Helen Hepple Judge

I would like to thank Julie Bytheway and Kate Wilkes for inviting me to judge their first trial, Ceris Wolfenden for being my scribe. Well what a time I had 15 teams most of them work off lead and work super. First was Nigel and Cocco with a very fast time I think most of the dogs did really fast times. Brenda and Maggie came second, Charlotte and Betty came third with Pauline and Maddy fourth but all the teams let their dog do the searching they all trusted the dog I or 2 called a bit quick I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.

Well done everyone for a lovely trial that run really smoothly.

Kate Wilkes
Trial Manager Report – L1 October 16th Slitting Mill.

This was the first trial organised by Julie Bytheway and I at Country Canines Dog Training. Ceris Wolfenden not only helped with organising the trial but was also our Scribe and Helen Hepple our judge. Thank you to you both, you were superb and turned an anxious day for our first-time trailers into a fun day. We recruited our friend Olga Foster to help Julie as runner as we had a large entry of 15 teams, and we got through all of the searches in just under 3.5 hrs.

The Slitting Mill Victory Hall venue worked well, albeit some dogs found the floor in the hall a bit slippy – we will put the mats down for our next trial. The weather was extremely kind with sunshine later in the morning.

We had a great selection of external items including a witches broom, to add a Halloween theme, and hid the scent in a round tree trunk slice with 12 holes in it with most of the dogs indicating not just on the item but on the correct hole. I was able to watch some of the searches and the calibre of the handling and dogs was extremely high with 14 dogs qualifying and the top 8 places scoring 100 points and places being awarded on time. We also had 9 clean sweeps.

Huge congratulations to our placed teams.
1. Nigel Parry and Cocco
2. Brenda Hudson and Maggie
3. Charlotte Pearce and Betty
4. Pauline Whittaker and Maddy

Thank you to all of our competitors for helping the runners by being prepared and for making this day so enjoyable. We hope to see you all again soon.

One last thank you to Heather Donnelly for all of the useful tips in her Trail Managers Course we used everything, and all went very smoothly.

Looking forward to our next trail, hopefully in December.