Find Your Fix- Sport Dog Scent Detection Podcast- Training Tips and More !
K9 Scent Fix—Find YOUR Fix- Sport Dog Scent Detection Podcast
JOIN THE FUN ! Canine Nose Work coaching tips and tricks to help fix your training and trial challenges with an open mindset. Offering methods and techniques that might be new to you or outside your "usual". Chatting with the experts, experienced nose work coaches and guest speakers exploring new ideas, how to use them and build solid training resources with Mountain Dogs and Release Canine.
Join us for the LIVE podcast via Zoom - watch for each LIVE podcast announcment and interact with your Hosts Jill Kovacevich from Mountain Dogs and Aleks Woodroffe from Release Canine. Email us at mtnnosework@gmail.com OR aleks.woodroffe@gmail.com WITH your Topics or Comments. We love to hear from you our K9SF Handlers !
Recorded Podcast released within 24-48 hours or during the first week of each month. Look for the Podcast posting at k9scentfix.buzzsprout.com
Find Your Fix- Sport Dog Scent Detection Podcast- Training Tips and More !
Trial Preparation: Maximizing Your Performance When It Matters Most
Time management could be the missing key to your nosework competition success. In this candid conversation, Jill Kovacevic and Alex Woodruff share their summer training approaches and fall trial preparations while diving deep into critical skills for effective competition.
Jill reveals a breakthrough in her handling technique that transformed her Elite trial performance—taking full advantage of search time rather than calling "finish" prematurely. This simple adjustment allowed her to find hides that would have otherwise been missed, demonstrating how our handling decisions directly impact our dogs' success. Alex complements this with insights on training during Arizona's summer heat and her preparation for welcoming a new working cocker puppy into her home.
Both experienced handlers explore the psychological differences between training and trial environments. Why does your dog work differently in competition? How can you maintain the same patience and trust you have in training when under trial pressure? The answers involve understanding convergence zones, odor puzzles, and the unique challenges of different competition levels.
The discussion provides practical solutions for common competition challenges: using timers effectively, reading your dog's subtle communication cues, recognizing when your dog has detected source versus investigating pooling odor, and developing targeted training plans based on honest assessment of your current skills.
Whether you're struggling with the transition from NW3 to Elite, preparing for your first competition, or looking to refine your handling for championship-level performance, this episode offers specific techniques to elevate your partnership with your dog when it matters most.
Be sure to join us for our next episode where we'll continue exploring the fascinating world of canine scent detection with more coaching tips and practical training advice.
Hey everyone, welcome to our podcast for August. I'm Jill Kovacevic with Canine SempX, and I have with me Alex Woodruff. Say hey, Alex, Hello guys, so we're going to jump in today and we were tossing around. Of course, this typically will happen, that two or three weeks ago we, oh, let's talk about this and it'll be great, blah, blah, blah. And then, as we get closer, we each have had other experiences that maybe shape what we do or don't want to talk about let's put it that way and so what we're going to be talking about more is kind of universal.
Speaker 1:So what are you up to now? Because you may be reaching a lull in your nose work, training or your dog training, or you may be reaching, like, your peak season, depending on where you live and what you do and that sort of thing. So we thought it'd be kind of fun to just one bring it around to some of the topics that we're talking about on some of our webinars. Two, our recent experiences, whether they be over the summer doing some dog shows and that sort of thing, or some trials and nose work. So let's just jump right in. Hey, Alex, what are you doing?
Speaker 2:The big thing that I'm doing is a whole lot of nothing Right now here in Arizona. It's 113 here today and so there's not much training going on. I like to give my dogs downtime in the summer, so they're kind of in their downtime right now. Every once in a while we might do primary search, we might throw out a hide here and there, but in general they are happy being dogs and we are both starting to get stir crazy, which is kind of where I like to be, kind of coming into the beginning or middle of August so that we start wanting to do stuff. So the training starts having a little bit of fun again and it doesn't feel like it's monotonous. So that's kind of the big piece of where we are training. But there's a whole bunch of stuff online that's going on, so I'm having fun with webinars right now.
Speaker 1:What about you Jill? So real quick, before we jump away from that, what are some of your webinars? What are you?
Speaker 2:doing so. I just finished one up with Fenzi Dog Sports Academy and it was called Blank or Not Blank. It was a really fun topic. I was lucky enough to do a seminar recently where the participants let me a few of them, let me to video them. So we were looking at the dogs as they went into a series of rooms and I threw Tana in there too. So we had three different heights of dogs, different levels of dogs, and it's up to you, as you're watching the webinar is that first room blank or is there one hide in there? Recognizing the changes of behavior, breaking it down, seeing what it looks like for different dogs, what different teams might do. The ones that ran it didn't know if there was a hide or not, so they were running it blind, which gives you more time. It's more realistic for a blind search or blank search. So it was a really fun webinar to really dig in and break that down. It's something that I probably want to explore again.
Speaker 2:I'm doing a seminar in Sedona here coming up in September with the same concept and we're going to be running a whole bunch of rooms and working that kind of thing. The hard part about that is when you're doing a seminar like that is people can't really watch if you're going to run it because you lose the element of being able to say is it blank or not blank for your dog in that moment. But it's definitely a fun, a fun topic to cover. So that's that one. The other webinar that we've got coming up and I'm doing with you and that's the failure one that's coming up how do you work with failure in competition and training and all that fun stuff. So that was August 15th. Yeah, I think it's open for registration right now and that's on Centwork University.
Speaker 1:Yep, and that's failure is a growth opportunity there we go. Virtual event right.
Speaker 2:Yeah so.
Speaker 1:Alex and I were talking a little bit about that right before we came on and I just have I have a real aversion to the word failure. I have a real aversion to the word failure and it's probably because, in my life and the way that I personally learn, I'm not one of those who can do something correct like the first time I have to if you will fail multiple times over and over, and, over and over again. So it's really the whole process of try, try again. And I also don't like the word try either, because I feel like try is kind of we use it as kind of a little bit of a cop out.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll try right as opposed to ooh, let me try that again.
Speaker 1:Those are two entirely different ways of using that small word of try right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like the thinking, like opportunity, right, it's another opportunity to see how we do, to test where we're at to look at. Yeah, I think that's going to be a really fun talk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I've always maintained that our biggest job as a handler and in life with our dogs is to provide our dogs with an opportunity to experience, experience and keep doing the experience until you can fulfill those skill sets of what right or what you're building towards. So, anyway, so, yeah, and the question was what are we doing now? Right, yeah, yeah. So I can add one more.
Speaker 2:Sorry, before we dive into yours, my last one, I can add one more, sorry before we dive into yours. My last one, which I'm like eyeball deep in trying to prep right now, is I'm running a camp August 25th through the 28th. Yes, you are yeah. So I'm really kind of diving into that one, getting the final details together and I think it's gonna be fun. We've got like 10 summit teams, 10 elite detective AKC teams and then about 10, maybe 12 lower level teams.
Speaker 1:So it's going to be really fun. Yeah, yeah, great instructors who are going to be able to dive in, and you've got a wonderful site for it, yeah yeah, Up here in Strawberry Arizona. Yeah, and what is it? Is it a camp? Is it a tourist site? What is it?
