Ballyhanwood 20/01/24

Judges: Lesley Clements and Nicky Rodgers

Trial Report

The Trial took place within an upstairs room of a former family home now converted into a garage and storage area. The room contained various piece of random furniture – sofa, chests of drawers, clothes rails, coffee table etc along with filing cabinets and a full drum kit. It had various nooks and crannies. The area was an appropriate size for the time but encouraged handlers to give their dogs autonomy and only step in to support if required.

The hide was trapped along the edge of a drawer seam in one of the filing cabinets in the corner of the room under the ceiling eaves. It was fully accessible, however, in order to access the corner the dogs had to go around the drum kit which was set on a rug. This suited the more independent dogs.

Most dogs picked up the odour from the very edge of a rug that the drum kit was placed on and worked it back from there. Those that missed the hide did so either because they simply travelled past it without searching or because the handlers went in under the eave and blocked the hide.

It was an interesting area to watch the teams working and there was some really nice searching.

Results as follows:

1st Joanne Holland and Gertie on 80 points

2nd Amanda Lattimer and Thelma om 79 points

3rd Patrice Kerrigan and Poppet on 70 points

4th Joanne Maybin and Kim on 67 points

5th Christine Murphy on 63 points

6th Katie Wilson and Leia on 62 points