Firstly I would like to thank the team at K9 Scent and Search for inviting us to judge for you, and for providing us with two brilliant scribes in Danielle and Natalie.
It’s was my first judging experience since COVID and I needn’t have been worried as Jo and Sues organisation, and compliance from competitors was brilliant- well done.

A slightly different atmosphere with competitors in small groups (we had two groups – one of 5 and one of 6) but still a great opportunity to get out and spend some time with your dog and like minded individuals.

A fab mix of different dogs were seen today …. always my favourite part of a SWUK event, it really is accessible for all.

Myself and Sue split the judging by search area to offer continuity for each group.
Sue judged the Vehicle and table and chairs search whilst I judged the Exterior items and boxes and luggage.

Sue had the following to say about her day…..
‘Thank you to Jo and team for holding this well organised and friendly trial which I thoroughly enjoyed co judging with Emma . I was extremely impressed with all the teams – well done on your good handling and your relationships with your dogs.’

Tables and Chairs-
We had 2 tables and 8 chairs, which all the teams managed successfully and most with full handling marks. There were some brilliant times with Alison and Lola taking just 9 seconds and Jackie with Salem 14 seconds.

Vehicle-
Once again the teams completed this search really well. Trixie and Daniel worked very hard, giving Benjamin and Lupo every chance of succeeding but unfortunately both gave convincing wrong alerts. there were some impressive times with 5 teams completing in under 20 seconds.

Exterior Items-
9 out of 11 competitors correctly located the item. Some lovely searching here with special mention for Mint (and Ruth) …. lovely independent coverage of the search area- a pleasure to watch.
Some really fast times here, a wonderfully handled Lennie reaching the find in a speedy 11 seconds.
Barney meticulously worked his way around all items …. so thorough, well done Carole for allowing him to pick his own path and not force him onto the three ‘possible’ items.
Really unlucky for Salem and Jackie the call came just after time- 2 seconds in it, well done for keeping your cool even though you knew time was ticking away.
A few dogs couldn’t resist the smells and bushes with a couple of unfortunate wee’s seeing some handlers loose their handling points- that being said if it wasn’t for these the handling was superb and only very minor marks dropped otherwise.

Boxes and luggage
A mix of suitcases, plastic and cardboard boxes were placed out in the search area with the hide being placed on the corner of a suitcase ( an early hide ….first item in line with the start cones) .
8 out of 11 competitors called correctly and The biggest thing for me to mention here was the line handling….. a large proportion of the dogs were worked on a lead in this search
and not once did I see a dog being impeded by its handler- really impressive for level 1, you should all be very pleased.
I loved Bens confidence, steaming into this search with gusto – well done! A lovely, well handled search by Pam and Rupert- a really enjoyable watch.
And little Theo’s handler did well to keep her nerve when he gave a certain bag a very thorough and long investigation before deciding…nope! Not that one and working his way round to the correct suitcase.
An unfortunate call for Wendy- Winnie gave a very convincing false alert that we all would have been fooled by….cheeky! A real shame as this dog sure does love to search.

The scores on the doors saw Lola with handler Alison taking top spot. Wow…..a pleasure to watch this dog at work….speed and accuracy With an obvious love of the game and fab relationship with the handler. Well done
Second place went to Jet and Karen, a dog that tackled each search with enthusiasm, fab area coverage and independence from handler.
Third place was taken by Theo and Nikki
And Fourth place Rupert and Pam.

Well done all teams