What a surprise, I earned my Summit 2 Title last weekend at the Alexis Fire Equipment Company in Alexis, Illinois. Our goal was to earn placements in some searches and a second Summit Title. Day one was not good for us so Mom said the title was out.
I got to search around a lot of big fire engines, many hoses and stuff, offices, and miscellaneous fire equipment they had in the buildings. It was very bright outside so my eyes are slightly closed in the photo. A Summit Trial is the highest level in NACSW Nose Work with eight searches over two days.
Day one started with missing three of the six hides. I was so excited to trial again as it had been months. Mom says I was just running around not really working and missed the hides. We missed two more hides on day one giving us only thirteen of eighteen hides. After that, Mom said a title was out, we would just be searching for placements on day two. She was rather depressed about that first search but it happened and we need to clear our minds and move on.
Day two we set out to have a perfect day to make up for day one. The first search we missed one hide but I found the five others and got the four bonus points in the challenge which Mom said was super important. The next three searches I found all the hides, unfortunately, not in record time. Our GoPro malfunctioned so we didn’t get any good videos to show you. Mom worked on getting it to work again the other day. Who knows why it just quit, but it is working again.
There were a lot of really good teams at the trial and we saw a lot of nose work friends too. At the awards, Mom waited for a placement but our name was not called and she was pretty bummed. Then they called the five titles and Mom almost fell over when they said Joy and Olivia! We ended up in fourth place out of twenty eight teams and we had two pronounced searches (exceptional handling/teamwork)! Mom had good mental management despite being sad about day one. Never give up, maybe change your goals, but one never knows, so don’t give up. The drive home was much nicer with my second Summit Title in the bag! Mom and I are so thankful things worked out and we had a lot of fun searching too!
My GBGV Life is joining Brian’s Home Blog in the Thankful Thursday Blog Hop!