Monday, March 25, 2013

Aging our hides


Worked exterior hides again today.   The tins themselves were aged about 30hrs since I took the Qtips out of the odor jar.   The hides were put out at 9:05a, and we ran them at approximately 12:15p.    The winds have been building all day, and were a steady 10-15MPH when we worked.

I was very happy with how quickly she worked and found the hides.   On the first one, I wanted to reward the hunt (vs the find), so I told her "yes" as soon as she got to source, even though she hadn't pinpointed it for me (she was an inch or so past when I said "yes").   The other two, I waited for her to pinpoint.

On hide #3, the lawn, I purposefully started us far back to make the hunt a larger portion of her work.   She already had odor when I told her to 'show me,' and we were about 30-35yds from the hide.

3hrs was a bit long to age them, for where she is in training.  1-1.5hrs would have been more ideal.  However, this is how life runs, and so we work with what we have.   :)



Sunday, March 24, 2013

Exterior hides with anise


What better to do on a gorgeous early Spring day than work on exterior hides?   :)

I chose to use anise today.   It has been well over a month since I've refreshed the scent, so Friday night, I put oil into the jars, and as of this afternoon, they'd cooked about 36hrs.   For Fizz, this should be SCREAMING hot scent.  Therefore, I only put 1 q-tip per tin.   We worked 2 sessions, 3 hides each session.   

Session 1, the hides were out for maybe 5 minutes before I brought her out.   No real wind to speak of, but for the little bit that I could detect, I tried to bring her in down wind, since we've not worked exteriors in a long time.   I was surprised at how quickly she found them!

Session 2, I allowed the hides to age for 20 minutes.   Again, she seemed to have little difficulty.   Will start working on aging the hides longer, 1hr to start and beyond.  

Future plans will also be to start working off site (i.e. not at my house).  


Session 1: 







Session 2: