Challenges!

Last night was agility practice and I decided to do some SAR exercises before and after class. Despite having tons of dog people around, we really didn't have much opportunity to recruit victims, yet again, so we did a combo of things.

Before Class:

Search 1 - 3: Put Z in a sit stay and hid her tuggy among some miscellaneous agility stuff. I immediately saw the challenge presented by doing this on the agility field when I released her - her focus was on the obstacles, not finding the toy. :\ I redirected her once or twice each time and she was successful in finding the toy, but I think that was mostly sheer luck as it was obviously not her primary focus. (Note to self - stop making huge leaps that leave the dog in the dust!)

One small benefit to this round was an increase in drive with her tuggy. Since we're no longer using the rabbit fur tug (it would work at cross purposes in SAR), I've gone back to a plain fleece tug which is not nearly as interesting. After the first "find" the drive for the tug leaped a lot, and continued to do so after each subsequent "find". :)

After Class:

Search 4 - 6: Put Z in a sit stay and hid myself (no victims, plus I wanted to see what she'd do). I did this in various locations on the field but made it easy. I released her with a "OK! Go Search" cue and then stayed quiet. The first two rounds went very smoothly and she easily found me, on the third I hid under the A-frame and that threw her for a loop - she ran back and forth over the obstacle and I did have to repeat the search cue to help her out in locating me. She had good, sustained interest throughout and we got to reward with both a tug as well as her hedgehog squeaky toy.

I did get one victim to help me for one rep at the end of things. She did better than my other recruits (made a great big deal while running away, hid well, etc.) but her rewarding left a fair amount to be desired (make squealing noises, but forgot to reward with food or the tug I gave her), so I ended up doing the rewarding myself. :\ Less than ideal in that realm, but Z was very speedy at running to the spot where she last saw the victim and then methodically covering the area until she found her. :)

We ended after the victim rep because Z had been working for a good hour and was getting a little bit frustrated/tired. Didn't want to push too hard at this stage, especially given the challenge inherent in working on the agility field.