Name: Boogie
Breed: English Pointer X
Age: 3 Years (2024)
Reward: Food
Location: Neerim South
Previous Training:
A beginner’s nose work course with birch oils inside the house only.
Had been offered three containers and he had to chose which container had the desired odour.
He would often get a little bit rough with the container once he had decided which one. (After meeting Boogie the cause was frustration due to under stimulation and/or unsure how to communicate to owners which box he had chosen)
Main areas to work on:
Developing confidence, independent searching.
Reduce rough behavior on hide.
Translate canine body language to owners to aid human/canine communication.
Understanding canine body language before the chosen alert.
Develop a consistent and personalized human/canine language both will understand.
Increasing difficultly slowly and working our way towards hunting in the truffiere.
Teaching “Show”
Course: Intermediate Course beginning 18th January 2024.
In his past training he had been offered three containers and he had to choose which had truffle, the idea of searching for the hide independently was a completely new concept. After seeing a pre training search, I decided to reconsolidate the truffle aroma/reward pairing and introduce searching for the hide.
After a couple of paired inside searches, we quickly moved to unpaired hides. He realized very quickly that searching for the hide was much more fun and he thrived in this new game. We had to make things harder for him fairly soon as he is a very cleaver dog. We started moving to larger rooms, then outside in a low distracting environment, then higher distractions over the course of a few months. Slowly working our way to towards being able to hunt in the truffiere. Keeping him accurate and focused by only rewarding at source and taking our time when we added in a new distraction before adding in another.
Extract from Boogie’s Report summary (18th January 2024)
“In 10 min he has gone from not wanting to follow me, not knowing what to do or noticing when there is an unpaired hide right under him, to now searching even when not in scent cone as soon as the word “Find” is said. Finding the scent cone meters away from source and offering the correct alert to get his reward directly at the hide.”
“I think Boogies personality will be excellent as a working dog. His desire to please his owners, his high drive and intelligence will make for a great truffle dog. His willingness to accept strangers will be fantastic when working alongside an audience and people distractions won’t be an issue once he has practiced working with people following along”
Future:
The truffiere is now 3 years old (2024) and we are eagerly awaiting the first truffles to be found. We are hoping next year could be the first year. We will have Kovu/Zara, seasoned truffle dogs, find real undisturbed truffle locations before running Boogie over these areas. I have no doubt he will find them, as when we put down hides he was finding all of them.
Update August 2024:
Boogie found his first real truffles in the ground at a truffiere in Kingston in mid-August 2024. Boogie has gone from being first introduce to the idea of searching for an odour to finding his first real truffles at a new highly distracting environment all within 7 months which is a testament to all the practice and training he has done in that time.