NW530: The Upper Levels: Building Skills for Elite and Summit
Course Details
There is nothing quite so exhilarating as searching at the Elite and Summit levels. These are levels that push you as a handler to be nimble and focused. In Summit you have to not only maintain that but at an even greater level and over 2 days. At the end of a Summit you feel as if you have sprinted a marathon. Elite and Summit, although at their original conception vaguely imitate real life searching, really are their own unique beast. The handler has to have courage and rapid decision making but yet stay in the game during both very short and more drawn out searches. The team has no chance for downtime because letting up on the gas means you just won’t finish… And staying in too long can sometimes cost you a title!
The successful Elite or Summit team need razor sharp technical skills. Yeah we will cover many of those in this class… this is the level where all of that hard work and training can come together in a single search. You CAN make mistakes but those mistakes can still be costly!
Elite is the proving ground where you flex your skills… When you enter this level you realize that you have been rewarded for sticking it out in NW3. Very soon though, once those rose colored glasses come off, you start to see how the level is shaping you. With every trial, you are entering the proverbial Nosework Gym and you exit the level totally changed. You have now started to really learn about what that word “teamwork” actually means. And you may not be done there! You can of course keep playing in the new Elite Premier level which is all fun and no stress…. Kind of like that nice steady routine that made you fall in love with the level in the beginning. Some of you will also enter an entirely new, and higher pressure level…. Summit.
Summit is the level that tests the Whole Team. As you move out of Elite and into Summit, the team (dog AND handler as a unit) gets pushed and pushed HARD. The team with the broadest and deepest skill set has the advantage. Each search tests something different… and you will be pushed and prodded in ways that might even shake you up a bit. You may need to edit your idea of “success” as the searches get twice as hard and the times get way tighter…. But your mental attitude and hours and hours of training will get you through.
This class is about these two incredible levels. I will attempt to spark something new in you…. And help you to think and to practice in a way that will prime you and ready you for these levels. We WILL be working skills…. We have to! And we will also be working on HOW to be as effective as humanly possible. Our work will be defined as a cross section between Skills, Observation, Response, Strategy, and Adaptability. Are you ready to get started??
This class will have a Teacher's Assistant (TA) available in the Facebook study group to help the bronze and silver students! Directions for joining that Facebook group will be in the classroom after you register.
Teaching Approach:
This class will include written lectures and many example videos of actual trial searches. The student will need to evaluate walkthrough and debrief videos and take inspiration in their setups. Support will be provided for interpretation of scent theory. Lectures will be a combination of skill work on the dog's part as well as development of handler skills including strategy and time management. This class will be less prescriptive in setups however support will be available to aid the student in learning the fundamentals of hide placement. Lectures will be of moderate length and will number between 3 and 5 per week and will be released at the beginning of the week. Students may be working longer search problems and will need to have the ability to edit video in order to stay within video submission guidelines.
Observation is the Key to Response (Odor, Arousal, Focus)
Managing in the Moment
Week 3:
Walkthrough Skill Inspiration #2
Reading Complicated Odor Signatures (Odor Pools, Convergence, Close Proximity)
No Such Things as Distraction!
Week 4:
Walkthrough Skill Inspiration #3
Adaptability…. What is your Strategy?
“Twist” Searches!
Week 5:
Walkthrough Skill Inspiration #4
Time Management, Pacing
Large Area Skills
Week 6:
Walkthrough Skill Inspiration #5
Blind Search Practice
Prerequisites and Equipment
Gold students should be ideally trialing at Elite or above. Gold students CAN be part way through NW3 so long as NW3 skills are solid (can working 0 to 3 hides unknown number consistently). AKC only students are encouraged to sign up if they are actively trialing at the Detective level, however please be aware that many of the pressures and areas of focus will vary a bit.
In our last lecture we covered a lot of Scent Theory. That Scent Theory is essential when we evaluate virtual walkthroughs. In this lecture, we will cover what to look for in a virtual walkthrough and how to leverage that information in preparation for searching at a trial. Information about the search (air flow predictions) and the parameters will give you insight as to how to best work the area.
Our real goal in handling is to make sure that our dog gets in the way of potential scent cones AND that they do it in a way that reduces the chance of frustration and additional complexity. We want to find all of the hides expediently and effectively. In the ideal world, all hides will behave in a way that the dog just needs to go out and seek them and that the odor will pull them from one hide to the next without issue. This only occurs with basic hides under basic circumstances. In many searches however, it may get you most of the hides... but you may also miss some. By bringing together search strategy that is based in understanding the search area and adapted by the parameters, with some intentional handling, we can be effective as possible. When we look at the virtual walkthroughs, we can predict airflow and trouble spots so that we can apply appropriate handling.
