k9 nosework

jettababy

Does anyone have experience with nosework? Is it just teaching the dog to retrieve items with certain smells, or what? 

How much are they trying to charge - is this a regular class over a certain # of weeks?  I went to a nosework seminar where the instructor explained that other folks are trying to charge way too much money for the "supplies" needed - like $65 for a collection of boxes when you can just use low cardboard boxes.  More $$ for birch and other scents that are too much/overpowering, etc.  I don't know much about it.  I just know we did fun things w/cardboard boxes, toys dabbed w/vanilla scent, and practice and certain expectations guided by the instructor.  I had fun.

Nosework will allow your dog to practice working more on their own.  I think Agility is more oriented toward being a team w/you.  I don't do agility, either, but that's because I don't have a dog who is structurally well-suited to that, and I, myself, am not structurally well-suited to it, either! lol  I enjoy Obed & Rally, our next venture is Tracking.

 Nosework is all about the dog using its natural abilities to find things.  Most of the time you would start out simply with the dog locating food hidden in a box.  Then you'll progress to scent discrimination and teaching your dog to alert to a particular scent.  For example, when the dog smells peppermint, she sits.  When she smells coconut, she downs.  It's just a matter of teaching the scent as the cue for the behavior.  So, just as with transferring any cue, it's new cue, then old cue, until the dog realizes and anticipates the new cue by doing the appropriate behavior.  I went to a workshop with Sioux and she had it down pat in only a few tries, plus she was having a ball getting rewarded for just having a great nose!