‘Enjoy Watching Your Dog Search’

I think one of the best public speakers I’ve heard in a long time is K9 Nose Work co-founder Amy Herot. There’s a certain presence she has, and her knowledge and insight on the dog/human relationship in this sport has even more value than what our dogs see in those special stinky treats we reward them with on trial day.

I recently attended Amy’s seminar “The Elite Experience: The Road To NW3 Elite and Beyond.” There were several takeaways from her presentation. It was encouraging to hear about the struggles some of the top handlers had to endure. In other words those with dogs that have much more drive than a 45-mph couch potato still face the same road blocks we do.

In the nearly four and a half years since we adopted Logan, there have been plenty of challenges. Most stem from being environmentally sensitive. He didn’t like walking on concrete floors. He wouldn’t go into strange buildings. Loud noises freaked him out. He hated being left along in the car.

As you can imagine, many of these phobias made our start in Nose Work more challenging. Yup, getting into the building for our first Intro to Nose Work class was a struggle. (Thank God it was his mother teaching the class, or we might still be on the outside looking in.) I’ll forever be grateful to the volunteers at Performance Plus for their patience in waiting for Logan to enter the building for his first ORT. Now he pulls to get into a building, whether it’s for training, or at a trail.

I’ll admit that my vision of how he should search and how he wants to search didn’t always match. But over the last couple of years I’ve learned to trust him more, and appreciate his style. He may look like he’s confused an not focused when he comes into some search areas, but a few seconds later he’s usually alerting to a hide. There are still times when I sense he needs a little more support from me, but that’s why were a team.

At one point Amy said, “Enjoy watching your dog search.” I came to that point about a year ago. Whether it’s seeing Logan problem solve to get to a hide, or when he does something goofy like startle himself when he knocks something over in a search area, I’ve learned appreciate it all.