Yesterday reader Vickie Burke mentioned NASDA trials (for sport dogs). That put us in mind of this little passage from A Farewell to Arfs, the next Chet and Bernie novel in a series that can be read in any order – coming Aug. 6, available for preorder:
“Of course not,” said Mavis. “And how did you find me? ProCon never gives out addresses.”
“And they didn’t. Let’s just say we followed our noses.”
How puzzling! We often followed my nose, never Bernie’s, and had followed neither of them this time. Hadn’t we kept Mavis in sight the whole time? That was how I remembered it. But just then my nose got a little twitchy and I began to doubt. And the next thing I knew I was sneezing, a great big powerful sneeze. Wow! Did that feel good! I forgot about everything, just waiting and hoping for another sneeze to come along. But it did not. I tried to figure out how to make a sneeze happen and got nowhere.
3 Comments on “Noses”
Chet is making me LOL!
Good day to all.
Greetings!
Like B., Chet has made me laugh too. :^)
NACSW has been around a lot longer. National Association of Canine Scent Work. Open to all dogs regardless of breed, size, age or abilities (I.E. there are blind, deaf and limited mobility dogs involved). Even reactive dogs are allows and special allowances are made to allow them to compete comfortable and safely.
The AKC also has a Nosework component in their dog competitions, also welcome to all breeds, sizes, ages, etc. Diana is registered as an All American Dog.
Diana pawPrints passed her NACSW ORT (Odor Recognition Test) back in 2019 and was about to attain her first title when covid hit. Likewise she was also working at her first ribbon for the AKC Scentwork. And has completed her AKC Star Puppy and was working on her Canine Good Citizen as I was looking at her being a therapy dog. All that stopped when Covid hit, and then we got Freyja who cannot be left alone.
I haven’t heard of the NASDA but they are fairly new compared to the other two organizations. It looks like they concentrate on hunting dogs, following the scent of a “quarry” (a small caged rat or such) or a shed antler that has been dragged on the ground. So tracking and finding prey.
AKC has separate competitions for Nosework, tracking and other things dogs have been bred for. There is a “barn hunt” for the little vermin catchers.
NACSW does Nosework, which is basically finding a scented hide like police and military dogs do to find drugs and explosives. NACSW uses Birch, Anise and Clove. AKC uses those three plus Cypress. These are essential oils with a drop put on a Qtip put in a small tube or box and then hidden in a room, on a vehicle or outside in a designated area. The number of hides and difficulty increases as the dogs earn titles.
I still have all of Diana’s practice stuff but now with Freyja it is not only difficult for her to practice but if she were to compete, Freyja would have to come along as an observer because she can’t be left alone. Still, I might get the stuff out and try it again once I get the front yard a bit more toward it’s finished design. Who knows. Freyja might pick up on what Diana is doing and learn to do it herself. She is a great observer and has learned other things just by watching what Diana does. Her problem is that she has a very short attention span. Like if she was playing chess with a gnat, the gnat would win.
Who among us doesn’t delight in hearing a dog sneeze?