Originally Posted By: editor2I've heard that NAPWDA test is brutal. One trainer was telling us that, during the vehicle portion of the test, the evaluator made her dog get INSIDE the car and show her exactly where the scent source was; it wasn't enough for the dog to alert on the vehicle. That's crazy!
But real world - you figure they may have to work in a trunk or pinpoint in the car. We had done some of that in training.
We did not have <u>that </u>one but we knew it was a possibility. The vehicle hides we had were pretty straightforward but one of them was only a q-tip that had been dipped in blood. [we also had some large scent sources - a real good mixture of everything
The most interesting hide was on the hot inside wall [high hide] in a large metal buidling. The weather was HOT. the wall was HOT. In the middle of the buidling is a front loader [well a bulldozer kind of thing with a cab about 7 feet off the ground] - He climbs in the bucket scrambles in the cab and is throwing all kinds of scent behavior in the cab. I had to explain what was going on - and went back and detailed the hot wall behind the front loader. Actually that was an initial area of interest [he jumped up on the wall there the first pass] --- when we did, he hit the scent and alerted. ........All the other dogs alerted on the exact same spot and did the same thing with the front loader --- though only one other dog actually climbed up into the cab. Getting him off was fun too. He put his paws on the bucket, I grabbed his collar, and as he jumped I caught him and lowered him to the ground. ........
It was a lot of work preparing. Now we get to do it again next year!
I still want to do NNDDA because of the large scent sources they usually use. Like I said we had some big ones but notihng like some of those folks do. I think the tests complement each other. Big stuff vs. little and moderate stuff. But how many tests can you do every year?