Fenzi Dog Sports Academy - N130J: NW130 - Developing Advanced Nosework Skills

Course Details

You have the basics. Your dog is on target odor and can search straightforward hides across all the elements. Now it's time to work on some of those advanced skills!

Starting advanced skills early is critical. Spending too long at one stage can affect future success. We can avoid having to change expectations later when areas can be blank or hides are inaccessible. Dogs also enjoy problem solving and can thrive off of new challenges.

This is the third skills level course in our nose/scent work program and will build on the skills acquired in the previous two skills classes. Teams are seeing progress at this stage - dogs really are clear on their tasks and are ready to expand their skills with some complexity. We will also work on handling, building confidence and trusting our dog to lead us to source. The class will cover skills such as:

inaccessibles
multiple hides
blank search areas
non-box containers
thresholds and corners
crack and ground hides
building search stamina
advanced vehicle searches
how to effectively search an area,
problem solving individual team skills
how to set up and work through distractions
how to evaluate search area challenges/approach
environmental considerations around airflow and weather conditions

Our techniques also apply to all trialing organizations. Nose Work is Scent Work and Scent Work is Nose Work! Our goal is always to increase the challenge in increments that the dog can handle and successfully overcome!! This class is open to any dog who is currently searching for target odors (essential oils).

Teaching Approach

This class offers extensive written lectures, no verbal lectures, and videos of varying lengths. It is rare that relevant speaking takes place within a video; they are designed to be watched and follow the ideas presented in the lecture. Lecture videos may run from 1 to 4 minutes long, with the average between 1-2 minutes. The lectures are designed to help a student understand the purpose of the exercise and how it might vary by dog. Care is taken to keep lectures short, however on occasion some run a bit long. Lectures for each week are rolled out the night before each week so you can plan your training week. Pre-lectures are available before the class starts. Homework posting guidelines will allow 6 minutes of video per week unless otherwise stated. This class will work best for students who learn by reading text lectures, watching videos and who like having structured lesson plans.

This class will have a Teaching Assistant (TA) available in the Facebook discussion group to help the bronze and silver students! Directions for joining will be in the classroom after you register.

Here's a fun class compilation!

Instructor: Julie Symons

Julie Symons (she/her) has been involved in dog sports for over 30 years. Starting with her mix, Dreyfus, in flyball, she went on to train and compete in conformation, agility, obedience, herding and tracking with her first Belgian tervuren, Rival. Rival was the first CH OTCH MACH Belgian...(Click here for full bio and to view Julie's upcoming courses)

Prerequisites & Supplies

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Prerequisites:

NW120 or equivalent level of training (dog is able to search for odor only); Best suited for dogs who have already demonstrated trial readiness and game to work on advanced skills for L2/L3 trialing.

Equipment:

Odor kit with scented q-tip, additional odor for mulitple hide searches
Appropriate harness/leash dedicated to NW searching
Hide containers (highly recommend different types of containers made out of different materials)
Vessels for holding qtips (straws, chapstick tubes, small sleeves, heat shrink tubing, tins, etc)
Play sand for AKC Buried searches, and large tubs to support the new reqs with water and 4" buried hides.
Sand for buried hide searches - a 50 pound bag will fill up 4 containers roughly 12x8x6.5 (6.5 qt). You can reuse your game boxes if they are about 6" tall.
- Taller bins and grids for buried. Here is a link to the offficial AKC sizes for Bins and Grids for the buried element for competition. You don't need to train on official sizes, depths, but you will want to be able to bury your hide 4". Grids (think small cooling racks) are placed on top so dog's can't disturb the dirt/water and are matched with a bin where the side clasps hold the grid down.
- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wvnwGq_ZQM3APJzVbKqEBnrfk2IOdHpZ
More discussion on buried on the public AKC Scent Work page:

https://www.facebook.com/545485115575492/posts/for-those-looking-to-buy-the-recommended-bins-and-grids-for-the-new-buried-we-ha/1027649190692413/
Small tea ball for holding Qtip in buried sand. https://www.amazon.com/Stainless-Strainers-Interval-Diffuser-Seasoning/dp/B07MJVNR7H/ref=sr_1_15?keywords=small+tea+ball&qid=1564257903&s=gateway&sr=8-15
Aquarium tubing (black) about 1/4" diameter or plain 'ole drinking straws for intro to water buried.
Quake Hold or Fun Tak adhesives for placing hides - May be available at a Walmart or Target near you. You can also google the names and find a source.
Fan for air movement
Smoke matches (available online at: http://www.toolexperts.com/smoke-test-matches-air-flow-testing.html?gclid=COvru9DntrgCFcFFMgodxWAA_Q or http://k9nwsource.com/product-category/smoke-matches/
Or, as an alternative to the smoke matches, you can try a smoke device: https://www.amazon.com/Smoke-Pencil-Leak-Detection-Hazer/dp/B07TDC8LCX/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=Smoke+Pencil+ONE+Air+Leak+Detection+Hazer&qid=1581466595&sr=8-4

Access to search areas
Access to multiple vehicles

Syllabus

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Week 1:

Baseline Video
Thresholds
Corners
Container corner hides
Airflow and analyzing search environment conditions

Week 2:

Environmental pressures in a search
Increasing age of hides across all element
Adding appropriate direction for covering an area
Evaluating search area challenges/approach
Effectively covering small and large search areas
Making familiar novel!

