Canine Nose Work, Continued

The dogs have become big fans of sniffing birch, anise, and clove. Last night I worked the boys on not just sitting in the general vicinity but actually poking the scent source. Three iterations each, three pieces of cheese each.

This morning Bruce brought his ball in and dropped it instead of bringing it to me for a cookie. "Where's your ball, Bruce?" I asked. He disappeared.

I asked again. He popped back into the room, then disappeared. I followed him and found him in a sit a couple of feet from his ball. "Where is it?" I repeated, hoping he would bring me the thing as he usually does.

He popped up, poked the ball with his nose, and sat again, wagging furiously.

Canine Nose Work

Dog News had an article, and I chased down the website after being prompted by a friend, so here it is: National Association of Canine Scent Work, inventors of the sport of K9 Nose Work.

It's an interesting sort of thing: training scent detection without having to use cadaver, which is icky and often requires some legal reason to have it, or drugs, which require a DEA certificate of some kind (I've asked, and had no answer, how one gets certified). Instead you go to your friendly local holistic-goods store, pick up a vial each of sweet birch and clove and a scattering of aniseeds, and you're good to go.

Of course, all three scents are quite penetrating, and my house now smells of birch beer. Luckily I like birch beer. I have a gauze pad saturated with all three odors sealed in a baggie, inside a box, inside another baggie which also contains the original bottles and seeds. The dogs are enjoying the find-the-pad game.

According to the Dog News article, the organization trainers teach the dogs to hunt for treats first, then pair the treats with the target scent (they start with just birch), then remove the treats. They say "On average, most teams train for at least one year prior to entering their first NACSW sanctioned trial."

I'm doing it differently, teaching my dogs that when they sniff the baggie, and they are curious sorts every one, they should sit. If they find the open baggie, they should sniff and sit. When they do, they get a treat. As I said, the baggie contains all three scents. My logic is, you can train a cadaver dog on as complete a sample as possible, then expect him to figure out that just bone, just fat, or just skin also all count. It may take longer to get the dogs to alert on birch alone than with their method, but they'll be doing aniseed every bit as soon.

So far, all of them, even the old geezer whose nose and ears are both getting iffy, are getting the hang of sniff-and-sit. Bruce even chased the baggie on a fling across the kitchen and poked his nose in, then sat wagging like mad and waiting for his goodie. This is, mind you, after three weeks of erratic training. I think they'll be able to do all three scents separately or together in a fairly short time, and then we can take the show on the road, into the cars, into the sheds, and everywhere else we can think to work. For now we're just working on go, sniff, sit as though this is an obedience combination.

Shepherd Puppies in Atlanta

I have been asked several times since moving here, "Are you going to have puppies? Where can I get a shepherd like that?" I have a few business cards from Dustin's breeder, who has only bred one litter since, and a few from a pleasant local breeder who has his cousins. I send people to the Atlanta German Shepherd Dog Club.

At the meeting the other night, held at the Atlanta Humane Society, I happened to glance in a window at the puppies drowsing on the other side, and called over a couple of other club members. We agreed -- they looked like purebred GSD puppies to us. One tried to climb out the window to us while his two littermates slept.

I went back today and took pictures. There are more available at the no-kill Atlanta Humane Society website. I can't possibly take another dog -- four is more than plenty -- but I can try to get these little guys some attention. The male who tried to climb out the window tried to climb up my arm today; he's a cute confident friendly little cuss who reminds me very much of Dustin as a puppy. Apparently his name (at present) is Billy. I can't picture it fitting him for long, though he might grow into a William. He's the bold-looking one in the following picture; the other is a sister who looks slightly less shepherdy, either a product of an odd outcross or of a second breeding to a part-shepherd, but who knows?



The third pup in the litter is a "coat" by the look of him. I have not yet seen him awake, so his AHS picture is better; look for Bobby.

I also spotted two other female puppies, one mysteriously labelled male on her sheet and blue-collared despite the spay scar and other telltale signs of femininity -- and also the fact her name was Brianna. As soon as she realized I was looking at her, she began trying to climb between the bars of her cage. She's a pale black-and-tan cutie pie who spent every second she could licking like mad on my finger. She might not make a bad search dog, actually. She seemed willing to do anything to get to a person!

The one that sticks with me, though, is Scout, and not just because that's the official name of my son's toy puppy that plays music. I'm a sable junkie. Very few people know what sable shepherds look like, and tend to take them for mixed breeds; this cutie is labeled as a German Shepix. I'm pretty sure she's not a mix. Sables are cool. In strong sun, a clean and well-groomed sable shines like tigerseye. In shade, they vanish. Sunny's favorite game was to lurk ten feet away from me in the woods with her ears flat and her mouth shut to hide any telltale pink flashes. I swear, she laughed at me looking for her. Anyway, meet Scout. She was a little anxious about being held in the air, but was gravely sweet with her paws on a solid surface.


They also had an adult shepherd, with no "mix" on her label. Kelly moseyed up to the front of her kennel with a curious wag when I stopped to look at her, but didn't care for the flash. Her label said she had been treated for heartworm and would have to be kept quiet.


I'll try to post stuff like this every so often. It's not dog-training, but it's somewhere to send people who ask me where to find a shepherd for a pet.