Day 1 - AKC @ Argus Their trial management was different than anything I'd seen before, kinda first-come-first-serve, so it seemed chaotic. If Gimme Q'd in Novice buried both days, she'd get the novice buried title and the novice level scentwork title.
Advanced Containers - We had 2 hides and 2:00 to find them (on leash). Gimme did a great job she was fast and sure. A little bit heavy with the paws, but she didn't get a fault for it. She had a time of 24.25 seconds and got 1st place. 
Advanced Interior - Here too we had 2 hides and 2:00 to find them (on leash). Gimme was really interested in leaving the search area to go down a narrow hallway (where the blue arrow points). It took her a little bit to find a hide under the footrest. Then she kept going around scanning, tried to go down the hallway twice more until we ran out of time. The judge showed me the other hide at the edge of the fireplace screen closest to the hallway (hidden behind people legs in the picture). The door was open at the end of the hallway, so I think the airflow was pulling odor down the hallway. The door we came in was open between searches (allowing this air movement) and then closed during each search. Gimme wanted to follow the scent plume down the hallway and then she likely would have followed it to the hide, but I didn't support her (inhibited by the narrow hallway?). Bad me...
Novice Buried - This was novice, so only 1 hide and a generous 2:00 to find them (on leash). Gimme ran to the end of the search area and peed. The last wait station before the search was on gravel and the wait there was 5 minutes. Gimme tends to need a stress pee after any significant waiting (especially at a trial) and the search area was her first opportunity to get on grass after the wait on gravel. This ended any change of getting the novice buried and novice scentwork titles this weekend. We needed 2 buried Q's and only had the two tries. <pout>
Advanced Exterior - Again, 2 hides and 2:00 (on leash). At first Gimme wouldn't leave heel position to search, since I reflexively spoke sharply to her when she peed. I encouraged her to search and after a bit she did. It may also be because I'd walked her right into the scent plume of the first hide and perhaps her odor obedience overcame her concern about my sharp words. She was a little distracted by a toy, but left it quickly. She found the first hide under the edge of some trim on the building and then found another under a flower container. She finished the search in 1:29.47, earning 2nd place.Day 2 - AKC @ Argus Since I was used to the first-come-first-serve it wasn't as challenging. Plus I told them I could volunteer after we searched, so we were bumped to the front of the line. All the volunteers were bumped to the beginning, but I think Sue put me first because she knew with my experience she could send me anywhere.
Advanced Containers - There were 2 hides and we were allowed 2:00 (on leash). Gimme did a great job she was fast and sure. Again a bit heavy with the paws, but no fault assessed. She had a time of 30.35 seconds and got 2nd place. The first place dog was exactly 10 seconds faster.
Advanced Interior - We had 2 hides and 3:00 (on or off leash). This was the only search of the weekend where she could be off-leash, so I let her go for it. She ran around a lot, scanning everything and not really settling anywhere. Then she went back to places she'd been and alerted first one, then two. The first hide was on a little shelf in the kitchenette and the other was under a cart edge under a table-desk in the main room (behind people legs). The judge asked me if she always went around to find each hide before telling me where they were. I told her it'd been an issue all along and we've worked on it with some progress, but not resolved. Her time was 1:39.87, she was 6th in the running. Sorry this picture is probably hard to decipher.
Novice Buried - 2 hides, 2:00 and on leash. Gimme was really fast, running around to check the six containers and then went back to the one she liked and indicated by turning it over. I thought the rolled bits of black plastic fencing on the top would discourage pawing and they did, but hitting it hard enough from the side to turn it over was not an improvement. Since we got a fault we were at the end of the running. Without the fault her FAST 9.44 seconds would have been 2nd place. I was suspicious of the judge's largess giving us only a regular fault, since I'd just read the rules the night before, so I checked them. We shouldn't have gotten a Q for this, since it was a "significant disruption" of the search area and should have been an non-qualifying-fault. But the judge's decision stands, it's a gift and I'll take it. There is a saying: "The judge giveth and the judge taketh away." There have been calls I thought were unfair, so this gift makes up for it a little bit.
Advanced Exterior - We had 2 hides and 3:00 (on leash). Gimme wasted a lot of time playing with a toy in the search area and I encouraged her repeatedly to leave it. She found the first hide under an upturned bucket - then went back to the toy. I got her to leave it again and she then went to find the hide under the chair, then immediately back to the toy once she got her treats. She's pretty certain if a toy is available she should get to have it for finding hides. Her time was 56.07 seconds, she was 6th in the running; she probably would have gotten 3rd or 4th place if they didn't count the time playing with the toy. This is why I encourage Dorothy to leave the toys on the floor during class - Gimme needs to learn to work through it and she is much better than she was, but we have a way's to go.It wasn't our best weekend, but coming away with 6 qualifying runs (out of 8) isn't anything to sneeze at either. There will be lots of title possibilities at our next AKC trial (we need one Q each for novice buried, advanced containers and advanced exteriors to get 4 titles).
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