Sat 27th Oct 2018, Bromsgrove

Levels 2 & 3: Judges - Tina Schuster & Nigel Wilkes
Level 2

1st Kym Salisbury – Max :- 89.5
2nd Carol Careless – Fiddle :- 89.5
3rd Jane Rogers – Alfie :- 89.5
4th Linda Bowden – Brewster :- 87.5
5th Nikki Inglis – Peppa :- 79.75
6th Jill Law – Milo :- 79.5
7th Pat Wills – Jack :- 79
8th Donna Stone – Lola :- 78.75
9th Amanda Mundell – Bailey :- 78.25
10th Julie Russon – Daisy :- 73.25

Level 3

1st Kate Osborn – Kiwi :- 99.75
2nd Sarah Taylor – Hugo :- 79.75
3rd Harry Latusek – Rosie :- 79.75
4th Lynn Grice – Chess :- 74.5

Level 2, 3, 4 & 5. Bournheath 27/28 October

We saw the first of winter this weekend which came as a bit of a shock to the system. Nigel Wilkes and Tina Schuster were kind enough to judge for me on Saturday for L2 and L3. Tina spent the whole day outside during which time we had a horizontal snow shower and freezing conditions. Although it was extremely cold all the competitors stayed positive and smiley.

The morning saw some great team work in Level 2 which I’ll let the judges give their view on. The afternoon was less successful for the Level 3 folk some of whom found the step up from L2 quite challenging. Kym & Max came 1st in L2 and who also achieved their Excellent Award. Kate & Kiwi were the winners in L3. Many congratulations to both teams.

Many thanks to Nigel and Tina for judging. They gave invaluable feedback to the handlers who really appreciated it. I’d also like to thank my Saturday team – Helen Reaney, Heather Poulton, Zoe Ashman and Michelle Rodgers who all scribed very efficiently and Alison Deakin who did a wonderful job of ensuring all the handlers and dogs were where they should be.

Sunday brought better weather thankfully with less of a biting cold wind. Heather Donnelly and Marianne Tembey kindly co-judged Level 4 in the morning and Heather judged Level 5 in the afternoon. Unfortunately the distractions got the better of a few of the L4 dogs who indicated on them. The Level 5s had greater success with 100% qualifying which doesn’t happen very often. However, I’ll let the judges describe the performance of the dog teams but I’d like to congratulate Chris & Queeva-Diva who took the red rosette for L4 and Jennie & Reo who won Level 5. Well done folks.

Many thanks to Heather and Marianne for judging and for giving great feedback to all the competitors, also to my team of Sunday scribes – Jackie Hodge, Michelle Rodgers and Dolores Palmer and to Lisa Finney who was runner and Zoe who made some great cups of tea.

Thank you all for coming this weekend. Congratulations to all of you who qualified. The standard was high overall and I hope you enjoyed the Trial even if you weren’t as successful as you’d like to have been. Remember we can’t appreciate our achievements unless we’re unsuccessful occasionally. Hopefully, you’ll have gained experience from competing and it’s always good to catch up with fellow competitors who you don’t see very often.

I really enjoyed hosting this weekend of 4 levels. I hope to see many of you again the next time. 😊

Karen Denton

Tina Schuster

It seems that every time we judge a trial, the weather is one extreme or another. I have to admit though that I didn’t expect snow when I got to Karen’s fantastic new location. Thank you so much Karen and Pete for sorting me some thermals, as I had agreed to judge the outside again.

We started with the Level 2 test in the morning and exterior search – which we were able to use a dedicated fenced area for. Some dogs struggled finding the scent hidden in the dishwasher cutlery basket and indicated on the bike helmet next to it. Overall, the search proved successful for the majority of the teams. Moving on to the cars, it was great to see most teams find both scents successfully. Thank you very much Jane (with Alfie) for providing some entertainment at the end of the freezing morning, you had Heather and myself in fits!

After some lovely sandwiches – provided by lifesaver Pete and some urgently needed warming up, we started Level 3 in the afternoon. This time we did the car search first, which unfortunately wasn’t as successful as the Level 2 search. It seemed that a lot of dogs struggled with new scent of Gun Oil, which was true for the following exterior search too, with most dogs being able to find the article hiding the Glove scent, but not the Gun Oil… apart from Tomba (and Lisa) and Hugo (and Sarah), who were VERY adamant on the white bath mat!

