Close But No Elite…This Time
- Posted by Michael Cicchese
- on Jul, 11, 2016
- in K9 Nose Work
- No Comments.
It’s pretty common at the Nose Work 3 level for several months to go by between trials for a team. For Logan and I it had been nearly eight months since our last trial when we traveled out to Huntington, Mass. This was our third time completing at this site. A year ago we came so close to earning what would have been our first NW3 title if not for my error.
In between our last sojourn to Huntington we earned two NW3 titles, and we were now looking for the third one to reach our NW3 Elite title. I figured things had aligned for us. It was our third time at this site, and we were looking for our third NW3 title.
We started with interiors, our strongest element, and Logan did great. Of course you don’t know until the end of the day how many hides were out their, but I felt confident with his finding two in the first room, zero in the second room, and the maximum three in the third room.
We then braved the heat for the vehicle and exterior search elements. Two hides found on the vehicles, and only one hide in the exterior. The good news was I had not yet heard a judge say “No,” which means we were still in the running for a title.
We concluded our day with the container search. The layout was very simple, a rectangle. This made covering the search area easy. But it was also the end of the day… a hot day. With very little body fat, Logan doesn’t have much to help regulate his body temperature. He came in to the container search showing fatigue, but willingly searched the containers. He clearly alerted on one about a third of the way into the search. He sniffed every container we walked by the rest of the way. When we reached the last container, for a split second I toyed with the idea of taking him back in the other direction. But I could tell my teammate was spent and I called “Finish.”
Yep, there was a second hide out there. Oh well. I know Logan did his best and that’s all you can ask for. The good news is we are in for a trial a week later. The bad news is the forecast calls for even hotter conditions.