Speaker 2:So the site itself are like cabinsins and they've used them for weddings and church retreats and things like that, so they are two room cabins. Hopefully it works out. It's always interesting when you're trying to throw people together that don't really know each other all that well and it's like, okay, great, you're sharing bathroom, you're sharing cabin, but I think we're going to be so busy that it's not necessarily that you're stuck with the same person all day.
Speaker 1:So I think it'll be fun. Yeah, Right, Well, and they can always pair off too. You know the person that they know they get along with. They can always get the top bunk, and I'll take the bottom bunk. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Luckily there's bedrooms, but that's good, yeah, how many are in a bedroom. Just the there are two occupancy, so you've got somebody who stays upstairs and somebody who stays downstairs in the little A-frame. So two bedrooms two people yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, that works. Yeah, that works a lot, that'll be really fun for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so okay. So for Mountain Dogs or myself yeah, where are Mountain Dogs? Or myself, for August, I like to say this is my lull month where I kind of come in off of August. So I've done six trials, hosted six trials up to the end of July and then I start my fall and we're going to do another five or so between September and November. And so August has always kind of been my okay, that's. It's too hot, you know. You kind of feel like even across the board, across the nation, that it's going to get pretty warm, no matter where you try to do some of our dog events. So just try to watch that and be mindful of that, right? But I'm headed to the Hornet. So we're going to be doing the USS Hornet on Tuesday the 12th and that is a single-day event. That is a non-sanctioned trial. We run it as an elite-style trial and we have Anita Teasman she's coming in to be our CEO. We have Frank Romano he's from the Sacramento area now coming in to judge and then Anita will be our other judge.
Speaker 1:Jenny Kiefer this year decided. You know, she's been kind of the mainstay helping me with the event for years. I think this is maybe our fourth or fifth year, I can't remember. I'd have to go back and count and she decided she wants to compete this year. I don't want to do. You know, she's going to come help with the setup and stuff, but we're going to be very mindful to make sure she, you know, gets to run it totally blind and compete with the other guys down in the parking lot and really have a fun time doing that. So then Lott and Bishop's going to be meeting her in Truckee, california, so she's going to come and do VC work and that sort of thing and we have video services. So I have very, very few volunteers. I may have two, oh geez, maybe three, but I don't think we really. We've got this down now. It's pretty seamless.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just put down the dots and you get people up the gangway onto the ship and then they go do their search and they pretty much go in and out almost the same place. So it's just really everybody and most of the people who are familiar with it the veterans will be sure to help the new people so that they feel confident and comfortable. And I don't have I think I have 20 teams, so that's always a good number for that event because it gives you plenty of time to get you know. You don't have to feel rushed trying to get to your searches. But boy is it fun. And so that's up on the.
Speaker 1:Mountain Dog Smug Mug too. So if anybody wants to go see what that looks like the past years are on the smug mug and I really wanted to try to do this as a live telecast. I mean, I think that would just be really fun. So we'll see if I can figure out some way to do that. It might just be through a Zoom. I just turn my Zoom on on my phone and we just telecast parts of it. We'll see. In the past I always wanted to get a production company to come in because I think it would be a really fun event one-day event to do that and pretty inexpensive. But we weren't able to do that. And then, after the Hornet, I have workshops coming up, kind of just like you do. I got one the 22nd, that's in Grand Junction. We got a school for it, and then September 5th we've got one going on in Kiowa, and then we jump right into Meeker Trial, which is what is it? The third weekend? One, two, three.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's when I'm judging ASCA Nationals.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's on weekend. Yeah, and then we run oh, in the beginning of September. I'm really looking forward to it. We're headed to the Meeker Sheepdog Trials oh cool. We're going to go on Sunday, the 7th. I actually have sponsored a dog. I got a little poster over there, oh cool.
Speaker 2:So is Zeke competing, or are you just going to play?
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, yeah, so this is like the Meeker Sheepdog Trial is internationally, one of the highest ranking competitions. Certainly, I think, in our nation, but it is worldwide. So yeah, so they'll be ongoing up there doing their. You know the last day is the final. So, yeah, so they'll be on going up there doing their. You know the last day is the final. So that's the Sunday the 7th. So that's nose work demonstration and bless them for doing that, right. I'd be like, yeah right, my dog's going to. He's going to know there's other dogs there. He's going to know there's sheep there and I'm going to take him out and put him in a little pen and ask him to do nose work. Yeah right, they could do it they could do it.
Speaker 1:Great distraction. So so, other than that, the other thing that I really have on my list that I'm really working on is competing, so finally getting some ability to not only be a handler but really start to apply some of the skill sets that we do have and figure out what skill sets I need to improve. So that was Red Lodge. I just went up to Red Lodge, montana for the second and third and competed on both days. I did a L1 interior, so that's a level one interior, right, a little bit like the AKC novice interior. Yeah, yeah, they were a little bit bigger right. Yeah, a little bit bigger right. And Zeke actually came in second. The first place dog actually was the first place dog in the elite. Oh cool, yeah. So Daisy Holt did a great job with that. So he did really good. You know one of those where you accumulate just seconds. Yeah, yeah, five seconds, you go alert.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, we're leaving now my dog's like what.
Speaker 1:So that was a great segue into the elite select. I did another elite select and the elite select he came in third and we only had one. No, we got all the hides. So that was really good. And then in the elite. So my thing about elite and Alex knows my story with elite, with Zeke, it really was something where I really worked hard at NW3.
Speaker 1:And he's very good, as you can tell, with those elite selects, right, his methodology of searching is very fast, very high expectation, very high energy. So he does do better with, if you want to call it, the speed search. But the smaller area, smaller number of hides, right, three to four, something like that, and in very short amount of time, even if it's a minute, right, that's where he really shines. So what I've been working on with Elite is that bigger search, the four-minute, five-minute, six-minute search with the eight or more hides, right. And in training we do very, very well.
Speaker 1:But I have a comfort level going into training because even if it's not necessarily training at the exhibit hall where we train right, so say it is really a new environment I still feel very comfortable with those new environments. You go to a trial, one of the first things that you have to be prepared for is it's an environment. Even if you've trained in a hundred different schools, even if you've trained in a hundred different schools, right yeah, still, every classroom's different. Every time you step right, you step up the environment it's differently.
Speaker 2:Our brains start flipping into what is this going to be Like? What is this CO going to give me? What is this judge going to give me, right? So I think it's hard to get out of that sometimes. But our brains start flipping into trying to predict and trying to overthink. Oh yeah, even when we're saying, okay, no, I'm just going to follow my dog, I'm just going to be right there. But then it's almost like we stop thinking we're standing in the moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, versus when we're training, I feel like we're more comfortable because we're just waiting. Sometimes we just wait for our dog to find the hide because we assume our dog can find the hide. I don't think the same assumption is always there in a trial.
Speaker 1:I think that's absolutely true, and especially even if it's the exact same type of hide yeah Right, chair hide's a chair hide's a chair hide. In so many ways. Yet you put that chair in the middle of a classroom and you're now the 15th dog to come into that classroom and that chair hide's been sitting there for however amount of time. Right, populating odor on everything else in the room. Right that it just presents itself differently.
