Silver and Gold Trial

Silver trial Champion league 1st Marney and Kipper 79.5 2nd Natasha and River 77 3rd Richard and Ziggy 71.5 4th Jamie and Bear 68 5th Wendy and Millie 67 6th Nic and Meadow 67

Diamond League Jennie and Reo 77

Gold trial

1st Natasha and River

2nd Nic and Meadow

3rd Helen and Nellie

4th Marie and Roger

udges Report 27/03 Field Barn Farm

Silver

Two hides were set in an outdoor farmyard materials area. One was on a crate in a corner of the area, encouraging dogs to fully search the perimeter without skipping corners.

The other hide was set in stacked items that formed pipes that were open at each end. The hide was deep in the pipes and indications would be accepted from either side.

Dogs found the crate hide(‘left’ on the score sheets) in most cases when working clockwise round the area. Dogs found the pipe hide (‘right’ on the score sheet) in almost all cases when searching anti-clockwise.

Some dogs found focusing on the search area a big challenge and I would wonder if those dogs that were more exploratory rather than searching have been working mostly/exclusively indoors over the winter?

All dogs who hit odour worked it in beautifully and gave some cracking indications. The standard of handling was also very high, even when the dogs were not being particularly focused team members at times!

Gold

This was a large area used to store farm equipment and tractors, one side being a large sided barn, open concrete area in the middle and lots of machinery to the side. Three hides, 8 minutes search time. One was inside a storage box very near the start, the second at the far end of the search area in the middle of the floor and the third under some logs on the back of a trailer in the middle of all the equipment. All handlers covered this large area in the time with some nice systematic searching. All knocked the floor hide, although some then indicated on the nearest object. I think this comes down to the dogs (and handlers) expectation of where a hide could be, tied in with the wind direction, they all worked it in well once they came away from the building. The first hide was early in the search which proved tricky and the the log hide could be indicated on from a number of places, dogs picked this up but couldn’t all pin point as they could not directly get to source. Some lovely partnerships and great searching, this level should present a challange, but with clear training goals to come out of which I felt it did.