Today I’m thankful for points and placements. Once you get to the higher levels of nose work every trial doesn’t mean a title but you can earn points and placements in your searches. It also means, if you don’t earn the minimum number of points, you go home with nothing. Thankfully I have not lost my points…yet. It could happen to anyone but we don’t worry about it. I had an Elite Select Trial Saturday afternoon and an all day Elite Premier Trial Sunday both trials were at the Andersen Scout Camp in Houlton, WI, under an hour from home.
It was quite steamy out on Saturday but I don’t let it stop me. I search like a champ in any weather. An ELT-S trial is four speed searches which is super fun. Mom decided not to wear the GoPro and just have fun. There are no placements in this level only points. Even without official placements, the results give everyone their placement. We had a lot of fun but missed one hide and got one no. Mom was a bit disappointed but then we saw the trial results and we placed first out of the twenty dogs, the only team to find twelve of the thirteen hides. Everyone else found eleven or less. Hopefully I will earn my ELT-S Title at our next one.
Sunday was the ELT-P. I earned my title at the last one I entered back in June. Now I’m working on getting another four hundred points for my second title at this level. Mom did video these searches. Most of the searches on Saturday and Sunday had one high hide. Mom and I used to miss those a lot but this weekend we got all of them which is really fun! The video above is our favorite search of the day (including the high hide). It was a known number of four hides and we had three minutes to find them in the Petersen Cabin. I found them all in one minute, eleven seconds, and still only placed ninth out of thirty dogs!
We had one bad search at the beginning of our day, but the rest of our day was super nice and we did well. I placed second in the bunkroom search which was five and a half minutes with an unknown number of hides. The space was two big bunkrooms, and two bathroom and shower rooms. I found all four hides including the high one on an upper bunk. This search earned me a second place ribbon. The next two weekends will be Nelsons and then we both have trials in mid-August. Nelson and I sure do love sniffing and so does Mom!
We’re joining Brian’s Home Blog in the Thankful Thursday Blog Hop!
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