Bosley is still working hard on his scent discrimination and practicing to be on our scenthurdle team. So far he hasn't got kicked off the team :)
Bosley is careful and thoughtful when it comes to the scent work and last night was the first time we have practiced with a fully loaded box. In practice he has slowed down over the jumps on the way to the box. When we first started training with only one dumbbell in the box (no discrimination) he would fly out to get his dumbbell. Now that we have added discrimination to the box, he is much slower going out. I am hoping that once his confidence goes up, his speed will get faster.
I am pleased with his scent discrimination - he is making the correct choice more and more often now. Of course, at home he is more accurate than in practice, but hopefully with more practice he will get more confident. I am still very happy with his progress. If 2 years ago, someone had told me Bosley would be on a scenthurdle team, there is no way I would have believed it.
Here is a little video of our practice last night introducing our team. There are 4 dumbells in the box for each dog, and the dog must choose his own dumbbell.
I love Bosley :)), he tries sooo hard, good boy!
ReplyDeleteWhat a cool game. I thought he looked really good. Does each person have their own set of dumb bells that are then used in the box? Or is a whole new box put out with each dog? Diana
ReplyDeleteHi Diana,
ReplyDeleteThe way the game works is that there are 4 dogs on a team. At the beginning of the race, each handler places their dumbbell in the box (each dog has an assigned number that is on the side of the dumbbell), so there are 4 different scented dumbbells in the box. As the dogs race up the line and retrieve their own dumbbell, a box loader replaces the dumbbell that the dog took with a dummy dumbbell. This way there are always 4 dumbbells in the box, but only one that belongs to each dog.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of scenthurdle before. I checked into your blog because you have berners. I have a rescued berner and a flat-coated retriever. My husband is training our flattie, Higgs, to do all sorts of things...I'll tell him about this scenthurdle stuff. My bernie, Shiloh, is more of a challenge to train because of her "fear factor" as we call it. But she is sweet, wants to please me, and is cheese motivated...maybe I'll see what she can do too.
Enjoying your blog.
Kerri Still
So cool! I would love to try scent hurdling!
ReplyDelete