Dutch Shepherd Forum

Odin's been going on and off to nosework training for a while now to give him something less structured to do outside of his other sports. He honestly loves it and I'd like to get into more detection training with him later on. Our current class got cancelled after 2 sessions due to lack of enrollment. Everyone that signed up was an employee, so we all got an employee discount and after paying the trainer, the facility was loosing money by offering the class.

I was having some frustration with those classes anyway because they start out teaching the dog to search for hotdogs in boxes. I insisted that Odin look for his ball, but his out isn't fast enough for a group class and they wanted multiple balls, so we settled for treats. He was loving it, but all avoidance and leave it training went out the window in other situations since he was now encouraged to pick up random treats. I don't need a dog walking through Chicago picking up homeless people's left over meals.

I'm part of the UKC Nosework group on facebook and learned about an online class at Fenzi dog sports academy and we're giving it a try. She introduces the odor right away and there's no looking for treats in the boxes. I signed up for the Bronze level to just watch the videos, but I'm so excited to give it a try! We were stalling at adding new scents anyway, so I'm hoping this will get us back on track. I notice Marta (Choochi) was enrolled in the Gold level with Athos, so maybe she'll be able to share a little more as the class goes on.

There's still time to sign up for the class if you're interested. The Bronze level is only $65 to watch the videos and read (not reply to) the forums. There's also a 50% off scholarship you can apply for making it only $32. If you want more interaction, there's other levels available too.
http://www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com/in ... work-games

Hope this option works better for you. Let us know how it goes.

Geyser and I are doing fine with the sanctioned training classes, tho we're not taking one right now. Long story. We're still training tho and waiting for a NW1 trial somewhere near us (can't wait to compete and hopefully earn our first title in this...).

Come to the UKC Premier this summer! UKC just picked up Nosework and they'll have each of the elements separate to offer more titles. We just put an offer in for a house and I should have the training facility finished by then and we'll only be 2 hours from the show site.

I never took any NACSW classes but I went to a 1-day seminar which helped to get some basics down. I also rented both of Andrew Ramsey's DVDs from BowWowFlix which gave me some additional tools. I never started having my pup search for food either but I do understand why they (NACSW) start that way. Many if not most of the dogs that they are geared towards are pet dogs who don't have a lot of search drive. Searching for food initially helps to teach them the game and to build their hunt drive.
I read about that class and considered auditing it. I would be curious to hear your thoughts when you are done.

Angie