I, Mr. Nelson, am the proud owner of the first dog sports title of 2025 in our family! Last weekend we went to Salem, Wisconsin for another Elite trial for me. For the first time we tried staying at a Holiday Inn Express. As you can see from the couch I am sitting on, they like green, which is my color.
Even their sign has green in it. We stayed at a regular Holiday Inn last May in Massachusetts, and it was nice too. They do have a pet fee and a two dog limit but the one last year let us have three dogs.
The people working at the hotel all were super nice and they loved us. The check in counter is rather low, so we could put our paws up on it and see the people behind the desk. This shot is from us in the lobby where they have a nice fireplace.
Of course, the most important thing is a comfy place to sleep. Since we had been out walking around town before checking in, Olivia and I were tired out. We need a good rest before a trial and the bed passes the test. We would consider staying at another Holiday Inn Express. It may be a two star hotel, but it was very nice.
The next morning we drove an hour to my nose work trial. It was held at a big but very nice school. Their mascot must be falcons. Mom snapped this of me before my first search.
Here is a shot of me waiting impatiently for my turn. Waiting is not something I am very good at but in nose work there is always some waiting for your turn involved. The four searches were all pretty fun, but there were a lot of challenges and a lot of low scores. The best out of one hundred was eighty four.
I placed tenth out of thirty dogs, earned my Elite 2 Title and totally surprising, a third place finish in the huge first search of the day. It was a massive commons area, also with a twenty one box container search in an L shape, all in five and a half minutes. I found two hides pretty quickly but then Mom kept me searching and searching because in such a huge area with so much time there have to be more hides. When I am done searching I start looking out the windows. Boy, was I looking out windows but Mom kept telling me to find more hides. The mind game for the human was that there were only two. Finally she called finished and we left with a time good enough for third place. Team Lime Green worked hard and did our best, but most of all, we had fun and learned more things about our team and searching.
We’re joining Brian’s Home Blog in the Thankful Thursday Blog Hop!
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