Week 3:

Introduction to non-box containers
Unintentional Distractions
Increasing use of Multiple hides and their value in a search area
Intro to blank interior search areas

Week 4:

Adding more vehicles/novel vehicles
Adding blind hides in your training
Intentional Distractors
Introduction to Inaccessible hides Part 1

Week 5:

Unknown number of hides
High and Low hides
Extending multiple hide searches to all elements
Blank container searches
Intro to AKC distractors

Week 6:

Combo Odors
Introduction to Inaccessible hides Part 2
Advanced Buried (AKC)
More Search Stamina setups
What to expect with trialing / Assessing Trial Readiness
SUPPLEMENTAL LECTURE: Building Search Stamina (Part 1)

Sample Lecture

Making Familiar Novel!

Up to this point we have been focusing on getting to new and different places since generalization is very important in dog training! Dogs learn by association so if we always train in one place or familiar places, they will have limited experience to pull from when presented with a novel area. Like with any behavior, their response may not be as strong in a new, distracting area. Since they make connections with everything happening in the environment - we need to make that less muddy - in that it's not the smell of our house or only in this training room that means NW. Those are irrelevant factors. What's relevant is our warmup, our gear, our startline, the smell of our target odor!

Often it's challenging to find new interiors. We may also be home bound or our dog is not able/comfortable to work away from home. If this is the case, we can change a room layout, scent dynamics, and airflow to create a "new" searching space.

It's time to get your creative juices flowing! Think how you can change a room to be "different"? Just having a piece of furniture out of place can be enough novel for your dog to be less comfortable in the space.

Room layout - move furniture, add new items/furniture
Airflow - open windows, doors, turn on fans.
Bring in new smells - light and blow out a candle, borrow dog hair, drool from friend's dogs and place around room, open bag treats in room
Sound - have music or tv on
Visual - place things on floor, cover things with blankets
Lighting - add more light - make it very bright! Remove light - make it pretty dark.

Another way to help generalize your searches is with containers. if you have a training buddy you can have them bring some boxes and prepare the hides with THEIR odor. Our boxes can smell like our homes and our pets. And we all prepare our odor a little different or may use another brand of oil.

Here are videos showing some of the interior changes.

Here is a video of a space before and after the changes:

Here's both of my dogs running the search:

I also changed my "flooring" by adding a sheet of plexiglass (3'x5'). I first wanted it to be novel but she got worried on first try. I then added a towel to provide a safe "landing" for her in the next search and all was well. I repeated exercise in a bathroom and started with putting a towel on the plexi glass, then simple treat toss game and then another odor search.

In office:

In bathroom:

Homework:

Make a familiar place novel! Even if you are able to get to new places, try this at home too! It was fun to make a familiar room look new and different!

Testimonials & Reviews

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A sampling of what prior students have said about this course ...

I loved my class, not only did I learn a lot about myself and my dog, from my instructor, but learned from the other students also.

Every time I take a nose work class my dog and myself come out ahead. The instructors are awesome, they make you want to work your dog to the best they can. 5 stars from me. Nancy Steinbrecher

The instructor provided prompt, detailed analysis and well reasoned and tailored recommendations for each student. She definitely wanted to see her students succeed in whatever phase of nosework they were doing - so she provided very helpful suggestions for preparing for various upcoming trials.

I was only Bronze, but did all the exercises and followed all discussions and homework. I gained lots of helpful tips and information, definitely got my money's worth!

This was a perfect advanced course. I got a lot out of it, and really enjoyed all the discussion topics and the homework videos.

Your classes are great because my schedule is constantly changing and I can practice on my time. Your videos make everything crystal clear and so easy. My dog passed his ORT first try in 13 sec. Thank you. Carol C.

Excellent lectures that provided us with helpful guidance and insightful ideas. Great course! Cheryl M.

Registration

There are no scheduled sessions for this class at this time. We update our schedule frequently, so please subscribe to our mailing list for notifications.

Registration opens at 12:00noon Pacific Time.

N130J Subscriptions

	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Tuition	$ 260.00	$ 130.00	$ 65.00
Enrollment Limits	12	25	Unlimited
Access all course lectures and materials	✔	✔	✔
Access to discussion and homework forums	✔	✔	✔
Read all posted questions and answers	✔	✔	✔
Watch all posted videos	✔	✔	✔
Post general questions to Discussion forum	✔	✔	✖
Submit written assignments	✔	✖	✖
Post dog specific questions	✔	With video only	✖
Post videos	✔	Up to 2	✖
Receive instructor feedback on	Questions All videos	Questions All videos	✖

Find more details, refund policies and answers to common questions in the Help center.

N130J: NW130 - Developing Advanced Nosework Skills

Course Details

Teaching Approach

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