Distraction - aka "mmmm animal pee"

Yea weird title I know, but hey I have to keep things interesting somehow. ;)

Tonight was our second practice with the team and as usual, the "puppies" go first. Zive was the only puppy at this practice, so we headed off into the woods with C our friend from last week (puppy person) and S (another active K9 handler). C was the victim again and S flanked us.

Our practice area was in brushy woods, about 7pm, 90ish degrees, light breeze.

Search 1: C ran off with a fair amount of cheerleading and hid about 60 feet away behind a tree. I released Z with her "Ready? Search!" cue and she took off. Halfway to C's hiding spot, Z got mucho distracted by some leaves - S had me give Z a "leave it" cue and Z started looping about trying to find C. i gave a lot of encouragement and she did find her after a few minutes. This go 'round Z didn't do a refind at all, just hung around C, so S had me recall her to me. We're starting on the actual alert behavior - jumping up on me in this case - so I cued her to "paws up" and then sent her back to C to complete the refind. Z didn't need any sound cues from C during this search.

C and S gave me some pointers:

- The distraction was likely animal urine and thus a leave it cue is necessary at this stage; if she starts sniffing again like that I'm to cue "leave it" and then shut up.
- I, just as in agility, have the tendency to talk too much to my dog, which doesn't help anything at all and can hinder Z's focus.
- S said she liked how focused Z was while watching C disappear and said "she obviously knows what she's supposed to do" already, which is great. :)

Search 2: C again ran away about 65 feet, but with less noise, this time. Z focused as before and found C much more quickly, though she still did a bit of casting about looking for her at first. The refind was about 50% - Z came back about 10 feet and then returned to C, so I recalled her, cued "paws up" and sent her back with the refind cue "Show Me!".

Search 3: C ran off about 70 feet with little noise and hid behind some trees. A pile of brush stood in the middle of the area we were working, so Z had to navigate that first, then looked for C - again some searching before finding her, but she did find her person. Again no refind, but a fast recall to me, good paws up, and a nice return to C when told "Show Me!"

C and S talked with me after the 3rd search and gave even more pointers and insight:

- Z is showing some leanings toward air scenting vs. trailing. S thinks if she keeps up with what she's been doing she could be a "kick ass air scenting dog" in the long run.
- Z is still progressing incredibly well given her inexperience w/ SAR work until recently. Even her bobbles are fine; they're very normal at this stage.
- We need to work on distractions - C and S both think that Z's distracted because the woods is just so cool to her. To address this, we're supposed to go hiking more, especially off lead, to desensitize Z to the woods as a unique, "cool" place. It needs to be commonplace and no big deal for her to focus more easily and just going out once or twice a week actually lends more excitement to the outing vs. lowering its value.
- It's ok for Z to roam about after she finds her person - the idea of the game is that finding people allows the dog access to whatever they find rewarding and for Z that is food and sniffing around at this point.

The rest of practice I flanked for two dog teams and talked with other team members. I got my official membership packet and more info on certs as well.

I threw in a few tug toy sessions and some heeling practice for Z in between flanking missions since I would like to build her tug drive in this environment (it's very high in agility, very low at SAR practice) and work more on obedience with distractions. She performed well in each respective session and by the end of the night was showing much more of her normal tug obsession and some very nice heeling and eye contact behaviors.

In other news, I successfully passed my first FEMA IS class earlier today and am well on my way to the second. :)