A LONG overdue post on our last Scent Work trial of 2023, where Iris wrapped up an already incredible year with an absolute BANG, earning 6 Master-level qualifying scores, all of which were top-10 and 3 of which were top-4 placements, and most notably, a Master High-In-Trial award!!
Saturday
Day one of the trial was a bit of an off day for Iris and I both, but certainly provided us with some learning moments!
We started off with Master Exterior, which only ended up have one hide. Iris found it relatively early, and then we wandered around the area looking for something else for quite some time before I decided to call it. Thankfully, I had read Iris correctly – but the judge was kind enough to point out that on the one hide Iris did find, he gave it to us, but she wasn’t as close to source as he would have preferred to see and was used to seeing from her. However, she still earned fifth place in this element.
Next was Master Container, which Iris qualified and earned fifth place in, and then Master Buried. I made a huge handling mistake here – Iris found one hide very quickly (which ended up being the only hide, but I didn’t know that at the time), and then, since she had overlooked a few of the options, I brought her back and asked her to “check” each one. She wasn’t interested, so I pushed her to keep checking, and ended up pushing her into a false alert. I should have trusted that her not interested meant there was nothing there, not that she was distracted, but I learned from my mistake the next day.
We finished off with Master Interior, where Iris alerted on the edge of a table right near the start line on the first room. Unfortunately, the judge gave me the dreaded “no”. The hide had been further underneath the table and Iris was alerting on fringe odor.
After reflection on this and on her Master Exterior source, I realized most of my practice leading up to the trial had been on hides that weren’t aged. Because of that, the scent cones available to Iris were super small – unlike on aged hides, where the scent has time to “spread out” in the air. Iris had in the front of her mind any odor basically meant source, so when she ran into fringe odor she wasn’t working it back to source as well as usual. This was a huge lesson learned for me that it’s important to think ahead and practice aged hides, especially before a trial, because unless you’re the first dog to run all the hides are aged for quite some time!
Sunday
Day two was the big day – we had two lovely friends spectating, so I guess Iris was showing off 😉 She searched beautifully with such clarity and joy, and was the only Master-level dog to qualify in all 4 elements!
We started off with Master Container, where she was actually bumped off the first hide by a sound distraction that made even me jump – a witch that was motion-activated to cackle! Thankfully she recovered swiftly, found two other hides, and then I brought her back to the area where we had been briefly startled by the witch and she found the third hide. Unfortunately, I dropped a treat on our way out of the search area which earned us a “fault” that dropped us down the rankings from what would have otherwise been a second-place run. Sorry, Iris!
Next was Master Buried – I learned from the previous day to trust when Iris was done, and learned from our last search to be more careful with my treat delivery, and we ended up with a second place time.
Third was Master Exterior. This was perhaps Iris’s best search of the day (and it was a great day!), under one of our favorite judges, Steve DeTata. She found all four hides (the maximum number for Master Exterior) in under two minutes across a large area. See the unedited video below for her textbook search that earned her first place!!
Then we had a long wait time as there was a backup at Master Interior. I’m always really pleased with how clear-headed Iris is on when it’s time to work and when it’s time to rest in between. We spent twenty minutes watching other teams’ Exterior searches from afar and chatting with our spectating friends before being called in to our most difficult and last search of the day under judge Cathy Modica.
Master Interior is a three-room search, and you need to correctly find all hides in each room and determine when you are finished in each room in order to move on to the next room. After being out within 10 seconds in the previous day’s Master Interior, I was a little nervous, but Iris was in her groove. We almost timed out on her second room but called Finish with a second to spare (thank goodness for my ring-timer!), and then Iris smashed the third room, immediately finding an elevated threshold hide near the door, and then the sixth and thus final hide shortly thereafter, placing fourth overall for Master Interior.
With qualifying scores in all four elements I knew Iris would qualify for the Master High in Trial award, so I tried not to annoy the trial secretary as I lingered around and dug through the results to see if any other dog would qualify in all four elements – if they had, Master HIT would go to the fastest combined time. Sure enough, though, Iris was the only dog of the day to do it, and we gleefully accepted the honor of Master High in Trial!
What a way to top off an absolutely INCREDIBLE year of Scentwork with my girl. Hard to believe it was only about a year ago, at this same location, that she earned her first High in Trial as a Novice dog. Now we’re heading into 2024 2/3rds of the way through the Scentwork Master level – and more than ever looking forward to starting our journey in Detective.
Thank you to our lucky charm spectators and the amazing man behind the camera who saved the day (another story for later); the Obedience Club of San Diego County for hosting the trial, and the weekend’s judges and volunteers; to our incredible scentwork trainers, Mary, Kay, and Debbie, plus those at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy; and as always, to Two Gun Kennels: Made for Adventure for trusting me with this incredible girl you brought into the world.
On to 2024!
Meliora Drents 
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