Judges report by Keith Clowes.
Level 6 competition at Finmere on the 30th January 2023.

Heather Donnelly trial manager kindly asked me to judge the level 6 trial.

For this trial I judged all 3 searches. There was some good handling throughout the searches, although a few had problems.
Interior search. I put 5 scents around the room, 1 clove, 2 gun & 2 truffle. There were 2 scents that caused real problems. One that I had put in in the door frame, although 3 did find it. The second one to the rear of a wardrobe with a tight way into it, again 3 found that. Because this was a small room and the white dog and handler went in blind, had found all scents in just over 2 minutes, we gave 3 minutes for this search.
In the exterior search I used 4 scents, 2 cloves, 1 gun & 1 truffle, we gave 4 minutes for this search. I put cloves on a 6-inch stick on the ground, this did create a few problems but most found it.
For the second interior search, I put out 3 scents, 1 clove, 1 gun & 1 truffle. One low at the base of a table leg, one at medium hight on a filing cabinet and one high at the top of a table leg on the underside of the table. Everyone had 3 minutes for this search. For each search the handlers had to work hard and really needed to plan their search in a systematic way to complete in the allotted time.
I would like to congratulate the following four who were placed:

1st Kate Rapley with Rafiki
2nd Peter Jeffries with Coco
3rd Anne Vellenoweth with Gabreiella
4th Sue Kirkham with Fern

Also, congratulations to those that qualified

Thanks to everyone taking part, I hope they had an enjoyable time. I would also like to thank all those who helped and in particular Yaz Whitehall my scribe.