Sunday, March 1st, was the St. Paul Dog Training Club Wonderful One Hundred Container Search. It is something Mom has wanted to do for several years but the closest ones are always hours away. Finally, there was one close to us and Mom entered it with me. Mom even wore Orange for our team even though it was a just for fun event. There would be one hundred various containers, an unknown number of hides, unknown distractors and four minutes to search.
Mom is a very organized human, I’m not an organized hound. What was our game plan, our search plan? Driving to the event Mom discussed it with me. It came down to us having two options – a row by row search which is recommended, or let me do whatever. Mom decided we would start with row by row and if I broke the pattern we would do my chaotic style of searching.
Here are the one hundred containers all spread out in rows. On the far right and left there are containers on chairs. I never like that and I rarely will even sniff a container on a chair. How will Mom remember where we have been, what I have found? It is a challenge we at the time could not wait to try. Team Orange never places in containers meaning for us, this is purely for fun. So many good and fast container dogs were entered we didn’t have a chance.
At the start, Mom planned to search the row on our right first. Guess what, I was not having any of that! I wanted to go elsewhere with no clear pattern. Mom said, “Whatever, Olivia. Just have fun and hopefully we will find some hides.” I used my favorite pinball style, taking me all over the course, hitting hides left, right, straight. It was crazy fun for both of us, actually. Can you believe the only container on a chair was on the orange chair? It truly was our day! Right before our four minute were up, Mom said finish. We came up with twelve hides, and no “no’s” which is a good thing.
Mom learned a lot about me and about trusting me in these few minutes. I was following scent cones, working off other containers and posts in the room. We covered pretty much everything and I never alerted on the same container twice. Mom can really trust me as what looks like nonsense is actually the way I like to work. Everyone else tried to do rows without a lot of success and there were a lot of “no’s”. At the end of the day we found out there were thirteen hides but no one found more than twelve and we took first place! Totally crazy, really! Mom and I had such a good time and really improved our team for future searching with our bond and trust. We still can’t believe we were the best team but I guess sometimes we crazy hounds really are amazing!
My GBGV Life is happy, so we’re joining Comedy Plus for Happy Tuesday!