Hethe Village Hall, Hardwick Road, Hethe, OX27 8EY
Start: L4 – 9am, L6 – 1.30pm
Entry Fees: £28 per dog.
Contact: Heather Donnelly heather.donnelly6@btinternet.com
Trial Manager and Judges Reports
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Sun 10 Apr 2022, Hethe
Levels 4 & 6: Judges - L4 Nicola Inglis, L6 Martina Ramage
Thank you to Heather for inviting me to judge the L6 trial and to Yaz for scribing and providing great support.
The interior search area 1 contained 5 hides. They were placed at different hights with one high (er) hide. This area proved to be challenging with no team finding all 5 hides. Although all teams covered the overall search area well in general, more detailed search was missing in some sections (side of the bar area for example) whilst other areas were searched in too much detail (climbing frame for example).
The exterior search area contained 4 hides. They were placed along the side of the village hall with the first one being placed low immediately at the start line. Two hides were placed at the far end of the search area in close proximity to each other. Most teams found at least 3 of the 4 hides and time was lost with searching in too much detail the wall opposite to the wall where the hides were placed.
The interior search area contained 3 hides and almost all teams found these hides within the search time.
Well done all.
Winners were Hazell & Cedar – they searched the areas nice and calm. However, twice they left settling on the last indication and calling the alert to the last second of search time, which made it quite tense to watch.
Second came Helen & Trek who also gained their ‘Excellent’. They covered the search areas very well and it has been lovely to watch great team work.
Third came Lynda & Magic. It has been lovely to watch Magic’s enthusiasm. Another team that left it twice to the last second calling the alert on the last hide – again, somewhat tense to watch.
Fourth came Catherine & Ozzy. This team worked the search areas in a very calm manner with great attention to detail.
Thank you to Heather for inviting me to judge the Level 4 today. Thank you to Melanie for all your help scribing and being an extra pair of eyes.
I arrived at Hethe today to sunshine, which was lovely as last time I was here it snowed! There was due to be a football match at 10 am to we started with the exterior search to make sure we were out the area before kick-off, as it was after we had completed that search the match had been called off.Today’s distractions were Almond oil and shampoo.
In the exterior search we had cloves in the sweeper at the far end of the area, gun oil in the car jack at the start of the area and the distractions in the centre with Shampoo in the shower head and almond oil in the saucepan. We started with some lovely positive searches from the dogs although the handlers were all very nervous and excited to get started.
Second search was inside with the tables and chairs and perimeter search, the scents were on the perimeter on the Henry hoover and the floor polisher on opposite sides of the hall with the distractions on two chairs. Aa there were number of wrong alerts on on the climbing frame which made Heather, Melanie and myself dismantle it to check there were no hidden scents, but it was clean, so unfortunately the “wrong alerts” had to stand.
The vehicle and wall search was next, the scents were hidden in two of the items at the bottom of the wall one early and one late, with the vehicles blank. There were some quick clean searches.
The last search was the bags and boxes, which sorted out the final placings. The scents were in two bags and the distractions were in two boxes. A number of handlers called wrong alerts but on different items, and with the pressures of competition people hurried their alerts.
Winners today were Joanne and Cora the only clean sweep of the day, with Linda and Fletcher in a well deserved 2nd, Jo and Dolly were third and Kevin and Renko in fourth. Qualifiers were Faye and Pippie and Jean and Neah. Overall some lovely searching and some great teams going forward.
Remember to trust your dog, they have the nose after all. And step back so you can see what is going on as if you are too close you can’t see.
Thank you all for a lovely day.