ANWI™ means Associate Nose Work Instructor, as recognized by the National Association of Canine Scent Work, LLC®, or NACSW™. This past weekend I attended days 2 - 4 of 7 days of seminars, to become a CNWI™ (Certified Nose Work Instructor).
Nose Work isn't plastic surgery; it is a game or a sport (depending on your level of involvement) where dogs find defined scents in a variety of environments.
The certification program for Nose Work is different than most doggie stuff. Normally, you'd go take lessons, go through a training program or two or three or more, and get certified. The founders of NACSW™ realized early on that wouldn't work here.
For one thing, it's really a new program, and a lot of people aren't familiar with it, yet. And for another, you really have to work the program, observing dogs and handlers, and the way to do that is to teach or to co-teach.
The first day of the seminar (which I attended in December) was about paperwork & problem solving. Before attending this set of classes, we were to be teaching - I'd started teaching Intro to Nose Work at the end of February - we finished our 8 week course a week ago, and started a new round yesterday.
This weekend, we covered Planning Hides, Building Skills, and Introducing Exterior and Vehicle hides. We keep teaching classes over the summer, and finish out the seminars in September. (Advanced Exteriors & Vehicles, Green and Beginning Dogs and Exam and additional information.) If everything goes well & I can get videos together of my students, I should complete the CNWI™ in September.
And, like the facilitator said on Saturday, 'Thank goodness for our first students putting their trust in us.'
Here are some of my first students:
Eva the Mastiff
Eva in carton
Maggie the Golden Retriever
Maggie stares at the hide
Nutmeg the Sheltie (who has a very graceful 'head snap')
Chloe the Coon Hound (who works very quickly, and naps between rounds)