Handling and nosework

Yesterday I met up with Sarah and her dog Frankie. We've been online acquaintances but had never met in person before. We decided to use each other as decoys in training our dogs. Frankie is reactive toward strangers, so I was the decoy for a couple of BAT sessions. In return, Sarah acted as a mild distraction for Dragon while he was heeling with me. She just walked around and I heeled him closer and farther and rewarded him for looking at me instead of her.

For another excercise I would walk Dragon up to Sarah, put him in a stand-stay, and had her lean down and do a short exam (as for obedience). I would throw his ball forward for him to chase as a reward.

Later I held Dragon in my arms, gave Sarah the treats, and she did some desensitizing to reaching over his head. Hands reaching as he's being carried is a trigger for Tiny Dog and he snaps at the hands to make them go away.

We ended up doing some nosework as well, as Sarah had her kit with her and noted that the clutter-filled loft at Metro Dog was a great space to practice in. I'd never thought of that! Frankie is very advanced and she placed five simultaneous hides for him, using all three odors. It was so cool to watch him work. He got down to business right away, even when the scent carried him closely past me, the scary stranger. Then Sarah kindly did some hides for Tiny Dog and gave me advice. When I first brought him up to the loft and gave the cue "searching", he started zooming around in a circle in excitement. It was hilarious, but she noted that on one of the runs he caught a whiff of the hide, slowed down, and then started running again. We had done an unpaired hide to test his response. She suggested that if we had paired it, he probably would have gotten down to business right away, and that means we should go back to pairing more often. Will do! We did a few more hides paired with food, and he found them reasonably quickly.

Sarah and I agreed that it was rewarding to work with other trainers who have experience with shy/fearful dogs and know BAT, so we didn't have to do any extra explaining to each other. We will work together again!