Bailie and Madison were at the ski lodge for their Afton Alps nose work trials earlier this month. Who would have thought it would be below freezing with snow still on the ground in April! Mom snapped the photo of the old sign on the way to the trial one morning. She thinks old signs are cool.
Bailie had her NW3 trial the first day. It was in the teens as they arrived at Afton Alps. Both Bailie and Madison trialed at the same place, just a different lodge last fall. Come to think of it, it was cold and had snowed then too!
We all love to search at ski places because there are super fun search areas. Unfortunately, Bailie did not title. There were thirty five dogs and only two titles that day. It was her second NW3 attempt, and she placed twenty out of thirty five dogs. In her first trial she was twenty five out of thirty five dogs, so she moved up a bit.
Her first search was containers. Unfortunately, there was some pooling odor in the far corner, and Bailie decided to call alert on the box next to the correct box. There was only the one hide there. Starting the day off with a no is not the way to start a trial, but the show goes on.
From containers, they moved right outside to the exterior search. It was an odd area with a lot of nothing, and some weird items. There could be one, two, or three hides out there.
As you see in the video, Bailie seemed to think they were done, and going for a walk as she charged out the door, and right through the search area. After Mom reeled her back in, she finally started to search, and did find two hides which turned out to be all that was out there.
After a break, they search the three interior spaces. Each area can have zero to three hides. The first room seemed fairly straight forward, but Bailie missed one of the two hides. The one she found was inside the middle podium. She missed the one in the base of the black pole. Mom blames herself for that because she got in Bailie’s way and Bailie never went back to that area.
Next up was a real large room with lots of places to put things. Bailie found one hide on the end of a bench, but missed the hide on the shelf. There was a large blower not far from the second hide which she was afraid of. Mom could tell she was interested in something, but Bailie couldn’t narrow it down with her fan fear.
The third interior room was small and simple. One hide under the bench which Bailie found pretty fast.
Last up was vehicles in a real wind tunnel. Bailie blew passed the first two vehicles and actually found a hide that most dogs missed on the third vehicle. They made another pass of all three and she found one on the trailer hitch of the first vehicle. There were two hides total. Bailie was one of only eleven dogs to pass vehicles. We aren’t showing the video because the angle of the camera was not real good and you can’t see much of what team purple is doing.
Above is the hide location sheet we get at the end of the trial. Since no one knows how many hides there were, or where they are located until the end of the day, it is a really important piece of paper!
Despite being cold, the day was gorgeous with plenty of warm sunshine. It was actually hot sitting in the car. Bailie had Mom take this photo of her before they left for the day.
Little Madison had her NW1 trial on Sunday. She is still young. Mom and Madison still have a lot to learn about working together. In the morning for vehicles, and containers, they had a serious disconnect from each other, and although Madison did some beautiful alerting, it was all wrong.
After hanging out together and regrouping, team pink started fresh in the afternoon with exteriors. Madison nailed that one as you can see in the video. Why did Mom wait so long to call the alert? Because trash cans are tricky. Every dog loves the smell of a trash can. Was Madison on odor, or trash? Also, after the morning disaster, Mom was having some trust issues. Watching the video makes us happy because Madison did do a really nice job!
Madison’s interior search went well with a pass too. Hopefully there will be another NW1 trial for her to enter in the coming months after team pink works out some of the kinks in their teamwork. At the end of the day, Madison was happy, and exhausted.
I’ll be trialing again next weekend and I can’t wait. Mom and I are ready to give it a shot again after taking a break.
Way to go!!!
They both had some good and some bad searches, but overall, they were pretty happy with their work.
Seriously, that amazing nose work always amazes me!
Mom does it with us all the time and is still always amazed!
Great job you too. That would have been a hard place to do that in.
It is actually a really fun place to search. Much better than boring classrooms and places like that.
You gals rock, what a nice location for a trial.
A lot of trials are at schools, so when we have them at fun locations we really enjoy it.
They both did really awesome! The room with all of the shoes would be difficult. Imagine all the smells they are receiving!
That is what the human brain thinks. Dogs live is a pool of odor all day, everyday. We are trained to pinpoint the important one. Have you been to a flower shop? At first it smells like a mix of everything, but within a short amount of time, you can smell just the roses, right? Same kind of thing.
NW3 seems really tough with the unknown number of hides! I bet that you and Bailie will keep on getting more used to it. She looks like a star when she works. It was too bad about the “fan fear” messing up one search for you.
Little Madison is such a sweet dog – she trotted in so enthusiastically for the exteriors search. I can tell that you two are working together better and better! You and she called that one right!
The hides in NW3 are not usually more difficult than other levels, but the mental challenge/fear for the human is what messes everyone up. One has to know their dog, and realize when they are done searching and the area is clear so finish can be called. It gets better with practice.
It sounds like there were some ups and downs, but overall it was a good weekend? Bailie’s must have been very hard if so few dogs titled.
It seems to me alerts can be difficult. With Luke, sometimes I have no doubt, but others he’s very subtle…and that’s when I know where the hides are!
We hope things go well for you next weekend, Emma.
At the NW 3 level 1-6 titles from 35 is pretty much the norm. The hides aren’t always so hard, it is the challenge for the handler of not knowing how many.