NW230 Polishing Skills for NW2 and NW3

There are no specific prerequisites for this class. It is recommended that your dog be working confidently on all of the elements doing single hide searches. It is helpful if you have already started basic multi-hide searches. A NW1 title is not required to participate in this class.

This class is suitable for all teams ready to start training NW2 or teams that are more advanced and want to polish their existing skills in preparation for NW2 or NW3.

Helpful equipment:

• 12 ORT type boxes
• Containers for Non-Box Container searches such as luggage, milk jugs, empty 2 L bottles, thermoses, trashcans, get creative!
• Oils for the first two levels of your trialing organization (Birch and Anise for NACSW)
• Qtips or scent kit.
• Tins, straws, tubes and other containers to hold Qtips
• Access to search areas and vehicles

NW2 and NW3 trials bring additional complexities that you don’t get in NW1. NW2 is about a solid search. Can you find all of the hides in the given amount of time? Can you alert only on odor and not distracters in the Container search? NW3 takes these elements and adds handler head games. It starts to really get crazy. You won’t know the number of hides and in interiors you might even have a search area with no odor! This class will help you develop the technical skills needed for both NW2 and NW3.

In this class we will do LOTS of generalization. FDSA is strongest in getting its students trial ready and the Nosework program is no different in this respect. I’m a HUGE believer in generalization for Nosework. From your very first trial, you will have to take your dog to novel places and perform with no ability to generalize them to their surroundings. The only way you will be able to accomplish this is through LOTS and LOTS of searching in novel locations. I have some techniques to get you started and we’ll cover that in a later lecture. However, please be prepared to take your dog on the road. This is CRITICAL in getting trial ready. I can’t emphasize that enough. I can promise you that if you do the generalization work in the way I lay it out for you, it will pay off in spades. My NW3 dog is a highly environmental dog. However, he knows when we are at a Nosework trial and he trembles in pure anticipation for his turn to search. Because he has no issues searching novel areas, all of our stress is “good stress” and it helps us to focus on finding all of the hides quickly and accurately instead of worrying about our surroundings. Even the sound of the shutter of the photographer melts away since the two of us get completely absorbed in our task. Sounds great doesn’t it? It’s totally doable if you work the program.

You will also notice that I do A LOT of Exterior searches (although I will generalize on all of the elements and will ask you to do as well). The scent puzzles are more of a challenge outdoors and so are the distractions. The distractions help to proof my dog. We will work a lot on setting appropriate hides in this course. It’s easy to overface our partner. But in the end, lots of exterior hides pay off. I hope to watch LOTS of generalization videos this session with well thought out hide locations. One of my trainers tells me “Train Hard, Trial Easy”. In prepping for NW1 we did a search next to a pen full of ducks…. when we went into NW1, high wind conditions was a piece of cake. Judd stayed focused and driven. This approach continued to help us. Don’t overface your dog, but be ready to get out of your comfort zone! It’s my mission to make sure that the best teams out there are FDSA teams!

The format of this class is part video assignment, part written assignment. You will have minimum of 3 video assignments per week. Please keep to the assignments rather than submitting extra videos. I promise I will keep you busy! The written assignments are intended to help build understanding and learning. If you do both in this class you will get the most out of the material. This class is pretty dense though so please go at your own pace.

Silver and Bronze students… videoing yourself is one of the greatest learning tools. I know I find I learn more and more the more I watch videos of my searches. You’ll be able to watch your timing, when and how you reward, the dog’s body language in odor, and more. Although I won’t be able to review your videos, I do hope that you will follow the assignments and really work the class. Silvers, please ask questions! Other folks may have the same question and you might be asking a question that a Bronze student is dying to ask! Bronze students, I may not be interacting with you directly, but I do know that you are out there and I hope you are getting everything that you want out of this class. We cover a lot of both theory and practice in this class and if after class starts you feel that you need to ask questions, the option to upgrade to Silver is available for a couple of weeks. My overall goal for the class is to help FDSA Nosework students to grow their advanced skills and to help support a truly awesome community of NW sport enthusiasts. This sport is my passion and my promise to you is that I have and will give everything I can into this class.

One thing that you will need to consider getting is a small waterproof/leak proof container that you can keep with you. We will do a lot of generalization work and this will make things more convenient. I have a small dive container that I keep 3 tins in. I keep this in my car so that I can easily pull off the side of the road at any time and place hides. This makes it REALLY easy to get in generalization practice. Here’s a picture of what I use: