February 5, 2026- Blank Space: Training for Blank Searches

Nosework is all about finding hides- until it is not. After all, it’s called searching, not finding! Making the transition from finding hides to clearing areas requires the dog to understand how to search blank spaces, but it can be a scary concept for new teams and, if introduced poorly, can decrease motivation in the dog. This workshop will demonstrate methods for introducing the concept of blank spaces to your dog and discuss how thoughtful exposure to blank areas sets your team up for success as you encounter blank areas or larger areas without odor in your future searches. Dogs should be imprinted on birch, anise and clove and should be confidently and independently searching for target odor in a novel environment. 

February 26, 2026- Follow Your Nose: Challenging Dog Assumptions

As we train our dogs for nosework, we grow their reinforcement history for finding hides in certain contexts or on certain objects- boxes, vehicles, chairs, tables, etc. This may be done intentionally or unintentionally. Context can be a very useful tool! But over-do it and you may create a dog who stops solving the problem when they make up their mind where the hide is instead of following their nose. This workshop will push our dogs boundaries and make our dogs think by placing hides that challenge their assumptions. This helps our dogs learn how to problem solve when the answer isn’t obvious, and builds their tenacity and drive to source by teaching them how to use their nose over their brain. Dogs should be imprinted on birch, anise and clove and should be confidently and independently searching for target odor in a novel environment. 

March 5, 2026- Hot or Not?: Understanding Odor vs. Non-Odor Behavior

Hot or not? That is the question! Is there odor in this search area (“hot”), or isn’t there (“not”)? Sounds like a simple question, but there’s a whole lot of complexity in the answer. Reading your dog in and out of odor is a critical skill at all levels but especially as you make the move into searches with an unknown number of hides. This is how you clear areas confidently. In this workshop, the dogs are our teachers. We will be observing searches where we do know what is (or isn’t) set, so we may observe as a group what a large number of dogs look like working areas with and without odor. Through this we will review what we are looking for as handlers when we are observing our dogs to determine if an area is hot, or not. Dogs should be imprinted on birch, anise and clove and should be confidently and independently searching for target odor in a novel environment. 

April 2, 2026- Just Out of Reach: Building Inaccessible Hide Skills

Inaccessible hides are hides where the odor is accessible to the dog but source is not. There are several different types of inaccessibles and teaching our dogs how to keep working to source is essential in their ability to stick with inaccessible hides and our ability to call them. This workshop will explore how we teach and maintain skills that support inaccessible hides in a number of different types of inaccessible hides (inaccessible by containment, by depth, and by height) and then put the pieces together to demonstrate what our dogs look like when working an inaccessible hide so we can call alert with confidence.  Dogs should be imprinted on birch, anise and clove and should be confidently and independently searching for target odor in a novel environment.

Working spots are $60, unlimited auditing spots are $20. Working spots will be selected by random draw from entries between January 11, 2026 at 12PM EST and January 13, 2026 at 11:59AM EST