Thank you to Heather for inviting me to judge the Level 2 at Hethe and to Yaz who is always a great scribe.

Lovely bright although very cold morning with 11 competitors for the Level 2. We started with tables/chairs and exterior items. The odour was placed on the hoover on the left and chair on the right. 8 of the 11 got both odours with everyone getting at least one. Courtenay and Misty worked well with a lovely indication and there were two fast searches for Bettina & Tor and Nicky & Evie.

Exterior items was next with the odour on a mini trestle and a fold up sack trolley. The frosty morning made this search harder for some of the dogs with only 6 teams getting both odours. Lynda and Flo worked very nicely as did Bettina and Tor and Lynda and Lacey.

Boxes and Bags was successful for the majority of the teams with great searching from Lynda and Flo and Nicky and Evie and Courtney and Misty. A couple of teams lost marks for not trusting their dogs indication in this search.

We finished with a search including one vehicle and a wall. All the teams found the odour on the wall with the vehicle proving tricky for some. A very nice search from Alison and Ellie, good teamwork on this search and well done on getting your excellence at Level 2. Nicky and Evie and Lynda and Flo who were the eventually top 2, again had lovely searches. A couple of the handlers in this search would benefit from having better line handling skills to make the search feel easier for both you and the dogs.

This was a lovely group of competitors to judge and I hope you all enjoyed your morning. I look forward to seeing you at future trials.