It was a pleasure to judge at this the first trial for ‘K9 Solutions’ held at the Hydrotherapy Centre, Canvey Island, Essex.

The nervous competitors duly arrived and fortunately one of them brought their daughter along to watch who I persuaded into becoming my scribe and how brilliant Zoe turned out to be at clock start/stopping, accurate scoring and even writing out the certificates. Thank you I shall definitely be booking you again.

We started off with the tables and chairs and we saw some really good searches especially from Natalie & Fred (ESS) and Emma & Cora the very stealable Basset Fauve De Bretagne. Unfortunately Jan and her young Border Collie ‘Jax’ came to grief as Jax wasn’t very confident in the training room but as the day went on and his confidence grew and he did some really nice searching.

We then went on to do the vehicle search which strangely seemed to be really difficult for most of the teams. There was a rather strong breeze and although most of the dogs scented the hidden article, which was behind a small headlight, a lot of the handlers called too early. Jo and Ehren decided to do the search off lead as Jo had left her lead in the main training centre and Ehren shot off and found the scented article within just a few seconds. Jo finally managed to catch up and called the only correct ‘alert’ on this vehicle. Well done.

Next up was the ‘Exterior Search’ and the competitors were given the choice whether they wanted to know which 3 items had been selected as potential hiding places or not which has now been added to the ‘Level 1 Guidelines’ . Duke, Sue’s Boxer thought that he was coming for a swimming lesson and decided to relieve himself, which apparently he does on command before his swim!, in the search area unfortunately costing him the handling marks which was a shame because he did a really good correct ‘alert’ on the dustbin lid. Elicia and her flatcoat Retriever were unlucky also as Agnes found the scent but wasn’t telling mum and as she was abit brief and showed interest in the stacked pots as well Elicia decided to call these instead. Shame.

Lastly was the boxes & luggage search and some really good searches in this section which normally produces the most false alerts. Maureen and her x breed Max held their nerves together and correctly called the small black bag with Max convincing his mum that this was the correct one by trying to eat the scented article!

As Cindy & Skye the Lagotto Romagnolo were on ‘clove’ scent they ran last in each search section so although Cindy was able and enjoyed watching the other dog it also meant that she had to keep her cool before her turn which she did brilliantly, working well as a fabulous team and coming 2nd.

So well done to all the qualifiers today particularly Jo and Ehren for winning the L1 and doing all the searches in the fastness time. Commiserations to those that didn’t qualify this time but it appeared that although the dogs knew what they were looking for some of the competitors weren’t picking up the dog’s body cues and/or the dogs weren’t staying at the scented item long enough for the handlers to be confident to call.