Shyla's Fun Nosework!

I've written many times here about our progress in helping Shyla cope with her fears. Now, four years later, I truly do believe that it is "coping" rather than "overcoming". The fears still linger in her heart but she's learned how to manage them so that she do the things she loves.

Nosework has become a passion for both of us. We've done most of our basic training at home or in campsites after Shyla is very comfortable in them.  Recently, we've started taking nosework on the road a bit. For Shyla, that doesn't mean that I take her to a bustling city street and expect her to be able to do nosework (not possible yet). Instead, I take her to new places in our fairly rural area. (I can never take photos while she's doing nosework so these are just some fun new photos of her).


This week, kind friends let us have access to the many outbuildings at the historical ranch where they live. It was a perfect opportunity to see if Shyla would be able to focus on nosework when in a novel place. Six months ago, I would've thought it would be impossible for her due to the stress of being in a new place. Now, I know how she loves focusing on her "job" of searching for hidden scent sources so it seemed like a reasonable challenge.

When we arrived at the ranch, I let her sniff around a bit, away from where I'd hidden the scent sources three hours earlier. She seemed timid but okay. As soon as I put her nosework harness on her, she completely focused on her "job". I didn't see any difference in her demeanor from when she does nosework at home.

I made a video of some clips from her searching. Within each search, I had multiple scent sources hidden. Part of Shyla's "job" is to ignore any hide that she's already found and "find another". She has become awesome at this aspect of the game! Generally, my job as her handler is to supervise her and then reward her when she finds a scent source.

Here's the video which you can watch here or at Youtube.

Happy Saturday!