September 17, 2008 - Mika, you have to choose!

Mika is no longer training for agility. As the dogs in the class advance and the students become lazier, Mika has given up agility to save her narcotics skills.

Students are leaving cocaine scented items around the building and every time I turn around, Mika is hitting in the scent. With agility being an off-leash sport, she is free to access the narcotics training equipment on the parameter of the room, mere feet away from the agility obstacles she is meant to be climbing.

Often, I don't know if the items are scented. Is she sitting to indicate drugs or is she giving a false indication because she is hoping for a ball reward? If I give her a reward and the item is not really scented, I am teaching her that lying pays off. If I don't reward when the item is really scented, I teach her that the scent doesn't always result in a reward. This chips away at the dog's drive to find the source of the scent.

Tonight, after getting frustrated that Mika was hitting on drugs instead of focusing on agility, I put ring gates up to barricade the narc equipment. Even 4 feet away from the source she was still hitting the scent. With no ball in hand to reward her, Mika decided to take matters into her own hands. She literally jumped 4 feet in the air to the source of the scent and snatched the tennis ball from the scented pvc tube, knocking over the ring gates on her way back down.

So much for off-leash agility!!!

In other news...
Mika did her first car scearch for narcotics. She searched the outside of 6 cars and found the two places where cocaine was hidden.