In watching the virtual walkthroughs we want to look for:
Possible warm spots in the search area (mostly interiors)
Areas that may trap odor
Point of entry and exit
Structural considerations that may either bend air or cause excessive lofting of air
Let's talk about each of these individually and look at some examples. In a later lecture in this class, we will talk abut handling strategies based on search parameters (time, # of hides... unknown, range, known)
Possible warm spots in the search area (mostly interiors):
Possible warm spots in the search area will pull air towards that area. This is because warmth causes air to rise. When it rises, cooler air is drawn into replace the air that has risen. This creates a current. If there is a hide in the vicinity of a warm spot, it will be pulled towards that warm spot.
The biggest and most obvious cause of warm spots are windows. When the sun hits a window, the air on the inside of the window will heat up. If you have ever seen a dog napping in a sunbeam, you know that that area is warmer! I always look at the walkthrough for windows. After watching the walkthrough, I check on the weather. If it's rainy and cloudy, you may get more pooling of odor low. If it's sunny or partly cloudly, you have a much stronger possibility of thermal action.
Hot water heaters will do the same thing! Depending on your search area, you can absolutely encounter other sources of heat.
These windows are the biggest indication of directional air flow in this search area. In this case, it WAS a sunny day. Because of the height and sheer size of the windows, you will have a very strong path of air flow from left to right. When air hits the subbeams it will both loft and expand. What this means is that any odor in the area will be pulled towards the windows and the scent cones will rise and get very, very big.
That is exatly what happened! The hide under the high chair up against the window was particularly challenging. That is a hide that was going to be difficult if not impossible to find later in the run order. Powder ran early in the run order.
Areas that may trap odor:
When you look at a search area, look for areas that may allow odor to enter but make it difficult for odor to leave. These are the areas where you are going to get odor pools and if your dog struggles in odor pools, your dog may ether spend way too much time, the dog might get overly frustrated, AND/OR the dog might false or fringe alert. When you have a situation like the search above, tables and chairs will do cause this. You can also have this situation when you have an interior/exterior in the search area. If the entry to the exterior stays open, your chances of odor pools are very, very high. If the entry does not stay open, you will increase your chance of odor pools later in the run order because the door to each interior has opened and closed many times.
This is an exterior / interior search. The door to the garage stays open and there are many shelves and even another room that can trap odor. Wind is going to push air into the back of the garage.
That is EXACTLY what happened!! In this search, there is a hide in the tool chest in the small room. Watch Prize's searching behavior. All of that odor (and also likely odor from hides outside) is trapping in the back shelves. This clip is the entire interior portion of my search with Prize after working the exterior portion of the search area.
Point of entry and exit:
When the door opens and closes after each dog, you will get what I like to call a "Bellow's Effect". Picture a fireplace bellows..... When that door opens or closes, you will get a substantial push pull on air flow. Depending on where hides are placed you can pull odor into areas where it will trap. In some cases, you will be able to know from the walkthrough where points of entry and exit will be... in some cases, you won't know until the morning briefing...
Interestingly, ALL of the hides in this search were on the left hand side of the search area (the sunny side). There was an odor pool in the tables (see the second screenshot) to the right of the exit door. Because of the current of air flow, the odor from the hides all lofted and then settled in that back corner which was exacerbated by the opening and closing the exit door. Brava noticed the odor pool but dismissed it. This would be easy place to false alert!
This is the entire search. You can see that Brava encounter the odor pool early in the search and then checked it out again at the end.
Structural considerations that may either bend air or cause excessive lofting of air:
Looking at the search area, you can tell if there will be swirling (either exterior corners or large alcoves) or excessive lofting (high ceilings). The shape of the search area will to some extent dictate the flow of air. Air is bendy so it will bend around corners. This causes swirling. Thermals and pressure (lower areas have higher pressure... so when the structure is open or there are multiple indoor levels, air will go up).
Here is an example from the Laramie Summit from April 2024. This is the theatre search. In this case, you have vaulted ceilings and a search area with both a high and low elevation. Any odor from down below is going to travel to the upper level.
That is exactly what happened! Here is Brava's full search. She caught the hide from the piano at the bottom up on the top level.
These four things are the minimum things that you want to look at when evaluating your search area. Later in this course, we will practice specific skills as well as work on the strategies that we need to use.... and the handler skills that we need to develop to be successful!
