Instead of an ending it really does seem more like a beginning.
Yesterday Batch 1 of my Nosework 2 Class had just graduated. My students are a Golden Retriever named Cash, a Dachshund named Hershey, and a Siberian Husky named Watson. I learned a lot from this class, the first and primary one is , though I may have all the documentation necessary to say I can teach detection in the end of it all dogs cant read.
This class made me a better teacher because of the students , canine and human, kept pushing the line. The only one who was very obvious about pushing the boundaries was Watson who was the best in his class in his tenth class of Nosework. For some reason, he decided that it would be more interesting to hold my heart on a string and attach that string to a roller coaster as he toed the line of disorderly conduct, insubordination, and mutiny for the first 9 classes. I know one cannot prove that dogs have a sense of humor scientifically but Watson has me thinking that science needs to hurry and figure that one out.
Hershey, little Hershey aka SuperGirl, reminds me of my bestfriend … a lot ( obsessively organized, practical, and knows she is smart without being arrogant ) and is probably one of the smartest dogs and bravest dogs I have ever met. Who knew in that teeny tiny princess prancing dog lay a full blooded German Shepherd. I own a German Shepherd and I see Hershey as a travel sized version of a working K9 because working with her really felt like working with the Belgians and German Shepherds I had worked with before. That tiny little dog , with her stroller in tow, is in all and every aspect of the word a working canine. I even had to be careful when I would tell her owner where the target was because Hershey would go directly to the locations I would say it was. I swear that dog can speak English . The challenge with Hershey was she was too organized . I had to make sure to keep things random for her as possible or she develops a search pattern and wont deviate from it making her time slower than necessary. I felt like Adam Sandler in 50 first dates. I had to keep it different and yet the same over and over again.
