Level 2
1 Kate Osborn – Kipling – 100
2 John Hearn – Jay – 99.15
3 Cath Seddon – Reaper – 98.8
4 Jane Meadows – Jessie – 89.4
5 Emma Bearman – Alfie – 89.2
6 Jan Manners – Gemma – 89.2
7 Val Russell – Del – 79.7
8 Chris Williams – Barley – 76.4
Level 3
1 Helen Pye – Chester – 99.9
2 Laura Burton – Jett – 99.7
3 Lynda Stangle – Magic – 89.7
4 Chris Baldwin – Piglet – 89.6
5 Chrissie McRory – Paddy – 89.3
6 Cath Seddon – Dana – 88.7
7 Sonia Pidhajeckyj – Ruby – 79.8
8 Gloria Bonnell – Jade – 79.7
9 Val Isherwood – Heike – 79.7
10 Julia Reeves – Dandy – 79.5
Another lovely morning for a Scentwork UK trial. What else are Mondays for?
I arrived at the Rugby club and started setting up ready for the level 2’s in the morning.
Both judges Kym Salisbury and Justine Steele arrived in plenty of time. They were both first time judges but were soon at ease and judged beautifully during the day. Taking it in turns to judge two inside searches and two exteriors.
The weather was very kind to us, which always makes a trial seem to run much more smoothly.
Wellingborough Rugby club is a great venue for trials as we have so much space.
Sonia was stung by a wasp before the first search, so out came the first aid kit. This did not stop Sonia and Ruby from having a great trial though.
Thank you so much to Justine and Kym for judging, Helen Kennedy, Chris Baldwin and Jan Manners for scribing, also to Alan Seddon for running.
I look forward to seeing you all again and thank you so much for allowing us to watch your fabulous dogs searching. It is always a great pleasure.
Marianne
Justine Steele
It felt slightly different yet still exciting to be arriving at the now familiar venue of Wellingborough Rugby Club for my first experience as a Judge & travelling with Chum as the White Dog too. Such a great place to come to with all that space & such a relaxed atmosphere, thanks to Marianne as always & everyone who helped organise & the working teams too, we had a fantastic experience & hope everyone else felt the same.
Starting with Level 2, I had the outdoor searches & with the Exterior up first the teams duly waited their turn before sniffing out the clove along with avoiding the wasps!! What a pleasure to watch different dogs with different styles & paces. Notably the incredible speed of dogs Heike, Jessie & Mr Kipling & the confidence of Val, Jan & Kate to correctly call so quickly. The re-visiting style of Jan with Gemma took both Helen, my wonderful scribe & myself by surprise! However to some teams the lure of the environment threatened to win over but all were able to get re-focused & with great success on the whole.
The Vehicle Search then provided a challenge as the wind was pushing towards where everyone started their search. With one in the wheel of the furthest & one under the front reg plate of the nearest, it took teams sometimes on a random path that I’m sure was difficult to then orient! Proof really that Trialling is Training & the dog is the Pro! The reg plate vehicle was at the maximum height, perhaps higher than I first imagined but when little Pom Gemma came along, she without hesitation popped up on rear legs, front legs straight down & pin-pointed that ‘find’. Absolutely wonderful!.. Del was handled beautifully by Val & I conclude this was a thoroughly interesting & entertaining search to watch all teams tackling. Congratulations all…
Level 3 in the afternoon & after the drama of an evil wasp sting (hope you’re fully recovered Sonia) it was inside for me & my lovely scribe Jan to the Tables, Chairs & Perimeter Search. Having the guidelines fresh in my mind we went for a ‘find’ in a lovely little gap on a permanent fixture for the perimeter. This threw a few teams off as they weren’t really expecting it not to be on an item… However those that trusted their dog & those that clarified the perimeter got the job done with style. Amazing to watch the special understanding between Chris & Piglet as they worked together, Piglet clearly having a great time…
The Boxes, Containers Search was equally interesting to watch especially with one of the scented articles being the very first nearest box! It took a brave handler to call this ‘find’ when the indication came so soon into the allowed 5minutes! But again, trusting the Pro brought its rewards. There was some lovely handling on what can sometimes be considered the bogey search… in particular the first & second placed dogs Jet & Chester, knew exactly what they were doing & while their respective owners may have felt very differently to each other, both controlled excitement & nerves to enable their dogs to perform so efficiently & happily. Thoroughly deserved…
Well done everyone! Keep Sniffing…
Kym Salisbury
Arriving at Wellingborough in the morning was an exciting prospect for myself and fellow judge Justine as it was both our first time judging. No nerves to be had though as everything was so well organised by Marianne as usual.
We decided I was going to take the inside searches for level two and the outside searches for level 3.
In level two we started with the tables, chairs and perimeter search. This search was particular fab for all teams with most finding the perimeter first, every single dog worked to source beautifully! Some lovely methodically searching from Del, Jessie, jay, Gemma & reaper. When it came to the chairs the dogs worked the area great, determining which chair it was on. Kate held her nerve when Kipling was working through it decision as did Chris & barley.
we had a stunning passive alert from gulliver and nice hook head from Alfie which really instilled some Confidence in his handler Emma.
The container search threw a couple of teams off with a particularly rustly bag. We did have some super speedy calls on the luggage though with most dogs going straight on source! Some beautiful handling all round.