Speaker 2:And I think it's also, do you have trust in your hide setter? So if you're setting your own hides for training, then you know it's on the chair and I think even though you're watching the same odor changes to get to the chair.
Speaker 2:You know it's going to get to the chair. If you trust who's setting your hides like you've got an instructor or maybe you're going out with friends and the friends set the hide you kind of know the pattern, you know what they would do. The chair is kind of logical. It's not going to be a bad assumption for you to face and wait for your dog to find In a trial. I think we go into, but maybe it's not, but maybe it's over here, maybe it's over there. And so then we start not supporting it, not having the same patience maybe, and just quietness in our handling that maybe we do have in our training. And so then it will affect how our dogs work, because I don't think it's just us. It's like why is the dog taking longer to solve this in a trial when this should be easy in training? So I think it's that piece too.
Speaker 1:True, true, but I do think that. So one of the things that I'm observing too, because I've been watching a lot of the really good skill set, elite teams, and of course, these are teams typically, and who is competing with us? Who are the high-end elites?
Speaker 1:There weren't that many that were, like me, still working on my elite too. So I'm still down in that lower bracket of miles that I've put into this level of trial. I don't have right. So even if you go okay, he just turned five you've got five years experience. I really took time this time to bring him up through the ranks because I didn't want to have a three-year-old that was at elite champion. Because what's the next thing we do is we decide, like Alex is, deciding, to get another dog.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a big one for me, because, yeah, so I'm getting another dog, and the big reason is because Tana has cancer and we can't leave George alone. So this process has started over a year ago and it just timing has now settled in.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, and so far with Tana, with her cancer, she's done very well, she's fine, yeah Right, but she's nine and a half and she's a flat girl, right? So some of it isn't. Just I just wanted the folks to know. Some of it isn't because Alex has got like a you know hemangio diagnosis or something that's not you know. No, she's fine Taking your breath away every moment that you think about it, right? No, no, but 50% of our dogs do end up with a you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and flat coats. The average age is nine and a half, okay, so that's where she's at right now. So, and him and you happens fast, so it's not like I could plan for it, and I really don't want to leave george without a dog, because I do think that he he's one of those kind of dogs that just always needs a friend and I don't need him stuck on me oh, and that's what you mean by can't leave George alone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, okay, he needs a friend, he needs that stability in life. Right, right, it's just his personality.
Speaker 1:I thought you meant like you can't leave George alone at home.
Speaker 2:No, I was going to say what do they do? No, they get into trouble. Yeah, watch hockey.
Speaker 1:Well, and then I think it's interesting too you are getting a smaller dog. I am yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I really want that challenge. So, okay, I'm getting a working cocker. The working cocker has been on my list since before Tana. I've been looking at these dogs like as agility, that I wanted this kind of dog before I got her. And then I decided to continue on with flat coats instead of doing that. And then, when I was thinking about breeding Tana and having a litter, I was still looking at Cockers and going, oh, but I still really want one, I really would like to do that. And then everything matched and we were able to do litter.
Speaker 2:So timing is just it now and I'm really happy about it because I feel like I can take the most out of training a little dog and learning from it and being able to be able to express that to my students, because I have a lot of students with smaller dogs. There's a lot of people downsizing to smaller dogs, so I feel like that's an advantage to be able to understand how some of those trainings are, because I work with a lot of people with little dogs and I know that there are specific issues that can pop up, but at the same time, it's trainable, and so I'm really hoping to capture that and be able to put it maybe in words and videos of how I would train a small dog to be able to be just as confident as a larger dog on high hides or deep hides or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, that's going to happen when.
Speaker 2:Next month. It's soon. I've got like 30 days here.
Speaker 1:When we were talking about what are you up to? Yeah, we got some fun things coming down the pike right.
Speaker 2:It's one of those things of like, okay, single mindset of finish camp, and then, once I finish camp, it's going to be like holy crap, we're here, holy crap.
Speaker 1:Time to leave. Do you have a name?
Speaker 2:We don't.
Speaker 1:Not yet Do you do that based on personality or anything like that.
Speaker 2:Also discussions with the husband to make sure it's a name that we both like. I used to be an entomologist and so I really would like A bug name. Yeah, I want a bug name. It's a little dog. It just makes sense that I finally can put a little bug name on it, so we'll see what kind of bugs. Well, I'm trying to convince them on weevil. I think weevil would be a fun name. Weevil, weevil, weevil, weevil. But I don't think that's happening. What?
Speaker 2:is a weevil a weevil is a like a beetle, but it's got a long nose. Oh, like that. They can be super colorful, right?
Speaker 1:um, they're pretty common and then you probably call call it bugsy or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bugsy he thinks bugsy should be a name. I'm like, well, maybe it could be a nickname it could be a nickname. It's probably going to be bugsy Nick's name, little Bug Little.
Speaker 1:Bug, there you go.
Speaker 2:That sounds like fun, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So if we were to jump into, because obviously at some point in time we know what you'll be doing for September, october, november, yeah, December, january Well, also judging and hosting trials in there too.
Speaker 2:So anybody. I'm judging with just FYI, I'm bringing a puppy with me. I've got what do I have coming up? I've got a trial in Prescott in September judging ASCA Nationals. End of September judging in Texas. Don't think the puppy's coming to that one. What else do I have? I've got NECSW trial VC. I've got our huge trial here in Arizona also.
Speaker 1:Right, that's at the very beginning of November.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've got yeah, the 31st through the 3rd, so that's going to be a big one Got it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay, and we've got FRUDA on for that one. Oh yeah, that's exciting. That's a new site for you guys. That, that's exciting, that's a new site for you guys, that's a new site. Yeah, so the school district, our school district in Guerin Junction, has what's called Facilitron. So it's a Google site that you can. Well, you can Google it, but it's an actual organizer for the schools to just turn over their schools to have this I don't know web page. Yeah, make their spaces available to the community.
Speaker 1:So I just we're going to get classrooms and, you know, the library all the things that we know how to use and we're going to go in on the 22nd actually and use a new school for our workshop in Grand.
Speaker 2:Junk.
Speaker 1:Perfect the scenic. I think it's either scenic elementary might be the name of it, and then Fruita will be the old Fruita Middle School, because actually the Mesa County School District is taking a number of schools out of you almost want to say out of service, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've got the same thing here.
Speaker 1:So they're building new buildings, and these older buildings they're just not sure quite what to do with yet. And the good news is it's not empty right. It still has all kinds of stuff in it.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah.
Speaker 1:So we're going to be able to do that in Halloween, that Halloween weekend, cool, yeah, yeah. And then we also have Calhan, which is our, but that's not September, is it? That's Summit? Yeah, october.
Speaker 2:In.
Speaker 1:October and that'll be really fun. We're actually the AKC. There's an AKC club that's going in to use that facility before our event. Okay, For whatever reason, and you can't expect we're going to run into this more and more, guys, if you're listening to this podcast, For whatever reason, and you can't expect we're going to run into this more and more, guys, if you're listening to this podcast, and I think we should embrace and not fight or do battle over facilities, because it's just as our sport grows that this necessarily will happen.
