Local club ran a public display at the local A and P show (is an NZ thing where rural communities show farm animals and equipment that is now a little less rural). Some agility and obedience mainly to be seen and get some new people coming. Mostly the kids like the fast dogs and then meeting them afterwards.

Last few days I have been working on Dr Melanie’s Move program and it’s actually really good. Our homework is to take photos on different angles and analyze any weaknesses and imbalances. It’s cool she teaches us to do it instead of just doing it herself. Also working on platform stand and back up. Adjustment we need to make is not rushing but that’s story of Frank’s life haha I’m inspired to have another season of hoopers with Frank to complement the Scentwork. I’m thinking of starting with movement puzzles so watch this space. Anyone keen to do the two bowl games with us?

Have a long pipe going under a small pile of rocks at the other end is a person in a small shed with an air pump. So in theory there is some human odour coming out from the rocks. Idea is to get her to alert from a location where a person is not likely to be based on scent and also to be able to give a low odour picture. In a build collapse the setup may not look like a training pile and the person may have several collapsed floors in the middle. So hoping to use this to generalise to a non obvious location and lower scent but who knows what the dog thinks. In this she is obviously unsure she has the correct answer but smells something. I encourage her to bark as I thought I would need to first time out. Cannot afford to do too much like this or she may generalise to the added smell of the polythene pipe or the noise of the pump coming down the tube and think they are worth barking at without the human odour. Is interesting however as the low odour and unusual odour location is hard to replicate with a whole human to hide in training.

Back to working on what cues I should use. Maybe by my next dog I will have a system worked out. Regretting now not just going full method on One Mind Dogs or Handling 360 at the beginning but think I would not have had the patience to work through those as they are too comprehensive for a slow thinking uncoordinated person

Hard surface track, couple of outside hides and some evening agility. Nice to get 3 sessions in but going to have to start thinking about a training plan to extend a few things before I end up practising what she already does well too often