07-02-2009

Duece had a new experience this evening. Our neighbors have a fairly large horse barn and they let us hide some scent. When Duece saw me carrying his vest there was no stopping him. I had to go get a collar & lead to settle him down a notch or two. He wasn't too sure about going into the barn door but only briefly hesitated. I should have let him run around a little before we started as there were so many new smells and noises. He would barely sit still while getting his vest and command to work. When he started he wasn't sure about where to begin. He moved all over and doubled back and checked out areas he had already been. Nothing wrong with that but there were still areas that didn't get checked. He startled the first time a horse snorted but seemed to ignore them later on. One thing I didn't notice until we were about 1/2 way into the search was the 4 large ceiling fans running on high speed. I'm sure they had to really stir up the scent Duece was looking for and mix it in with all the new smells. There was a large stack of fresh hay along one wall and one little "Get up" and he was climbing over it. After a bit he seemed a little confused so I gave the search command again and did a little "check" with a hand motion and that got him back on track. I had placed the scent under an old traffic cone that was propped up to hold a door open and the lid for the container was about 5 feet away and about 6 feet above the ground wedged behind an electrical wire. Duece stopped below the lid about 1/2 way between the scent and where the lid was hidden. He did his indication, sitting down and staring at me. I wasn't sure what to do as he really wasn't at the source - or was he with the fans blowing? He stared at me and then whined which is something new, so I rewarded him and then gave him the command again and did the "check" with hand motion again. This time he climbed the hay stack again, only from the side facing the scent. He checked it out and then jumped on a bale I thought was going to fall over which would have dumped him from about 5 feet above ground. Duece must have thought the same thing as he stopped and went into a down and then jumped off the bale into a small pile of hay on the ground. It didn't seem to faze him at all and he continued searching and this time got near the hidden scent. He circled it a couple of times like he was trying to find the source. He stuck his nose at the top of the cone and then sat down. When he went into a down he stuck his nose under the cone and waited for his treat and praise.
Duece did well, but I have a couple of concerns. First was his first indication. I don't think the container lid would have enough scent for him to think it was a source unless the fans were moving air down along the wall to the floor. The second concern is, I was the one that hid the scent and I stood in this area while hiding it and was Duece hitting on my scent as well as the source scent? Guess I need to have someone else hide the source and I need to have a clean, empty source container for a decoy and make sure he isn't hitting on that too.