Thank You to Sara for asking me to judge her level 5 in a lovely part of Devon. Cake was part of the negotiation and there is a beautiful cake in my kitchen part of which will be my pudding tonight. I left a fairly dark and drizzly Wiltshire and a few hours later drove down into a beautiful Vally in Devon with the sun sparkling on some lakes. Sara was already at the venue and we had a good look around. Interior 1 was a fairly standard hall that I added 4 tables each with 4 chairs to the centre of. one hide was on a table leg, one in the corner of a door frame, one on skirting in a blank area between 2 radiators and 1 on the back of a radiator, the heating was off. I allowed 4.5 minutes for this as the white dog, who was a very good level 3 had struggled with the 4 minutes. The interesting hide in this area was the skirting board – some dogs literally did hand stands, snapping back on it as they went past and others just struggled to solve the problem. one dog serenaded us throughout all the searches and I did feel for the owner as the hides he did get, some whilst singing showed the potential the dog has when applying himself.

The exterior was a great area, a sort of raised paved platform, with a ramp up to it which I used as part of the search it was then many gravel, paving slabs and large steel planters around the edge. with a wall having a door and various furniture. I put one at the base of a flag pole, one one a pipe between 2 planers, one on for hinge and one on a hose reel, towards the back of the reel. the hose reel was the tricky hide, it became harder was the day went on, even though odour was replaced and refreshed for each group. the later dogs were knocking the odour but struggled to source it.

The final interior area was an odd little area, a sort of U shape made up of a corridor, the toilet and a foyer. I put odour on a cupboard door, a clothes hanger, a door stop and on the main door. The handlers could enter either way as there were 2 doors. The tricky hide here was the door stop as it was holding open a door where the handlers came from the first corridor into the toilets. it was opposite the toilets and handlers often blocked it. The freer working dogs had more success here. The hide in the the centre of the large front door also saw dogs miss as they didn’t quite work the whole length of the door. the actual toilet cubicles were very small and long and some handlers wasted a lot of time in these trying to detail the dogs to all the areas. I suspect if there had been odour in them the dogs would have quickly of pin pointed it.

Overall standard for the day was very good with some great team work being demonstrated. Stand out for me was Serena and Lyric who won, I know the winner is an easy choice but Serena has perfected knowing when to task Lyric and when to let her work, this means a great experience for the judge, being able to stand back and watch a great team. My second outstanding team was Jane & Percy. I love a free searching dog and Percy definitely made me go wow on a couple of occasions when he hit the odour plume, for me a joy to watch, whether they got in the rosettes or
not.