Thank you very much to my faithful frozen scribes, Heather in the morning and Zoe in the afternoon. Thank you Alison for keeping competitors coming (like clockwork). Thank you Karen for asking us to judge, keeping us fed and watered and for keeping me warm(ish)!

Nigel Wilkes

This was my first visit to Karen’s new venue and Tina and I arrived at 9 am looking forward to the day ahead.

Karen was busy organising everything so we decided who was judging the outside and who was inside. Luckily for me I was inside and I met my scribe for the morning Helen who had scribed for me before. Tina and I then informed the handlers on how the day would go and who was judging each part of the trial.

We started on time with the level 2 trial and I started with the Boxes and Luggage, It started very well as the teams were quick to find both scents, however, there were a couple of handlers that were very nervous and this meant that they called incorrectly when they had plenty of time to allow their dog to search more, before they called the alert.

Tables and chairs were up next and again there were confident handlers and those not so confident, and they were ignoring their dog’s indication and went on searching, but in the end they did call correct.

It was very close for the first three places and only time separated them with the winner being Kym and Max, followed by Carol and Fiddle with Jane and Alfie coming 3rd.

We broke for lunch which was kindly provided by Karen before we then gave the Level 3 competitors a quick briefing and then started.

This time I started with Tables and chairs and all teams found the scent on the chairs quite easily, however, quite a few had difficulties with finding the scent on the item. There were a few exemptions with Rosie working very well.

Then it was boxes and luggage and again some found this difficult with quite a few teams only finding 1 out of the 2 hidden. Again there was a few who were very good with Kiwi working very well for the handler.

The trial finished with only 4 out of 10 being successful, this could have been due to the weather as for some of the time we had snow and of course it was very cold and damp.

The winner of the Level 3 trial was Kate and Kiwi who stood out and performed very well throughout.

I would like to thank Karen for asking me to judge, to my co-Judge for being outside all day in the cold and snow, together with Helen who was my scribe in the morning and Michelle was helped in the afternoon.

I really enjoyed the day watching so many breeds and their handlers working and to seeing how some dogs have improved from when I judged them at a lower level.

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 Kym Salisbury – Max 20 4.75 75 20 5 57 10 4.75 152 20 5 60 89.5 344
2 Carol Careless – Fiddle 20 5 79 20 5 70 10 4.5 300 20 5 31 89.5 480
3 Jane Rogers – Alfie 20 5 50 20 5 64 10 4.5 300 20 5 133 89.5 547
4 Linda Bowden – Brewster 20 5 31 10 5 57 20 4.5 56 20 3 41 87.5 185
5 Nikki Inglis – Peppa 20 5 56 20 5 61 10 5 86 10 4.75 75 79.75 278
6 Jill Law – Milo 20 5 73 10 4.75 59 20 4.75 161 10 5 52 79.5 345
7 Pat Wills – Jack 20 5 53 10 4.75 70 20 4.5 174 10 4.75 186 79 483
8 Donna Stone – Lola 20 4.75 116 0 5 23 20 4 70 20 5 65 78.75 274
9 Amanda Mundell – Bailey 20 5 75 20 5 66 10 3.5 250 10 4.75 142 78.25 533
10 Julie Russon – Daisy 20 4.75 227 10 0 210 10 4 215 20 4.5 243 73.25 895
Level 3 A/F H T A/F H T A/F H T A/F H T Marks Time
1 Kate Osborn – Kiwi 20 5 138 20 5 121 20 5 167 20 4.75 80 99.75 506
2 Sarah Taylor – Hugo 20 5 50 10 4.75 99 20 5 67 10 5 54 79.75 270
3 Harry Latusek – Rosie 20 5 121 10 5 49 20 4.75 282 10 5 55 79.75 507
4 Lynn Grice – Chess 10 4.75 110 10 0 166 20 4.75 167 20 5 60 74.5 503

Bournheath Village Hall, Claypit Lane, Bournheath, Bromsgrove, Worcs, B61 9LA

10am – 5pm. Level 2 am, Level 3 pm
Entry Fees: £20 per dog.
Contact: Karen Denton 07968 413543
Download Entry Form to book a place.