The day after a full day of CPE agility, Truffle and I drove up to Meredith, New Hampshire, for the Lakes Region Kennel Club’s AKC Scent Work trial on September 26. A week earlier, she’d won Exterior at Saccarappa. This time we came home with her first two Scent Work titles: Novice Exterior (SEN) and Novice Buried (SBN)!
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Containers: a lesson for me
Our first search was Containers, and Truffle alerted too early. NQ. So for the next three searches, I changed my approach. I let her work the whole search area before I called alert, even when she tried to jump the gun.
Buried: patience and hilarity
Buried was a lesson in patience, and a pretty funny one. Truffle sat at several boxes, and at one of the start line cones, before she finally alerted on the right box. I waited her out through every one of those false alerts, and it paid off. Last week at Saccarappa she was one box off in Buried. This week she got there, and that Q finished her Novice Buried title.
I filmed every search on my Insta360 GO 3S, the little camera clipped to my hat, so you can watch the whole saga:
Interior and Exterior
She qualified in both, placing 5th in Novice A in Interior, Buried, and Exterior. The Exterior Q was the third one she needed, so a week after that win at Saccarappa, she has her Novice Exterior title too.
What’s next
Truffle needs one more Interior Q and two more Containers Qs to finish her Scent Work Novice (SWN) title.
One last thing: I’m sure the club’s sunflower photo backdrop was lovely for normal-sized dogs. For Truffle, it’s giving Iron Throne, and I kind of love it.
Truffle rides to trials in her crash-tested 4pets Caree crate, though as you can see, she’d rather be in the driver’s seat.
Thank you to the Lakes Region Kennel Club for a lovely trial, and to Holly Heath for the photos.
