Judges report
Bronze
Judges Kirsty and Rosie
The bronze area was an L shaped room and adjoining kitchen. The first area had a pet shop area behind a room divider, neither were included in the area and some handlers had to work hard to persuade their dogs of this! There were also food item like pigs ears and other tempting items higher up on the walls in storage bins, it is a credit to their training and handlers that so many dogs were able to work past these. A totally unintended distraction was a number of blank discs on the floor, several dogs clearly remembered doing target training onto something similar and gave beautiful indications on them. The first hide was behind a hanging backdrop, next to a cold window this channelled the odour down so dogs first picked it up at floor level before working it up, or found when tasked up and over the sofa. The second hide was under the bottom banister of the stairs. Cross air flow moving through the space from the two doors caused interesting movement of the odour and dogs needed handlers to watch their body language to help them get into the right area if they were struggling to work in.
1st Lynda and Poppy
2nd Lauren and Otto
3rd Emma and Mollie
4th Hilary and Drusie
5th Alison and Herbie
6th Jacey and Hero
Silver
Judges Emma and Kirsty
Silver area was an upstairs storage space, with furniture and all sorts of odd and ends scattered around. It consisted of 1 larger room at the top of a set of stars with a small room at either end. The first hide was inside a plastic pipe at floor level. Most dogs picked this up and worked in well with a few becoming briefly tempted away by the cat box on one side or the large container of soft toys on either side. The second hide was under a flap of lino in one of the smaller rooms, this was a good challenge for the dog and handlers. Most dogs knew the odour was in the space but needed to really put their problem solving skills to be able to work it in. A high standard was seen across the board
1st Lynda and Poppy
2nd Marney and Kipper
3rd Kate and Jack
4th Bev and Delilah
5th Liz and Paddy
6th Wendy and Millie
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