Morpheus's Nosework Homework

I went ahead and caught some video of Morpheus practicing his nosework homework tonight. We did the searches in the front room, where Morpheus usually only goes when we're on the way out for a walk, or going out to the car when he goes on a car ride. The rest of the time he doesn't have access to this area. Normally if he got to come in here, he'd run around and sniff the whole room to explore the space - but notice how focused he is on the search.

You might also wonder why Mike has him on leash. We're doing this for two reasons - first so he doesn't rush up the stairs and scare the cats to death (which he'd normally try to do the second he gets the chance) - but notice his lack of interest in looking for the stairs. Second, and really more relevant, I want to do trials in tracking with him, and he will need to be used to being on leash for them. Some dogs get distracted during searches when they're on leash (particularly when they're first starting) - but it doesn't affect Morpheus a bit. A lot of dogs will look to their person when on leash for some indication of what to do - but Morpheus is more than happy to drag Mike around when he's on a search.

I want to note here that we've got his leash attached to his regular buckle collar, not the prong collar we use to walk him. We've done this for two reasons as well. first, so we don't accidentally hinder him from going where he wants to go by using the prong collar, and second so he can make a distinction between the two very different behaviors we're expecting from him, depending on the collar he's wearing on leash. prong collar = behave and quit pulling, while buckle collar = dog leads the person wherever he wants to go and searches for goodies. (before we got started he was whining and trying to pull Mike into the front room too. he's quick about figuring out which collar means what, and he was dying to go play his favorite game).

You'll notice several boxes and quite a few other objects scattered around the room in the videos. We used chunks of hotdogs for his treats (at home that works - outside of the house he was more interested in doing other things than in finding or eating hotdogs, so we use a higher value treat when we leave the house). The hotdog is always in the smaller white box. This makes it easier for Mike to know where the treat is - but more importantly, the small white box is the only one that smells like the prize, which is a big deal for the dog. spreading the scent around to multiple boxes would confuse the issue, and change the nature of the game. we want him to use his nose to find the scent, not confuse him by making everything smell like the prize.

This week we were asked to make a bit of a puzzle out of it for him, so in addition to the boxes, I threw in a number of other things that were handy. The other objects (as well as the extra boxes) do a couple of things. they provide extra places for him to search, they can be obstacles for him to work out how to navigate around to get to the scent, and they can actually trap, channel, and concentrate the scent to help him track it. so yes, that is why the vacuum is sometimes knocked over in the middle of the room in the videos. ;)

In a lot of these, he saunters straight over to the box like he knew just where it was, even though I put it in a different place each time, and used totally different areas of the room. In a couple he does a little more sniffing around the room before he gets to it. He's really good at this, which is why he sometimes goes straight to it. He's using his nose and ignoring a lot of other things in the room that would normally be very fun for him to explore. In the last one I put the box on the stairs - and normally he gets in some big trouble for getting near the stairs, but that didn't stop him from following his nose over there (nor did it encourage him to go sauntering up the stairs) - he stayed on task and found the treat, even though it was in a rather unusual spot - we had never put it on the stairs before. I put it there to try to make it more of a challenge for him. it's getting tough to make it a challenge because he's so good at this!

--Enjoy!