During the early stages of training Nosework to your dog, you're either holding the scent or it's on the ground right in front of you. You slowly build the dog's love for the scent and work it through the food distraction exercises and make sure it's going right for the scent and staying there. You're building up the dog's love for the scent! Soon he really-really-really loves it and can not stay away from it! And just like that you're up for your first simple search!
If all goes well, you'll set up the simple search exercise (usually just a single box) and your dog will trundle on in, find the scent, and stand there with his nose pointing at it, maybe waving his tail expectantly.
But sometimes, the thrill of the search is just too exciting, and the dog will run in and "chase" the box around, knocking it across the room; sometimes the dog will start digging and pawing frantically at it; sometimes they'll just grab the entire box and run around triumphantly!
We looooooove the enthusiasm, but.... need to take it down a notch or two or ten!
If your dog has an overenthusiastic alert, there are a few things you can do to help. Stay tuned for the next post in this series!
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