Speaker 1:So I just thought, okay, I'm just going to reach out to the trial secretary and let her know. Blah, blah, blah, and the reception has been absolutely wonderful. We're going to really work together to make sure that I just have an understanding of what they're using, and it doesn't mean that we won't be able to use those same areas. We'll just use them for different things and remove whatever right, and so they're going to give us a great deal of detail.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what I've done in the past is asked for photos.
Speaker 1:So when we had to share sites, is just taking photos of everything.
Speaker 2:Hyde was on because sometimes blue tape gets removed by the people who are there. Hide was on because sometimes blue tape gets removed by the people who are there, right um, so having some sort of uh indication or markers, or if you can hide a tiny little piece of tape on a chair underneath, um, to be able to identify those things. But yeah, we've done that before as photos to share between akc and nacsw. The other one is we've tried to because I host with our own club we try to aim to put the AKC trial after the NACSW trial Exactly yeah, because there's less odor that gets used.
Speaker 2:It's a little bit more concise versus AKC. There's a lot of hides that get thrown out. There's a lot of spaces used, so it ends up being a little bit easier to do it that way versus going the other way.
Speaker 1:But, you do what you could do easier to do it that way versus going the other way, but you do what you could do Well, and I think what happened here is that you know, no one knows how easy it is to put a trial together, because it's not easy. I guess I shouldn't have said it that way. So I have no idea how long right that particular trial secretary or the host club was really working on that site, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it could very well be that we were both working on it at the same time. Who knows? But I can't ask the facility to exclude right?
Speaker 1:No, and it gets weird then, and we're going to be able to really be able to expand to equipment and buses and a lot of other areas that we haven't used before. So we'll just do it that way and call it good, and I think it'll all work out. So there'll be an elite there. So my plan at this point in time is to enter my own elites that we're hosting and take with me the mindset that I just had in Red Lodge, mindset that I just had in Red Lodge. So some of it was. You know that when I have a host team doing stuff, you do get wrapped up into kind of just the minutiae of it, right, and don't really always focus on your run, what you're doing, right, yeah, so here's what I think is kind of interesting my goal, so you know when we go to make these goals for trial prep, and I'm going to be doing a webinar on trial prep. You just finished blank or not blank, yeah, and I'm starting up my class.
Speaker 2:What is that beginning? No, middle of September is going to be trial prep, yeah, so yeah, we do a ton of goal setting.
Speaker 1:Right. So we're going to be really working on that subject matter of what should you be training for, how do you do that training? And then how do you measure that training in trial right?
Speaker 1:Because if you don't have that piece, then it's really not trial prep, right, yeah? And I think often what happens and I think it doesn't really matter what venue you're doing we have a tendency to measure our performance, our trial performance on that trial day, by a number of known factors, right? So it's number of hides found, and typically it's number of hides found measured by the competition. So even if you feel like your competition and for me it really is an individual thing I'm very competitive with myself.
Speaker 1:What you expect you could do Well, I just don't like to be a beginner you could do Well, I just don't like to be a beginner. I've learned that no matter what sport I do, I want to do it enough so that I gain a skill set, so I feel confident and comfortable doing it right, and not necessarily that I'm measured by others as being good, because my standard of being good is often by observing and getting to know who's the best, right, you see what I mean. And learning, yeah, so my bar of where I think our performance should be is typically ahead of where our skill set is. So how do you live with that and not call it like failure?
Speaker 1:every time you don't meet that higher right that higher bar, and I think part of that is you have to go into it with an expectation of it being there, right? But, that you're expecting to, just not just. You're expecting to feel confident and comfortable. So if I have a happy, confident and comfortable dog on trial day going into those searches with clarity, at least as far as I can observe right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, of understanding what we're doing, why we're doing it and seeing that the dog is enjoying doing it, right, right, then that's huge. That's the goal. Yeah, yeah, that's huge, so, anyway. So, typically, what do we do? We measure it by number of hides found. Yeah, I want no nose.
Speaker 2:Nose.
Speaker 1:yeah, We've all said that I don't want any missed times and I want no no's. And this starts at level three, I think at two, and now, quite frankly, in two, the measure there is probably going to be. I just want to pass my containers.
Speaker 2:That's where it's at right now. I just want to get through the distractions and containers. And it's like you could work them all day home and I think it's something about the nerves of the space or coming out from one search going to another search, whatever it is, but the distraction level just is a little higher at a trial than you can replicate at home.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that that's kind of my point about going into that environment, right? Because, necessarily it's going to be distracting One. It's socially distracting. I am far more socially distracted at trial than I am in class with all the people I know. However, on the flip side, I can also put more pressure on myself right to performing class right. Yeah than at trial, when maybe I don't know as many people I didn't know personally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you were in kind of a new area, a lot of the competitors in Red Lodge, right, it was like hey, this is great because Red Lodge is a newer site, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, nikki's really doing a great job of starting it up there, yeah, and getting it together, but she's going to draw from east and west of where she's at as well as from the south. So, yeah, you get a whole different crew than what we see in Colorado or maybe down here in Arizona.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of cool, and people are still, especially in August too. That's a fun trip, right?
Speaker 1:So they were like, oh, I can get into that one and it's cool and the temperatures were wonderful, everything was just really really great about it. So, anyway, so going in, one of my things has been looking, so part of it is I guess I should back up just a titch. Okay, all right. So what we're going to do when we're talking about what are you doing now, I think what Alex and I just alluded to is, hey, let's talk about trial prep, because we've got trials coming up. Certainly Mountain Dogs does for the fall. Alex may not have that. She may be more in a teaching mode, right, or instructing or coaching mode, but there's going to be a lot of working with this puppy, right, and working on odor recognition and all those sorts of things. That are all part of what we're talking about anyway.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, so you.
Speaker 1:George doesn't get to play again. He'll do AKC here and there, but he doesn't really get to play elite until, hopefully, february.
Speaker 2:I can get in up here, but still, like, I'm still aiming for those trial prep. Like for him, I really need to focus on grass, kind of where you were with Zeke, I'm seeing it pop up and it's popping up other places and just that desire of green grass. So we just need to work on value and that commitment to working and all that stuff and it's a stress response. So we're going to break that down and that's my huge project with him for the next two months here. So working some grass stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of my favorite things was the toss the tin in the grass.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, so much of it, he could just sit there and eat it, but there's a tin in it. So that was kind of one of the turning points where he started to go oh, but anyway, okay. So back to that kind of concept. So I think part of it is based on your skillset and where you are, and if you need to get a coach or somebody to look at either your videos or you know, while you run your dog, to kind of say, okay, here's the things that you do have as skill sets and that's the first place what's good, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because too often we say, oh, I just want to go in and I'm going to do this trial and I want no no's and no mistides. I just want to go in and I'm going to do this trial and I want no no's and no mistides. Well, do I have the underlying skill set that's going to get me there? Because that's really not a measure of a skill set, that's a measure of a result. Yeah, agreed, yeah, those are results. So you really need to know, okay. So if I want to really say I want no, no's, I have to figure out why are we getting no's right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I think it's also important, like, and I think humans, we say, okay, give me the bad so I can work on it, yes, but we have to like sandwich it even for ourselves. Before you dive into what can we fix what was great? Yes.
