (there was a very long unfenced area in the back of the ring) and first time since her first CPE trial to try to work with Mark outside the ring.  I was very proud of her performances as I was able to see huge progress in several areas we've been working on.  

Each agility organization has its own characteristics - NADAC is focused on open, flowing courses that require significant distance skills and plenty of speed to make time on the courses. In our agility training we have been working on focus and distance skills as those are our biggest struggles to overcome.  Ella made some big strides forward in her focus.  In AKC I spend 5-10 minutes of warm-up work with her before entering the ring.  We do a lot of opposition reflex work in a sit and left turns heeling to get her to calm down and focus.  I wasn't able to do that in this trial, but she showed me she could be a big girl and teammate even without all that warm-up.  

 Ella does everything in life with great enthusiasm, and even though she completed 17 runs in 3 days she had as much energy and committment on the 17th as she did on the 1st.  She was, however, a very tired girl by the end of the weekend.

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​Congratulations on a successful weekend Ann and Ella.  Sounds like there may be more to come.

A week with Hank (Beau) and a brag

Hank has been hanging out at Camp Jill for about a week now and it's been a pretty decent week.  The last time he stayed with us they were only 5 months old and things were a lot different in this household.  I do think he's been enjoying himself, he's had a lot of exercise, trained a little and been on the road almost as much as he normally is with Howard.  This weekend we went to our friends farm to play on the agility equipment and today we took a road trip to a breed match so that I could show Stitch who belongs to my good friend Sallie.

Stitch and Hank

There was a slight overlap when I had both Stitch and Hank and as you can see, Hank had fun playing stick keep-away with Stitch.  With Swing he would rather run around and explore which means he's been a bit too close to the road at the end of the lane for my liking (where one goes the other eggs them on to go farther so they've been wandering a bit) or out behind the spring house looking for bunnies.  Thank goodness he will do a recall, especially if Swing responds when I call her (they have had selective hearing once or twice) but if that doesn't get a reaction out of them I can always get a reaction if I say "let's get some cookies!".  We have another week or so to work on that skill along with a few others.  :-)

The brag for the day is that Stitch went to her second match and came away with Best Puppy in Match!  Every time she entered the ring she got better and better and both Sallie and I were super pleased with how she did.  If things keep moving in the direction they have been we could be looking at another Champion in the future.  Here is a shot of the little girl from today's match.

Stitch - Best Puppy in Match, Lehigh Valley Owner Handlers Association

She is two days short of 5 months of age and she handles the ring as if she's been showing in it for some time.

On our way home we stopped by Cabela's to let the dogs out to potty and stretch their legs since all of the adults had only been out of the vans for a short period of time while we were at the match.  The afternoon was lovely, the humidity had broken and there was a nice breeze going.  It was a nice pit-stop before heading home and calling it a weekend.

Hank gets to enjoy us for another 10 days so we'll get more pictures to post and perhaps a story or two to tell.  Stay tuned.

Camp season!

A few years ago I had a house guest when Ziva, my friends Welsh Springer Spaniel, came for roughly 10 days.  Today I have another house guest but this time she's grey.  Her name is Stitch and for those of you that have not met her, well let me introduce her.

Running around the pond

Stitch is my friend Sallie's new addition and her dam is Giselle, a Chatawey dog, who was bred to Summit from Silversmith Weimaraners.  Sallie's plans are to show her in Obedience and Rally but before that she will be shown in conformation.  She's already shown that she may be a nice show dog, at her first official match she got a Sporting Group 2 from a very large 3-6 month entry.  Needless to say we were very proud of her.

She's been getting a lot of exercise while she's here and as we all know, a tired puppy is a good puppy.  As of this morning she has taken TWO dunks in the pond and in both cases she got herself out and was none the worse for wear.  I will admit that the first time she went in I did run (ok, sprint) down to the pond but she was already out of it and shaking the water off.

Shaking it off

Yes, that is Swing's butt in the picture.  I personally believe she pushed Stitch in the first time.  :-)

Stitch will be here for a few more days and the next camper will be our little brother Hank!  Yes, Howard is entrusting his boy to me for two and a half weeks.  His comment when he asked if I could keep him, "Beau may not want to come home!".  That means the next blog entry will be filled with stories and pictures of his adventures while he stays with my crew.  

Now, what is everyone else going to be doing for the next month?  And before I close let me wish all of the moms out there (human and 4 legged alike) a very happy Mother's Day.  

Stitch, Lifeguard in training