Thank you Heather for inviting me to judge today and Yaz for being such a supportive, kind scribe, it makes all the difference!

Tables and Chairs: front left chair and red bucket at the back of the hall.
Vehicle and wall: passenger side sliding van door as the doors meet and small hole in wall at the base of the pier to the left of the long wall.
Bags and boxes: front left box and front right bag.
Exterior items:in orange helmet to the left of the start, mid way along and in the centre of a bin lid at the rear of the search area.

The chair and perimeter search allowed some of the teams to work confidently together and we saw some super teamwork, Jennifer and Abi and Anne and Luca worked beautifully here with confidence, setting them up well for the morning. Marianne really took time to build Nutmegs confidence, resetting her and allowing her time to work out what she needed to do which was lovely to see.
A couple of teams just talked dogs in to wrong alerts with the old ‘show me then’ and the dogs felt they’d better do something so indicated on nothing at all, a real shame as the dogs were working nicely, just needed a bit more time.

The vehicle and wall search caused very few problems for the high standard of teams that we saw today. Hilary and Drusie worked really confidently as did Margaret and Bessie and Laura and Neo, super teamwork ladies.

The bag and box search was next; Sue and Puffin worked on developing his skills and confidence for the future, taking time to cover the area and be sure, lovely to see. Beverly and Carly showed super skills, methodical coverage of the search area and a perfect indication, really well done. Finally Liz, who throughout the morning spent time carefully ensuring the areas were covered really thoroughly and that Groot had time to settle on his indication, not rushing to get a fast time but building that perfection even at a trial. What a fabulous little dog he is and what a future he will have, really well done!

Finally the exterior items proved to be no problem at all, everyone worked confidently and we were able to organise the certificates, rosettes and excellence certificates in record time.

I must mention todays NFC competitor, Gill and Monty. Gill decided to enter L2 while waiting to gain her excellence at L1 and what a useful (I hope) experience that was today. Gill worked calmly and methodically in every search; Monty found every hide really well. Both gained in confidence over the morning and it was a real pleasure to see such lovely teamwork. We wish Gill that same belief in themselves for the rest of her level 1 trials and I’m sure we will see her at level 2 again soon. Well done for building Monty up, we could all see his motivation increase once he’d found his first odour and gain his reward.

Well done competitors!