Speaker 1:So that you don't go in feeling bad. Well, not only that, but I think, because I'm a huge progression person, so I can't figure out where I am on the continuum Right, so okay. So going back to my statement that I hate to be a beginner, I mean like to the point where, like skiing, I just skied until I could stand up and turn.
Speaker 1:Okay, right, I mean right, I just and same. With scuba diving, it became an obsession, right Of. I want to develop the skill sets it's going to take to do this. Well, yeah, right. So then, even as you get a new dog and you start through the ranks of one, two, three, right, my sights are constantly on elite and summit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what are we developing for that?
Speaker 1:That's the dog I'm developing and that's just me, because I've been in the sport long enough now to feel that like that's. But I want a confident and great skill sets both in myself as a handler and my dog, when I arrive at that level right, or at least be aware enough to know what I can be working on to get better and be competent at that level right Exactly. I don't necessarily have to. You know, blue ribbon it because typically, like I say, I'm not that person in life.
Speaker 1:It usually takes me 16 trials to get through NW3. And some of that was because you ended it with blues Right, but some of that was because I used a lot of that for training.
Speaker 1:And a lot of that is because I'm self-training, right, right, yeah. So it became. So a lot of those were asked for helps and all those FBOs and all those situations where we get to go okay, right, yep, yep, anyway. So my epiphany for this one Okay, so I came out of Calhan and I felt like my fellow competitors. So Lott and Bishop and Ellie Summer and Trinity did so much better than Zeke and I, right, and yet I don't measure myself by beating them Right or having them rank higher than where I am.
Speaker 1:What I am saying by that is I wanted to look at and I have seen both of those dogs run a lot what skill sets do they have? That Zeke and I might be missing, right, right, right. So I felt like, or not necessarily missing, might be missing, right, right, right. So I felt like, or not necessarily missing, but maybe aren't as honed, right, I'm still working on developing that skill set, whatever it is. So I really wanted to figure out what are those skill sets, okay, so one of my challenges in Calhan that I realized he pooped in the second search, yeah, and in our second search there were seven hides guys.
Speaker 2:Ah, shoot.
Speaker 1:So, if you don't know, so pooping means he's DQ'd and I lost all those hides, even anything we might have accumulated prior to that. So for that search I score nothing, right? So I'm already seven hides down for the day. So I didn't have the wherewithal at that point in time to say, that's okay, I can still get to 50, right? Like, say, there's this number of hides, I could still accumulate a 50 and I'll be okay with taking that 50. I actually turned it the other way and said, okay, I'm not going to worry about it, I'm going to ask for help here on in, and if we come up with zero points, that's fine.
Speaker 1:If I don't keep my points, that's fine. I wanted to right as soon as I did that those next two searches granted the two afternoon searches were more than speed search. Yeah, yeah, so we were talking beforehand that what we're and this is part of that, though I'm realizing that we are and we do have our Elite Select 1 title and I'm halfway to an Elite Select 2 title. I'm getting the second one. So those are 400 points. I think 350?.
Speaker 2:I can't remember I haven't played. Select a lot Right.
Speaker 1:So those are four basic speed searches in a half a day for those folks who don't know, and they're elite level but they typically are level three search areas and search times. So that's kind of why level three if you have one level three you can participate in elite select and get used to some of these elite level hides and search areas. So he's very good at that. Because Zeke loves the speed, I love the speed. We both feel very confident and comfortable doing even the one minute search for two to three hides right.
Speaker 1:That's kind of what level three prepared us for. What we haven't had in trial a lot, but we did in training a lot was the longer search with a high number of hides. Now, interestingly enough, if we back this whole story back up, when I was in level three, we were doing a lot of longer multi-hide searches, longer multi-hide searches. And then when I put him in a level three trial, he spent a lot of time running around the room and not finding because his expectation was.
Speaker 2:There was a ton of hides, right All this odor must mean a ton of hides as opposed to just get busy and get the one hive. Efficiency yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes. So I didn't have efficiency at all so I had to back that up and give him you're going to get zero to three hives and we're going to do size of an NW3 search prior to trial right, because it's a border collie who has very much structure and his last learning expectation is the thing he's going to bring into the nest, right, yeah, and so that really worked.
Speaker 1:Once I focused on that. Now I get to circle back around and go okay, now we're heading into a leap, now I have to do the larger searches. So the larger searches with unknown number of hides, you know anywhere. And it's sometimes too those big searches in the morning of hides. You know anywhere because and it's sometimes too, those big searches in the morning with five, six minutes if there's only one to three hides, or, heaven forbid, if it's blank, right, you like it can make or break your day in terms of your confidence.
Speaker 2:Right yeah, oh, for sure.
Speaker 1:So I had to deal with that of really feeling confident. No, we covered our area, he got what we could get, blah, blah, blah. So that's what I was kind of hoping Calhan would do. And yet we had this massive distracting animal arena let's put it that way and I will tell you there was scat in there that was probably not farm animals, right, it was probably not farm animals.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, it was probably other right, yep. So for whatever reason and he's got some wildlife stress, you know we live out in that area I saw it at camp in Colorado camp, where he exhibited considerable stress. So he pooped and that was kind of that right. So he pooped and that was kind of that right. So I go into this one thinking okay, I just want to. My goal was to use my time better because I felt like it was getting away from me in those longer searches, right?
Speaker 2:Right, because it's there, you just kind of settle in too much.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, and too much following around, not enough collaboration, not enough watching what he's working and staying in his zone so that I can get him to tell me whether there's an answer there or not before he moves on Right, and so we've really been working on that. But what I wanted to do because I've been wearing a timer and not everybody's going to like a timer and for years, well, all the way up through this first part till now, I have it on, but I've never really used it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like a timer.
Speaker 1:I forget to push the button. I don't want it beeping at me every half hour every 30 seconds. That makes me I'm crazy nervous.
Speaker 2:I can't handle those ones, right yeah.
Speaker 1:So I have it on silence.
Speaker 1:And then I'd all of a sudden look down and I'd go oh, I forgot to start it, oh, shoot, yeah, oh this, oh that. So I said okay. So one thing we're going to focus on is my timer. Can I set it? Can I hit start before I get to the start line? Right, yeah, yeah, and can I draw it down? Literally use as much time as possible and not be afraid or afraid is not a good word, but not be overly anxious, overly zealous, yeah, yeah, but it's almost a zealousness, right. As soon as you hear the 30-second warning, you get like, okay, now we got to really, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's so. I've used a timer a lot, probably because AKC there is no 30 second call in masters or detective, so you get used to. If you need that timer reminder, you're setting it and you're going to have to do that for you to say I'm going to call finish quicker. But I really like to use it, especially in huge detective searches where you have a lot of rooms and outside and inside.
Speaker 2:So if it's a nine minute search, I might set my timer for four minutes, so then it will go off at four minutes. I have 30 seconds that I have to restart it, so if I'm a little late on restarting I'm not going to miss my time, but it's also a good little like hey, are you halfway through your search area?
Speaker 1:Yes, and if you have not, I did that with Digger, at Elite and even Summit, and I just did it with my little what is this Timex? Right, and I would set it for half, especially if it was a can't go back. Yeah, when it can't go back, I set it for halftime, yep. And in halftime I said okay, you spent halftime in this first area, yep, so now it's time to move on. If it's not, if the dog's still not being productive, right, right, still not working Exactly, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So I did those four searches on Sunday, those four searches on Sunday, and in three of them I took them down to a second. Well, right, so I was like right under the gun.
Speaker 2:So if it was a five minute, search I've got a couple that are 457.9. I'm kind of the queen of 59.9. I don't know many times, but it's just recognizing what is 30 seconds. How much time do I have so?
Speaker 1:what was happening before is I think I was saying finish, yeah. A few seconds after the 30 second call, feeling like, hey, if we're, if he's not right on it, why am I wasting time?
Speaker 1:And I was leaving a lot of hides that he had already identified where they were. I did have plenty of time because I know in 30 seconds we can probably even solve two hides if they're in fairly close proximity. If they're there, Right, If they're there and they're in close proximity. So we were able to, and I have to I'm kicking myself because we didn't have video services available and my clip for my GoPro broke, Ah right, so I didn't have any way to attach it, so I couldn't use my GoPro. Yeah, but one of the good things about that is I'm realizing for my GoPro. What I want to do with it now is I want it to capture so I can review after trial. Before I was reviewing it during the trial day and guess why? I couldn't remember how many hides we got. So I wanted to know how many hides.
Speaker 1:So I would just review it and just look at it and go one, two, three. Okay, so we got three right. And then my whole calculation in my head of what I thought was left right, yeah, so I like the fact that I didn't have it available to you're letting go of that yes, yes, yeah, right. And then what exposed, though, still is um getting a better sense of how many hides I did find. So I may even add a counter on my finger. We'll see if I can do that.
Speaker 1:Just for a short period of time, because I even said one drum pedal, two cart three, whatever, and I still had four hides in a search. I swore to God, I only got three.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I do find that like walkthrough videos with NECSW are really nice for this, but like drawing a map or becoming as familiar with the space as possible can help me remember because it feels like I already know the space and so it helps me put a little like tab on them as we go along. If I don't know the space at all, I get lost and it's hard to keep and remember. I've noticed that, like with really convoluted like searches where there's a lot of rooms or a lot of hallways it's harder to remember because you're spending too much mental energy on everything else.
Speaker 2:But if I spent the time and I sat down and drew out a little map like however crap it was, but if I kind of drew it out and had an idea of where things were, it would help me put those hides into places as I found them, and so that seemed to really help with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and maybe that's kind of what I need to do too, right, because the other piece is that Zeke is a very odor-compelled dog.
Speaker 2:Right, so then you're running through to find.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so he can be working a hide, and even while he's in the pooling or further down the pathway, so he's not on source, he's working source from, and the reason why I say he's working source from a particular hide that he hasn't yet revealed to me right is because of its location. So I remember him really working this TV stand, moved off of it into the next room, into the next room, right inside the doorway was a hide on an object, whatever it was, and so it makes sense that that odor was coming through the transition hallway right Directly to the path where he was on that and it was a convergence zone. Yeah, so the concept that should have been going on in my head is that had to be a convergence, because if it was, well I suppose it could be some quantification.
Speaker 1:It could just be pooling and trapping. It could be, but for it to be that far away from the hide. That he then goes and gets, tells me that he's working back upwind, if you will, he's working back up, right. So he's moving off of where he is to go back up wind, so that quantification should have been small enough to just be an investigation versus inspection. Holy buckets Like he worked the base of this thing took off, went and got this other hide. Then I circled that room and forgot to come back to where that TV stand was.
Speaker 2:What I like doing. If you see like that, like oh, that's kind of weird and that's how we got here At that hide, you turn and face the thing that they just came off of. That it felt like it was too much work, because if it's just the odor from the one hide you found, they move on.
Speaker 1:It's done.
Speaker 2:If it's something else, you have just like shortened your time by at least 30 seconds for your dog to already find the new line from that convergence point to a new one. So I normally try and face back where they came from. If it was weird.
Speaker 1:If it was super clean, nice.
Speaker 2:No change of behavior that we're confusing. Everything's clean, then we're going to face forward and keep moving.
Speaker 1:Right, and the other one that I'm realizing is he's got a little bit of a pop and go.
Speaker 1:So if I call it a pop and go. He's very good about pressing all the way in right. Yeah To complex odor, but if it's a pretty so it was one of those teacher's desks sitting right at the opening of a hallway or the two adjoining rooms. Again, literally not having this video is like Killing you. It is because my memory, I know, is not accurate. So he comes right in and he nails the crease on that right Just straight to it. That's his first investigation. Is nose freaking on source? Yeah, now that I know where the hide was, right, right, but what do I do? I pause.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Because of that, looking for some more information. Yeah, like, can you dip your head down under and try to get under the desk? Go around the desk, right? Yeah, well, he peeled off of that because I didn't call it right away. Went to another hide With that one, I remembered, and I said let's come, you know, hey, right. And so when I released him and I saw him going back towards that desk, I went yes, Right, we got something to do here.
Speaker 1:Right Versus. And when we say, go, you know, take your dog back, those kinds of things. And when we say go, you know take your dog back those kinds of things.
Speaker 1:With this particular dog, I have to go where he wants to go. However, I have to understand that where he's going is important. Or is he going downhill right To find a line and come back? Yes, yes, right, so, yeah. So that was very interesting because I was able to pick up, I bet, because that typically the one before Calhan, I think I left one hide in every search, so that would be missing four hides, right, yeah, so this, I was able to grab those two that took me right down to the wire and the other two I can totally understand missing them and it was exactly that, because we took off after another pathway and didn't come back around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Good to know.
Speaker 1:But what got me there was the awareness of my timer. Turn it on, run with it, right, they call 30 seconds and the timer was just having kind of oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, are you going to call finish? Well, I felt pretty confident that I was ahead of the timer. Right, I understand that I could have risked that and maybe I wasn't right, for whatever reason, and if that was the case, it was going to be a half a value of a hide, which I'm willing to do that right now so that I can learn how to use this timer and become much more confident about continuing to search for my entire time to pick up, because that's what Summit's going, summit's gonna be, it is, and what's interesting is coming from summit back to elite p, because then I'm trying to change my mindset again with tana to be able to call quicker than the last timing because we don't need to be there, and so that's been a hard challenge to come back to, because I need it for george.
Speaker 2:I don't need to work to the last second because honestly it's not going to happen if the hire don't need to work to the last second because honestly it's not going to happen If the hire wasn't going to happen, it's not happening. But understanding that difference and I found when Tana was starting in elite, I did the same thing work to the very end and then learning how to shorten that as we got to our elite three and championship, and then learning it's okay to go to the end again because those last seconds often are helpful Not always, but they can be and individual placements aren't necessarily as valuable as trying to get as many as you can.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's another piece right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I had to you know, because in three a lot of it was just being fast and in Elite S it is just being fast. Basically, yeah, yeah, Right, but who, but your high placement?
Speaker 2:supports it too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, but one of it is you might not be the kind of competitive person who really cares about oh, I want to get all the hides. Yet that's put competition aside. Right? That's measuring a skill set.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:If I come in, I do want to get all the hides, because trial is about finding, it's not about searching. Yeah, I mean it's about effective searching and efficient searching Right.
