Amazing Scent Work Firsts For Olivia In Iowa

Olivia had some big scent work firsts on our trip to Iowa over the weekend. We’ll post more about the trip part on Friday, but today, Olivia needs to celebrate her work on the blog! Don’t get me wrong, I did well too, but for being seven months old in her first trial, our little sis was amazing…tired out, but amazing!

We drove to Cedar Rapids on Friday and spent Saturday and Sunday at Camp Tanager sniffing for birch, anise, clove, and cypress (only I was looking for cypress). No, we didn’t spend the night at the camp, we had a hotel close by.

The trial weekend was hosted by the Iowa City Dog Obedience Club. Entering this trial was kind of a last minute decision. Mom suddenly realized there were no more trials in our area the rest of the year, and she wanted to see what Olivia could do. The trial wasn’t full, so we got spots, and made a weekend out of it.

We spent the days in our kennels. Olivia started in her soft crate, but when I go to sniff, she goes crazy. To make sure she didn’t bust out to come find me, Mom decided to switch to the wire crate. When she is older, she will be in the soft crate all the time. We each had 5 searches per day, so Mom had ten total. Since we were entered at all different levels, Mom was searching a lot, but she did pretty well.

Each of us had four buried hide searches, four exterior, and two interior searches. Olivia was a bit off the first time it was her turn to search, but once she realized what was going on, she was “on”. Buried hides were on frosty, then wet grass, and hardly anyone in any class passed on Saturday. We were no exception, each failing our two searches too. The buried hides are difficult for most dogs anyway, but with that appealing grass, the grass won over most dogs. Those were the only two searches Olivia did not qualify in all weekend which is amazing! She came back to the hotel with two seconds, and a third place in her interior and exterior searches! Not bad for a puppy in her first trial!

Aside from failing buried hides, I qualified in my Excellent Interior search to earn my title there, and I qualified in one of my Excellent Exterior searches. Being at a higher level, it is much more difficult, so I don’t seem to qualify on every search like I used to, but I did work hard.

Day two the buried hides were on concrete, thank dog! I still failed my first one, but got the second search to earn my overall Advanced Title. Olivia was the rock star of the day! Not only did she Q in all five searches, she placed, earned her Novice Exterior Title, and was awarded High in Trial! How can a puppy do so much? She is now in advanced exteriors and passed her first search there with a fourth place Q. Only five of the nine dogs passed. Sniff on sis with more scent work firsts!

It was tough, but we were able to fit all the ribbons in the car to go home! What a great trial weekend! In case you are wondering, our new names are:  Madison – Ethos Intel Inside TD NAP NJP SWA SIE RATS CGC NW1 NW2 L1E L1C L1I (I actually lost letters as the SWA replaces four other sets of letters) Olivia – Ethos Loving The Northland RATN SEN You can always find out more about our accomplishments on the “The Staff” page of our site.

This is a super happy post, so we’re joining Comedy Plus for Happy Tuesday!