Ball-game-reward

I managed to leave work relatively early and take the boys out for a beautiful sunny walk. It was wonderful. 

After our walk, I prepared some Nose Work searches for the boys. 

The birds are very active at the moment - I guess they are enjoying spring too, but it is causing a bit of a challenge in our Nose Work training. 

Nose Work is a dog sport created to mimic professional detection dog tasks. The dogs must find a hidden target odor and alert the handler. In Denmark "lavender" is the first odor, that you teach the dog to find. At first you place the lavender scent and then you put a treat with it. You ask the dog to find the treat and reward for finding the treat and the odor together. 

After a while the dog will realise that everytime there is a treat, there is also lavender scent and the dog will make the connection between the lavender and the food. Then the dog will start showing interest in the lavender as it will lead to food. 

Next step is to place some lavender hides with treats and one without. If the dog shows interest in the lavender without food, you give it a huge reward close to the lavender source. 

After a while the dog will have made a strong connection between the odor and the food and it will start searching for the lavender.

Even when the dog does search for pure lavender (without food), you will regularly put food with the odor to keep the dog's motivation up, but these last days, the birds have eaten the treats before the dog got to it. 

I decided today that I would put treats with the odor for Biscuit, but whenever Biscuit found a hide, there was no treat. The birds had already been there! Luckily Biscuit was happy and highly motivated even without the treats, so it was not really a problem and I guess the birds were pleased too :-)

My picture today is a happy Gollum, who has got his ball as his reward for good work. 

Happy weekend 
Emmy and the Hazyland Boys