As I know some of you are not active on FB and have asked that we remember to post here too I thought I’d share a little weekend fun that we had.

Our big thrill this weekend is that both Kahla (8.5 yrs old) and Sabia (10 months old) passed their birch odor recognition test. Yee ha!!

Both are in the beginning of training for Nosework so we weren’t sure how it would go, and Alex has only been handling Kahla for 4 classes (still transitioning from handling NW rockstar Zelda). We are SO tickled with both girls pulling this off! They really LOVE playing this game – “find it.”

The test was in a huge, open and echo-y room. Puppy was distracted by everything, the judge, the steward, the videographer, the judge’s assistant, the wall, the floor… all in true puppy fashion. But after about 20 seconds at the start line she focused on the boxes and wanted to go to work. She started down the row of boxes in front of her, checking the first four boxes but then quickly cutting over to the other line to the 5th box in that row. She then spent quite a bit of time checking between the four boxes on the ends of both rows and getting stuck on a crack in the floor. The scent was traveling through the crack in the concrete! She finally went to one of the boxes and started pushing it across the floor, “ALERT!” and everyone in the room burst out cheering. How fun! 1 minute 29 seconds.

You enter one side of the room and exit on the other, after we cleared the room and the steward reset, Alex and Kahla entered for their turn. Kahla apparently pushed each box a bit (playing with them, all 12 boxes… silly goose!) and then went back to the one with odor and started shoving it across the room. Alex correctly called “Alert” in 58 seconds, and again to the room bursting out in cheer.

Maybe I should mention that those in the room know us and were likely holding their breath until we called Alert. The steward was our trainer (Shelley Smith), the videographer another good Nosework friend, and the judge, Ron Gaunt, a master detection dog trainer and founder of this sport for pet dogs, has seen us with Zelda and our RR Dante’ at a few events and workshops held by Shelley.
I have to say, this is ONE FUN SPORT!

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tabitha

owned by Kahla, Dante' and Sabia

FC Nefer-Temu Kahlua RAE2 MC CGC FCh TT HIC ORT1
K-Tai Dante' RE SC HIC ORT1
Nefer-Temu Samba Sabia RN ORT1

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