Saturday, November 5, 2011

"What a summer!" Part 2:

In which Hoagie makes his Mommy very proud...

And now for the long awaited good news! (Sorry it took so long to post this!)

Applause for good news!
On July 17th Hoagie and I competed in our first Scent Work trial.  It was held at Camp San Luis Obispo at the Officer's Club and was hosted by Gentle Touch Pet Training (the folks we take scent work classes from).  We woke up early, packed up the car for a long day, and headed down the hill.

The day started out with the vehicle search.  Hoagie just about dragged me across the parking lot, directly to the truck where the hide was located.  He didn't even take a second look at the other two vehicles!  He made it obvious early on, that he was on his game!

"Duh Mom!  It's right here in the trailer plug!  Give me something harder!
 We then went on to the interior search.  Hoagie did a fantastic job of "working to source."  He narrowed down the search area to pinpoint exactly where the scent was.  Score two successful hides for Hoagie!  

I later found out that we earned a P for Pronounced on the two morning elements.  That means that the judges thought we did especially well working as a team on the vehicle and interior searches.  Go team Hoagie!


After lunch came the hardest part of an NW1 trial (at least for Capt. Distractible): the dreaded exterior search! *Duh dun DUUUN!*  


Hoagie, however, did spectacularly.  It was a really big search area, and he worked through the whole space, all the way to source.  He did take his time getting all the way around, and made me little a nervous.  When I got our score sheets back I found out that we only had about 31 seconds left of the three minute time limit!  Hoagie certainly cut it close!

So we were 3 for 3 going into the last element; the container search.  The pressure was really on!  

On the way into the container room, the trial photographers snapped my favorite picture of Hoagie doing nose work.  The picture shows just how excited Hoagie was about getting to work.  He's blown pas the start line, and even got his tongue out, licking up the scent!


"Lemme at 'em!  Lemme at 'em!"
About 42 seconds after the above picture was taken, Hoagie earned his very first title!!!  Yay Hoagie!


Proud Hoagie is proud!


So Hoagie ended his summer on a high note, with an NW1 title, and a very spiffy ribbon!  

"Check out the spiffy ribbon I earned!"

We worked hard, had lots of fun, and will continue to work towards NW2 along with his other obedience work.  Stay tuned for lots more nose work fun to come!

Feel free to check out more pictures of the trial on the NACSW website here.  Greg Lugo Photography also took the great trial photos above (the vehicle and container search photos).