Speaker 2:But the whole sport is measured on finding Right and it's not unusual finding one, yeah yeah, it's not unusual for somebody to be in top placements and not be a super fast dog, right because they found more hides, because they spent the time to find them, yep, and so it is a mentality shift a little bit from three to get into elite to try and do those things. And then the differences for AKC like detective you have to find them all, so it's not uncommon to over-search and stay in those spaces, but then you get caught up in some of that trapping odor.
Speaker 2:Yes, you do, because there's so much odor there Some of these detective searches like if I've got 50 dogs in a detective search, it's there all day, like that's a lot of dogs to run through a single search If you're running at the end of the day you have a very different picture than the second dog in, and so then you might need a little more time to sort through it, and so the timing doesn't replicate or represent how good you are, because that first dog team that got it in two seconds might need or whatever four minutes, might need six minutes if they're running at the end.
Speaker 1:Well, and on the flip side, just to put the converse as a thought right, there's some hides that will become more available after that, however many hours of it sitting there right Versus, that may not have presented itself and the handler may have had to do more area management to get the dog into the available odor space, right oh?
Speaker 2:for sure. Yeah, I've seen that, like in California, a lot of us judges because we just kind of slip into play detective whenever we've got a chance. When I'm judging out there, we all kind of like running at lunch because the odor has had a chance to set, sit in the space, fill in where it's going to fill in, become as clear as possible without getting too muddy, and it's like lunchtime is like the ideal runtime. You don't always get it Like.
Speaker 1:I often end up having to run at the end of the day, but that's kind of the prime is you want to get in there at lunchtime? So meaning that you're competing at lunchtime or you're running, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, if I'm judging containers or something, all day long I get to run detective, but I'm going to fit in whenever I'm not judging.
Speaker 1:Right Got it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Got it. So one of the things that so I was texting, I typically try to have what would you call it? The person on your text string that will talk you off the ledge. Okay, right, yeah. So it typically ends up being Jenny Kiefer, yeah, yeah, so it typically ends up being Jenny Kiefer, yeah, and she's so good. She says all you can do is cover your area and respond to odor changes. Work areas that need to be worked Period, that's all you can do.
Speaker 1:Just do that, right, yeah. Well, that was before I ran, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then after was a much larger paragraph than the one sentence right, but it was really good because it was really a lot about that, and I think this is what happens in our mornings with Elite One. You may not always have your longer searches, but typically you've got one search there. That is kind of the Easter egg hunt, whatever we want to call it. It's the low hanging fruit. It's efficiently get many hides in a certain amount of time. That's kind of what we're measuring with that, right, yeah, for sure. Then when you switch to maybe the afternoon right or into one of your more complex odor puzzle searches, right, then are you able to, because you get kind of in awe, right, you get like you're in the headlights.
Speaker 1:So you just did this you know, alert, yes, alert, yes, alert.
Speaker 2:It feels good, we've got right, and you?
Speaker 1:go into that next search where your dog's not nailing it down in nine seconds, right, Not going from one hide to another hide to another hide. And how do you collaborate with your dog at that point and how do you do the problem solving?
Speaker 1:right and it really is one of those where, like I was describing and that was one other thing I felt really good about that I was able to do and I think the timing and being aware that I had time on my timer and I knew right, I was literally looking at it and going you've got plenty of time, You've got two and a half minutes left, Totally, you know, blah, blah, blah. I was able to take him back to that teacher's desk that I should have called his first nose press into it.
Speaker 2:You had time, then too, he was absolutely on source.
Speaker 1:He gave all of his indication and everything and I just went. That was so fast.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:Like right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but those moments happen and it's not right Right. That's why the hesitation.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, well, or it's. Are you investigating, pulling and trapping?
Speaker 2:or low odor space and then when the dog moves out of a low odor space where they've had to work really hard to try and figure out a problem, and they get into a trapping odor kind of near source but they just hit it fast and they go oh here, and they come to that answer a little too fast. And I've seen that before. I've seen that in blank rooms in AKC Masters, because you might have a blank room and they've worked hard in that blank room. They called finish and the dog comes into that last room and then hit something strange and it's just that arousal of the dog trying to come up to an answer too fast.
Speaker 1:Well, and it can't even be how similar, because this is my other challenge with this particular dog. So we're very engaged with each other 24-7, right? So he's looking, put it this way, zeke often rides in his crate, that's behind the driver's seat, staring at me, right, yeah, okay, that's kind of his. He locks on, he's attached, whether you call it obsessive, compulsive or whatever. Yeah, he actually just has really good border collie eye, okay, right. And so, yes, he may be trying to control whatever or infuse or offer his opinion, right. But so, you know, at the very beginning of training him, I was like, oh, I just don't want to have the check-ins.
Speaker 1:Let's just not have any check-ins If this dog never looks at me except when he's, you know on source, that'll be perfect, and so what I've really come to understand is that I have to have the whole picture, I've got to have the bracketing. I want to have the information coming up to source. So that was one of the challenges with that desk Right. He just came right in and I thought we were like moving down an under pathway for him to then further right and he just nailed it and I went holy crap, that was too quick. Would, you mind giving me a bracket Like should.
Speaker 2:I just say that right?
Speaker 1:Sorry, but I'm going to need more information than that for me, because my job then is to read you on source, not just in odor. My job to call alert is to read you on source can I ask you a question?
Speaker 2:did you pause on the start line?
Speaker 1:I do yes.
Speaker 2:Did you see him catch odor on the start line? Yes, so I wonder, if you play with that in training a little bit more, you can develop some confidence when he hits it like that in yourself. Oh, I find Right. So if we don't pause on a start line, we kind of come in, we're fiddling with our stuff, we say, hi, we, we get the okay, then we go, we're not really watching, we're not taking that time to really watch the nose connect and actually identify a hide before we get going. Because they can. I find if we see that moment and we watch the dog connect those lines and then the hide happens within a second, you're more likely to call it Because you've seen the work from the start before you took a step, versus we're now walking together and then we start working and the dog's already on the high, you know, and that's a good point, because I think my brain like lost all of the pathway because obviously he didn't have a pathway from wherever he left the other room.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, and so all I was comprehending was the second. He made it through that transition, came through the transition and then nails an object and I'm like whoa, where did that come from? Right, right Versus. Hey, it came from the other room.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and connecting those lines, yeah, yeah, and like every transition zone, so every doorway, every narrowing space. Yeah, to have that Even corners, so like, yeah, and you're just always anticipating.
Speaker 1:Innies and outies. Do I stop? Yes, innies and outies. You have outies Inside, outside. That's what I call them Outside corners?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but if I'm always going to anticipate and I say always because as we're moving through there are we stopping, we're not Okay, but I'm always looking for the dog to catch odor in those spaces because it is so valuable as they come through those transition zones, whether the hide is there or it's available from there.
Speaker 1:Right, Right, what about the concept that? Well geez, if I just would train him to do more of his freeze, or you know, because we did have a freeze at one point in time, right, Yep, yep, and that was really put into play because at level one he had major pop and go. Right but mostly because he was a toy reward dog, yeah. So now that he's food right, yeah, he comes to you if not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe I don't treat it any different than when it was a toy, so I've taught my dogs if I look at them, stuporous, so like ah, what just happened here?
