Breckenhill Club Trial 03/02/2024

Judges: Laura Kirk and Jillian Marshall

1st Lesley Clements & Tejo 97 points

2nd Nicky Rodgers & Bobbi 91.5 points

3rd Elizabeth Mitchell & Max 82 points

4th Sue Christie & Rika 75.5 points

5th Antoinette Traynor & Tiggie 75.5 points

6th Christine Murphy & Milo 75 points

Narrowly missing out on the ribbons were:

Joanne Manson and Buddy

Katie Wilson and Leia

Jemma Elliot and Arlo

The search area was an upstairs room in a barn conversion usually in use for wedding ceremonies.

The room was largely bare of items but had eight lovely floor level recessed windows with deep window sills and a set of French doors leading to the fire escape so plenty to search. There was a single table with a chair in one corner of the room along with a larger table and chairs set up down one side of the room. With some additional items such as a free standing light, small electric heater (unplugged) and fire extinguisher.

The start was at the internal doorway but handlers were allowed to go in and have the door shut behind them before starting the search if they wished.

The hide was placed within a hole along the perimeter wall through which ran heating pipes. The heating was not switched on.

Handlers chose which way to work the room. This proved to be a mixture of clockwise and anticlockwise. Most handlers allowed the dog to free search with a couple opting for staying on a line. The most successful teams searched the nearest table and window on line then allowed their dogs to free search. Handlers that sent their dogs anticlockwise should have encountered the odour relatively quickly and should have been able to see their dogs pass the hide and do a lovely head knock. This was the case for quite a few. However, a few of the dogs worked over the odour and searched the rest of the room before returning to hit on the hide.

It was nice to see handlers recognising when their dogs where in odour and most gave their dogs space to work it out.

A chilly one for the judges (whilst everyone else got to sit around the fire!) but lovely morning judging the teams and brilliant to see some newbies out giving it a go too!