Marney Wells

Thanks to Heather and her lovely team of helpers who made Sunday go so smoothly. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the teams work – they came in all shapes and sizes which is such a delight to see. It can be very stressful competing with our dogs as it means so much to us – and so it should! Or it would not be worth all the training we put in. I thought everyone coped very well even if things did not go quite as hoped for. You were a super lot of dogs and handlers. Thanks for entering under me and letting me watch your dogs work. I had two excellent scribes for the day, Tracy and Geof who both managed to keep me on the straight and narrow and were excellent company – thanks. (And for the lovely lunch, Geof). Geof was also my fellow judge in Level 3 where we had quite few qaulifiers the happiest of whom were, 1st. Jenni and Sollie. 2nd. Julie and Betty. 3rd. Kate and Paddy and 4th. Felicity and Jet. In Level 6 there was only one qualifier (I must be a beast!) but she was pretty impressive! 1st. Becky and Flossie. 2nd. Carolyn and Millie. 3rd. Sue and Halle. 4th. Laura and the gorgeous Ollie (Can’t help myself – he is so lovely!)

Geoff Dixon

I would like to thank all the people that stepped in and helped me on the day. Both Yaz and Rodney were a great support scribing for me. Thanks to Rick who made sure that there was always a team ready to start as one team was finishing. Also to Heather for inviting me to the trial and having the day organised and well run. Lastly Christine who despite not have her dogs working on the day, attended the trial to help, support and spectate. I hope that you got as much from the trial as you gave to us.

The first element to run was the cars with a scent on a wheel arch and one on the number plate. There were a varying variety of teams on the day. The best car search was from Dana and Buckle with a lovely search. Michelle and Rio also impressed with Rio knowing the task and showing lot of good attention to the search at hand. Annette and Disney had fun and it was Disney’s enthusiasm that really came across. It was fun to watch Hazel and Noodle’s lots of investigations, checking here and there. At the other side of energy was Kate and Lola. Lola was a nice gentle searcher. Harold and Rosie are a team that I have seen a number of times before and as before they had a good car search that I have come to appreciate from this team. Some of those who had mixed results over the day had some good searching in parts and have good foundations to build on. Both Pat and Arthur, Linda and Tassel I noted had good searches.

I went on to the exterior element with 2 early finds. One amongst some garden canes and one in some brick work. The best search here was from Jenni and Solly. It was a great watch and show how much of a difference having so much confidence in Solly makes. I thought that Kate and Paddy make a team that are great to watch working. Despite Paddy not being focused completely Kate does a very good job of handling Paddy and her commitment to him comes through. I thought on the car Kate with Kiwi had a nervous start and it was nice to see that she had put the nerves behind her for this search and Kiwi worked well. The most nail biting search was for Julie and Betty. They had searched as a team really well throughout the day. On this search, and we have all done this, they searched every article apart from the one with the scent hide. All was good in the end as they turned around and found the scent. Last to run on this element was Delores with Gypsy. Gypsy is another high energy searcher who was throwing in little bits of extra searching, she kindly cleared the door of the hall just to be certain that she had checked everything.

Thank you all for attending and sharing your teamwork with the judges.