Lacey ORT Roadtrip

 Today was a small road trip to Lacey for my mom's dog Gypsy to take her Odor Recognition Test (ORT). Passing these tests allows her to start participating in K9 Nose Work search trials.

 Gypsy is wearing her red bandanna which means "reactive" and keep away. :) It was a pretty small group of dogs and there was decent space around the fairgrounds.

I did video in during each ORT and one video of her working on the prep box set-up they can do before they go in for their test:

Prep box work video
Birch test video
Anise test video

I have some work to do on filming a dog. The zoom has a hard time catching up and while the alert was always clear the body language wasn't really captured.

I have never actually seen Gypsy in a working environment and she is a perfect example of a dog that is built to work thriving in a work environment. She had a distinctly different demeanor than what I see at home. I think she enjoys the specifics of K9 Nose Work: the harness, the lead, the clear distinction of working and not working. She also is a very independent worker which is a really nice trait.

I made a point of keeping Nim separate from her until she was done with her testing. I have seen reactive dogs shut down after a bad dog on dog interaction and I wanted her focused on her task.

After all was done, the above photo is about the closest we could get them. Nim has gone to his happy place and Gypsy is plotting. :)

Proof of passing!

We also just figured out today that Nim and her share the same birthday of May 12th! He will be turning 2 and she will be turning 4.