Thank you to Scentwork Wessex for the invitation to judge their level 3 trial. Rick and Kate are a brilliant team and the trial ran very smoothly, a lovely relaxed friendly day in excellent company. My scribe for the day was Sue Dawe, super efficient as ever, thank you Sue, also Steve and Elizabeth Axford who kept the competitors coming and took a lovely photographic record of the day.

The conditions were interesting with the imminent threat of thunderstorms which fortunately held off although we did have a downpour immediately before starting.

The first search was boxes and luggage which was generally carried out well. We moved on to the vehicle search which proved challenging with hot humid conditions and a swirling wind. Two teams stood out Jane with Sami and Mandy with Thai, the dogs worked well and the handlers believed them when they said “nothing here” on the middle vehicle, I felt that some spent to long going round and round the unscented vehicle and seemed to forget the third vehicle was even there.

Next was tables, chairs and perimeter, here we saw some excellent searches, Neil and Oscar were superb [well Oscar was superb], they completed the task in 37 seconds despite Neil’s reluctance to believe his dog, whose persistence to remain at source was admirable.

We finished with exterior items, where Janet with Echo excelled finding both in 34 seconds.

Lastly I must thank the competitors for entering and accepting my decisions with good grace, not everyone was successful overall but everyone managed to do well in at least one search and with a little more training I’m sure you will all be successful soon.

Pippa Bentham