Speaker 2:Like just that blank question mark on my face, like it feels like it happened too fast. But that becomes a cue to my dog to go back to the hide, got it. And so, because we do it all the time and I can look like that a lot of the time when we're searching what are we doing? What just happened? And it's a natural instinct on the human, so it's not like we are telling the dog to do something, it's just something we're naturally giving off. But the dog sees that turns around, says you're being dumb again. Let me put my nose back on source so I can get my cookie Right. And I do that. And going back to the foundations, going back to the basics of rebuilding that cue, because I would suspect if he understood you standing there going, oh, that feels like a little fast, he would try and fill in that gap for you.
Speaker 2:I like the dog doing that for you.
Speaker 1:Oh, so do I. Yeah, right, yeah, okay. So that's a little bit about what are you doing now.
Speaker 2:yeah, we've got lots going on yeah so we got a lot.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, now I'm headed into because the goal is to get to elite two for sure. Cool by camp. Yeah right, and I only have oh my gosh, I think I only have 45 points.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's not so bad, or even less than that 35. So one trial, yeah, one good trial.
Speaker 1:Right. But I really want to use that one trial not to just get those points, to get that next level. I want to now build on what I just did right.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:You know now, if I go, if I'm using my time to have an effective search and he does enough effective searches, he will get more efficient. Right, exactly Right, rather than coming in with a hugely fast dog and then, saying oh, you need to slow down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, yeah, for sure, this way. He's maintained his own pace. He gets to do his way, right, yeah, yeah, anyway, yep, for sure, this way he's. He's maintained his own pace. He gets to do his way, right, yeah, so, anyway, cool, so that's really. That's my trial prep. Yeah, awesome, all right, yeah, so what do we have on the calendar moving ahead? Let's just talk about that really quick and then we'll jump off, get this thing up, so people can start listening to it and any questions you guys might have about trial prep.
Speaker 1:I think that some of the biggest things is analyzing where you are right now, yep, and figuring out how to do that Not analyzing where you want to be, because those are always not the same. They can be similar, but they're not necessarily right. You have be. How do we bridge?
Speaker 2:that gap.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brutally honest about here's, here's the skill sets you have. So, looking at your last trial, looking at are you getting no's, are you getting faults? Are you timing out? Are you saying things to yourself like I wish my dog would go faster, I wish my dog would go slower, I wish I could remember hides, I wish I could remember hide location. That's mostly what I end up saying. Or did we already get that hide? Can't tell you how many times, right, we've thought of that, coming out of search areas and immediately being able to say chair table right, chair table, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and get that correct.
Speaker 1:To the best of our ability, right? So those will be some of the things. And then building that training plan, depending on when that next trial is If it's several weeks out or several months out, right, then maybe it's more of a universal skill set building. And then, as you get closer, you narrow it in versus, like I'm going to be going from this one to one. In how many weeks is that? Well, it's about six weeks.
Speaker 1:You've got a few more, but I'm going to really run the hornet, because one of the things we do with the hornet yeah, I want those to be blind to me as well and I want them judged, and even if Lott and I have to only do it, we can share it. You know, while everybody's getting ready or whatever we can, always one person gets to do two and the other gets to do two, while the other one can score of what you got, yep, yep, exactly, and judges it. So that'll work.
Speaker 1:So you can put them in there and judges it. So that'll work. So then you have analyzed, you figured out what your skill sets are, that you have, what skill sets you need to gain, and then from that you figure out how to improve it. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, where do we go to make it happen and what?
Speaker 1:your training plan is. And then if you're still, if you have all of that figured out but you still don't know, okay, so do I need a coach to set blind hides for me? Can I set known hides because I'm self-training and take video.
Speaker 2:Or is it a skill? Set that just the dog needs to learn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do I get analysis of those videos so that I feel like we're moving forward or we're not, those sorts of things? And one of the things I've done gosh way back when and I even put it up as a circuit training right, yeah Was because this can really help. So just a regular stopwatch that does the count up yeah, don't even have to have it on countdown right.
Speaker 1:Because, the things that our timers in trial are using are counting up, right, right, it's a three-minute search and they're going to hit it and it's going to count up to three minutes and that's how they're going to do it, then you get a time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would just take the timer, I'd hit it, put it in my pocket, go do like however many hides. I put out four hides. This is purely just so that I gain a time awareness. Yeah, stop it on the last hide. And I look down and go oh lord, we just got four hides in 30 seconds, or?
Speaker 2:it's really help?
Speaker 1:yeah, well, well, but I'd never. I was just doing the lower end of the circuit and the reason I was doing that was to have greater confidence. Yes, right. So if you are, going to get that four minute search. You know, by gosh. You know we have solved four to six hides in a minute or in 30 seconds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I think, if you feel like you're not getting the time, like you're running out of time all the time. I find, in general, you're not putting a time limit in your training, ever and so you're not experiencing time limits.
Speaker 2:And so you have this very lazy day cycle like just following your dog, just kind of doing all the things, and we're going to stay out here long enough to get all the hides, yeah, and we're going to hang out. But then you get to Trella and you're like I'm so stressed about time. But I think it's just an understanding of we could be moving through the search area and having a little more efficiency.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah. So that's a good point, because you could do the same thing with a much longer search, right, right, look down and go. Okay, that took four and a half minutes to cover this entire acre, or whatever it was, or just walk it.
Speaker 2:No dog, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah. And then I think some other stuff that's really fun to do well, at least certainly at Elite, can very much help, because, or elite select, and that's you figure out what are the different types of searches that we do. So unknown hides, yeah, no number of hides, range right. And then you know, do that typical thing of what is zero to three mean what is right, right, so working with the.
Speaker 2:That will help too.
Speaker 1:So yeah, alrighty. So your next thing's coming up. On the 15th We've got a webinar with Centwork University. Yep, it's going to be a panel that's about failure is a growth opportunity. Virtual event. There is a panel on this Holly Bouchard, tony Gravely, myself, michael McManus, nancy Reyes, alex and I and that's your panel who's going to be discussing that. So it'd be wonderful if it was hugely attended and we had a lot of interaction from an audience, because otherwise you're just going to get our opinions and those might matter to and they might not.
Speaker 2:So you might as well, it might not be applicable you might as well.
Speaker 1:yeah, just chime in and let us know what you're thinking. And then Alex has got her really fun camp coming up. Watch on Release Canine. You're going to see all the video from her camp.
Speaker 2:Yeah we'll post some stuff.
Speaker 1:And the Hornet that will go up on the yeah. I'll try to get it onto the Mountain Nosework Facebook page, but the real place to enjoy it is the Smug Mug page, mountain Dog Smug Mug page. And then we're into September. Oh yeah, yeah, and Puppy Pugsy.
Speaker 2:We'll see how that all goes. There's going to be a lot of videoing, yes, so that'll be super that all goes.
Speaker 1:There's going to be a lot of videoing, yes, so that'll be super fun. Okay, thanks for joining us everybody. We will look forward to having you join us in September for another canine scent fix podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
