The Nose

I am marking this day with a photo of Jax's nose, taken up close with a macro lens.  Why, you ask?  Because we are marking his first day of Nosework!  We were supposed to start classes the first week of January but Covid had other ideas, so we had to wait for another class.  I will confess that I was worried about Jax's unbridled enthusiasm and whether that might result in a very quick end to his classroom endeavors.  Happily, there was only one other dog in the class, a Shepard who was impeccably behaved which helped Jax to calm down.  Once we started doing the actual Nosework, he really settled into a good energy level.  Thank goodness!  

The first scent they are using in the class is Birch and the idea is to train the dog to identify and "alert".  The same skill that drug detection dogs are trained for, although this is all meant to be fun for the dog.  I don't have any aspirations of having Jax compete in Nosework trials, but I think this will be a fun activity for both of us.  And Nosework tires out a dog twice as fast as fetch because it works all their senses!  We came home with a scent "kit" that we can use in between classes so Jax and I will be breaking that out tomorrow.  For now, he is fast asleep.

It's been an otherwise uneventful day aside from waking up to 2 inches of fresh snow (which has now all mostly melted).  I toyed with going out to take some pics of birds, but the sun was shining brightly and I didn't feel like dealing with all the white.  Not to mention, it was cold and very windy!

I think today it will be plain dark.  

xo
Debbi