NW290: Just Plain Killer Nosework Skills and Setups

Week 1: Proofing Container Fluency by Adding Arousal to a Simple Setup

Now that you have gotten your dog to settle into Containers a little, we will add and remove arousal in order to "proof" our container fluency.  With some dogs, this will be super easy...  and with some, it will be exceptionally difficult.  What you want to avoid at all costs is tipping the arousal SO much that your dog loses the ability to think clearly.  If this happens, simply calmly end the session and try again a little later when your dog is back to being relaxed.

If you have a box smashing problem, you might very well have an arousal management problem.  By teaching your dog to work at various states of arousal, your dog's behaviors will become more resilient and your box smashing fixes will hold out longer!  Remember that these concepts WILL work in non-container searches, however containers is an excellent "gateway" to using these concepts initially.

In this lecture, we will talk about a couple of key concepts...

1. How to increase arousal in both food and toy motivated dogs
2. Basic container setup
3. Raising criteria and when to reduce criteria

How to increase arousal in both food and toy motivated dogs

Raising arousal is actually much easier with toys than food.  In fact, it's so easy to raise arousal that using toy rewards in a multiple hide search is very challenging.  It's so easy to use a toy reward and have the dog's arousal go very quickly over the tipping point.

Here's a video of an After Party that I did with Powder at the end of a search.  This toy play was intended to reinforce the entire session.  She was definitely VERY stimulated and I think had there have been a second hide, she would have had challenges in keeping focus.

If you want to keep your arousal more stable (and therefore continue to have usable drive), you will want to tone down your play quite a bit.  You can do this either by lowering your energy and/or by reducing the duration of your play.

In this next example, you can see that I've used a toy reward with Powder on a Container search.  Because I am working on her behavior at source (I am working on a nose freeze on the container in order to address box smashing), I am using a clicker in this situation.  I don't typically use a clicker in nosework, however this is a specific example of when it is appropriate.  The clicker releases the behavior and I present her with a ball on a rope.  In this example, I play with a lower energy level than the previous example because I want to have usable drive after her reward session.  Notice that I go still when the reward phase is over.  This is her cue to release the toy.  Although it is difficult to hear on the video, I often use a cue, "Trade", to indicate to Powder that she will receive a food reward for outing the tug.  Adding this step also has an arousal reducing quality as food tends to lower arousal when it's given in a low excitement manner.

You can also raise arousal by PLAYING with food.  If you simply hand food over, that lowers arousal.  Playing with food will raise arousal to a point.  You won't get the extreme lift of arousal that you will get with toys but you WILL get an increase in arousal.

Playing with food can be done in a number of different ways.

This is a video that I did a long time ago in Denise's play class, I played with food with Judd by hiding food on and around me:

You can also have the dog catch cookies or use "wiggle fingers" as demonstrated here with Joey:

Basic Container Setup

In this exercise, it can be really helpful to use REALLY basic containers.  Now I'm totally confident that all of you have the skills to work more complicated containers.  However, with this exercise, the more basic the better.

If you have a box smashing problem, you might find that getting 3 gallon Rubbermaid type (flexible plastic) containers and cutting a hole in the top for the nose might be your best bet!  They tend to be very durable.  Cardboard smashing is self reinforcing so it's best to not provide that sort of outlet to your dog.  You MIGHT want to try the Rubbermaids regardless if you have a box smashing problem.  By increasing your dog's arousal, your non-smashing dog might get a wee bit excited!  It's best to not start showing your dog how fun smashing can be!  If your more mild mannered container dog all of a sudden smashes with increased arousal, then it's likely that you don't have Fluency.

This is what I use.  I cut a hole in the top the size of my dog's nose:

In this clip I am using only 6 containers.  You can see how I raise Powder's arousal at the boxes.  I do ask her to refind boxes but I only do it because she does not seem to work off of memory.  You want to avoid "targeting" if you can.  This basically means avoiding having the dog alert on a container without sniffing it out.

Raising Criteria and when to reduce criteria

Raising criteria is an art...  in general, you never want to stagnate at any criteria level.  So if you find yourself working the same challenge level, whether it be duration at source, consistent distraction level, etc for too long, you will want to try a little more.

When you raise criteria, the most important thing to start aware of your dog's success.  A good rule of thumb is to drop criteria if you see your dog take longer or struggle more with increased criteria.  If in this case, your dog all of a sudden starts to smash boxes then you have raised your criteria either too much or too quickly.

In this video, you can see that I've raised Powder's arousal too quickly...  upon noticing this, I ask for lower duration, lower energy in her reward delivery, and lower energy on the start line.