On to level three, we started with the exterior search, now with this level we added gun oil which was interesting to see how many dogs prefer one scent to the other. In this level we had Chris’ piglet who is a beautiful little blind terrier who was fascinating to watch and search beautifully. We had quite a few super speedy finds in the exterior particularly Lynda & magic with an outstanding 16 second search! Swiftly followed by Christie & paddy, val & Heike and Helen & Chester. We also had some lovely methodical searches ruby, dandy, Dana, keilin & skip.
Onto the vehicle search and this proved very hard for most competitors due to the wind and pooling of both scents. A special note to the top 4 of the day Helen & Chester, Laura & Jett, Lynda & Magic & Chris & piglet who were the only ones to find both scents on the vehicles. All 4 really worked the area beautifully, keeping their dogs on target and realising to change direction or approach an area of interest from a different angle. I was particularly impressed with Laura & jett who were speedy and confident throughout a rather hard search, very impressive!
A big thank you to both my scribes on the day, Justine as co judge, Marianne as trial manager and of course all the wonderful teams on the day. Hope to see you all again very soon.
| T&C - A/F | T&C - H | T&C - T | ES - A/F | ES - H | ES - T | VS - A/F | VS - H | VS - T | B&L - A/F | B&L - H | B&L - T | Marks | Time | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A/F = Alert Find | H = Handling | T = Time (seconds) | |||||||||||||
| Tables & Chairs | Exterior Search | Vehicle Search | Boxes & Luggage | Totals | |||||||||||
| Level 2 | A/F | H | T | A/F | H | T | A/F | H | T | A/F | H | T | Marks | Time | |
| 1 | Kate Osborn - Kipling | 20 | 5 | 61 | 20 | 5 | 24 | 20 | 5 | 47 | 20 | 5 | 57 | 100 | 189 |
| 2 | John Hearn - Jay | 20 | 4.9 | 80 | 20 | 4.8 | 87 | 20 | 4.5 | 266 | 20 | 4.95 | 65 | 99.15 | 498 |
| 3 | Cath Seddon - Reaper | 20 | 4.8 | 104 | 20 | 4.8 | 138 | 20 | 4.3 | 286 | 20 | 4.9 | 70 | 98.8 | 598 |
| 4 | Jane Meadows - Jessie | 20 | 4.9 | 47 | 20 | 5 | 32 | 10 | 4.5 | 119 | 20 | 5 | 32 | 89.4 | 230 |
| 5 | Emma Bearman - Alfie | 20 | 4.7 | 101 | 20 | 5 | 36 | 20 | 4.5 | 89 | 10 | 5 | 16 | 89.2 | 242 |
| 6 | Jan Manners - Gemma | 20 | 4.6 | 145 | 20 | 4.8 | 55 | 20 | 4.8 | 111 | 10 | 5 | 86 | 89.2 | 397 |
| 7 | Val Russell - Del | 20 | 5 | 60 | 20 | 5 | 22 | 10 | 4.8 | 129 | 10 | 4.9 | 82 | 79.7 | 293 |
| 8 | Chris Williams - Barley | 20 | 4.9 | 83 | 10 | 4.5 | 60 | 20 | 2 | 117 | 10 | 5 | 43 | 76.4 | 303 |
| Level 3 | |||||||||||||||
| 1 | Helen Pye – Chester | 20 | 5 | 70 | 20 | 5 | 28 | 20 | 4.9 | 245 | 20 | 5 | 25 | 99.9 | 368 |
| 2 | Laura Burton – Jett | 20 | 4.8 | 242 | 20 | 4.9 | 46 | 20 | 5 | 40 | 20 | 5 | 29 | 99.7 | 357 |
| 3 | Lynda Stangle – Magic | 10 | 4.8 | 56 | 20 | 5 | 16 | 20 | 4.9 | 163 | 20 | 5 | 24 | 89.7 | 259 |
| 4 | Chris Baldwin – Piglet | 10 | 4.8 | 108 | 20 | 5 | 69 | 20 | 4.8 | 249 | 20 | 5 | 54 | 89.6 | 480 |
| 5 | Chrissie McRory – Paddy | 20 | 4.9 | 64 | 20 | 5 | 41 | 10 | 4.5 | 186 | 20 | 4.9 | 52 | 89.3 | 343 |
| 6 | Cath Seddon – Dana | 20 | 4.5 | 160 | 20 | 4.5 | 169 | 10 | 4.9 | 278 | 20 | 4.8 | 186 | 88.7 | 793 |
| 7 | Sonia Pidhajeckyj – Ruby | 10 | 4.9 | 125 | 20 | 5 | 33 | 20 | 5 | 145 | 10 | 4.9 | 65 | 79.8 | 368 |
| 8 | Gloria Bonnell – Jade | 20 | 5 | 76 | 20 | 4.9 | 46 | 10 | 4.9 | 125 | 10 | 4.9 | 70 | 79.7 | 317 |
| 9 | Val Isherwood – Heike | 20 | 4.9 | 134 | 20 | 5 | 26 | 0 | 4.8 | 300 | 20 | 5 | 27 | 79.7 | 487 |
| 10 | Julia Reeves – Dandy | 10 | 4.8 | 177 | 20 | 4.9 | 79 | 10 | 4.8 | 300 | 20 | 5 | 31 | 79.5 | 587 |