Friday 7th September, I woke early ahead of my alarm and set off to Helen Soper’s Ace of Dogs Scentwork Trial at Hazelmere, it proved to be a pleasant day worth taking the day off work for.

We started with Level 3 and 9 competitors. All proved to be a high standard, with Jeni and Sullivan getting their Excellent award. Winners Lyn and Foxy were rock solid all day and Lyn kindly stayed to Scribe in the Level 1 after lunch – thank you. Jeni and Sullivan were 2nd with only 16 seconds dividing 2nd and 3rd admirably taken by Lu and Bo who showed lovely consistent searching all day. 4th place went to Chris and Queeza, who have worked incredibly hard since we last met. A couple of wrong alerts knocked people out of the placings but a great learning curve for everyone, Helen and Nellie produced some lovely searches, Kate and Kiwi worked well as a team, Pauline knows Tia very well and exactly how to get the best from her, Maggi worked hard to raise Bomber’s game as he was marginally obsessed with other smells but a change of tone in her voice soon had him back in the game. Nikki and Zigzag worked beautiful as a lovely team through their searches but unfortunately got slightly stuck and lost some of their confidence on the final vehicle search, Zigzag was unsure of the blank car and the swirling wind moved the scent plume on the final car to cause some issues.

We finished nearly on time, a quick lunch – thank you Helen. On to Level 1, we started where we finished on the Level 3 by using the Tables and Chairs, some good quick finds and few that just needed clarity, then on to the Exterior Search area, more great teams starting to appear then we swapped back inside to do the Boxes and Luggage to finish with the Vehicle Search. Apart from one enthusiastic early call which caused one wrong alert, there were clear sweeps across the board and I felt the teams increased their confidence on each search. I was impressed with Martina and little Yorkie Misty who tackled the car search thoroughly, she really seemed to like that one. We had hugely quick and enthusiastic dogs who were obviously enjoying themselves. Jane and Febe gave me my introduction to Spanish Water dogs, I think they will be a team to watch. Elliot and Toby are new to the sport and made good progress today, I look forward to seeing them again. Zoe and Theo’s teamwork and handling improved with each search, Sue and Ruby got over their worries of the slippery floor to produce solid searches. Marie and Liberty were speedy throughout although I had thought her boots may slow her down, I was wrong, they had a long day with Marie coming early to scribe for the Level 3 all morning sorry you ended up in the cupboard for part of the afternoon. Linda and Taboo were steady and accurate to secure 2nd place. Heather and Archie were our winners, which was a pleasure as Archie is Heather’s first dog and this was her first competition. I must make special mention to Hayley and her incredibly sympathetic handling of Mia; Mia is an anxious dog and cannot compete at her favourite sport of agility as she cannot cope with the close contact of others, but throughout today she became calmer and more confident and looked like she really enjoyed herself.

Thank you again to Helen for inviting me and I was happy that we finished before the scouts arrived.