Judges Report Level 6

First off I would like to thank Marianne for asking me to judge for her, also thanks to Jane who scribed for me and thanks to Nicky who was the runner for the day. Thank you to everyone who chose to attend the trial it was nice to see some familiar teams back out and trialling and to see some new ones too.

We started the first search in the bar area of the venue. 4 hides were placed around the area, the scents used were clove, gun oil and 2 truffle hides. 4/10 teams found all 4 scents and they were Laura & Peanut, Jo & Ehren, Justine & Chumley and Melanie & Rowan. 3 teams found 3 hides and they were Kate & Kiwi, Martine & Phoebe and Helen & Preston. 2 teams found 2 hides and they were Emma & Smartie and Pam & Willow and 1 team found 1 hide and that was Suzanne & Duke. The most missed hide was the bottom of a pillar.

It was then on to the exterior search which was held in the courtyard. Again 4 hides were placed out, 3 were truffle oil and 1 was gun oil. 1 team found all 4 hides and that was Helen & Preston. 4 teams found 3 and they were Jo & Ehren, Kate & Kiwi, Emma & Danny (nfc) and Laura & Peanut. 4 teams found 2 hides and they were Pam & Willow, Martine & Phoebe, Melanie & Rowan and Justine & Chumley. 1 team found 1 hide and that was Suzanne & Duke. The most missed hide was on the bottom of a table leg on the right of the search area.

The last search area was held in a small bar area. 4 hides were placed and the scents were 3 clove and 1 truffle oil. 6/10 teams found 4 and they were Helen & Preston, Kate & Kiwi, Emma & Danny (nfc), Melanie & Rowan, Justine & Chumley and Jo & Ehren. 3 teams found 3 hides and they were Pam & Willow, Laura & Peanut and Martine & Phoebe. 1 team found 2 hides and that was Suzanne & Duke. The most missed hide was on the edge of a desk.

It was a good day with 6/10 teams qualifying. 1st place went to Jo & Ehren, 2nd place to Helen & Preston, 3rd place was Justine & Chumley, 4th place went to Melanie & Rowan, 5th place to Laura & Peanut and 6th to Kate & Kiwi. Huge congratulations to you all. There were some really lovely searches throughout the day with some teams having us all on the edge of our seats. I enjoyed watching all the different teams searching styles and the great relationships that they had with their dogs. Keep up the hard work everyone and I hope to see you all again soon.

A white dog was used on all search areas, the trial was carried out under strict covid regulations, and all hides were placed within Scentwork UK’s guidelines.