It started with a dog named Beau Jay…
I loved the training so much that I started my other dog, Grizzly Bear (Newfoundland/Border Collie mix), in Nose Work. Grizzly and I first attempted a NW1 trial in May 2012. We worked our way through the levels until our final NW3 trial in July 2015.
Mia (Golden Lab) followed Grizzy into the game. We trialed from June 2013 through August 2017 (11 EST, 24 NW1-NW3). She was working for her NW3 title when she passed.
I am currently working Zoeii at the highest level of NACSW trialing: Summit Leagues. She started her NW career in Oct 2017 and finished her NW3 in Oct 2019. She is a very high energy, focused Pembroke Welsh Corgi. I tell people that once she is working my job is to try to keep up so I will be there with her cookies when she finds the hides. She has been called a bulldozer and absolutely LOVES doing Nose Work.
I am also working Bobby; a 4 year old mixed breed dog with crazy long legs. We got our ORT title last fall and I hope we get into the NW1 trial in Albuquerque in February.
About me
I finished the NACSW CNWI Instructor training course on March 1, 2016. Coaching K9 Nose Work tm is the only dog training I do. I am fully committed to supporting people and their dogs in the beautiful journey into discovering the world through following a dogs scenting abilities.
How we do it
We start the journey by having the dogs search for food in boxes following the proven process developed by NACSW. This uses the dogs innate abilities and frees them to develop the skills to search, find and communicate their success to the handler.
I have embraced the handling methodologies developed by Dana Zinn and Sue Sternberg presented in their book “The Dog-Driven Search. Handling Our Nose Work Dogs to Promote Independence, Joy and Enthusiasm”
My Partners in Nose Work (my dogs)
Beau Jay was a Yorkshire Terrier rescued from a puppy mill at one year old. Terrified of the world I had tried everything I could find to help him adapt to the world outside the puppy mill (he was there for the first year of his life). For 3 years we worked on his confidence and there was some improvement, but he was still scared most of the time. Then Dana Zinn introduced K9 Nose Work TM to folks in the Denver area and Gale Creek signed up to become an instructor. Beau Jay and I were in Gale’s first Nose Work class in about 2009/2010.
We learned a lot from sweet Beau Jay! Suffice it to say that this little fellow that I never dreamed would be brave enough to trial in Nose Work was working on his NW3 title when he passed.