Sunday update on our PSD adventures in Central Square today.

Sorry, no photos today either — once again too busy to get any.

BUT!  Both dogs did exceptionally well.  I ran them in 2 classes each of distance and exteriors, and one class of buildings (interiors).

Toka missed one hide in his advanced building search.  It was a challenging inaccessible.  The hide was on a shelf that was up against a wall upon which the mid-afternoon sun was shining.  Hence, the odor was probably rising, not falling.  I’m fine with how he performed, because he’s young, it was hot, and the hide was tough for a tired, over-heated youngster.

Kiyo, my trooper, got first place!! in her advanced building search.  She passed all of her classes, though we had to have a re-do on the last exterior search.

The judges put the search area in a dog potty space, and had placed one hide on the dog poop bin.  Apparently they hadn’t smelled what I did.  And what Little Missy smelled.  They didn’t realize it was a poop bin.

Kiyo, who is a delicate flower of a girl, vaguely indicated by biting on a bungy cord that was attached to the handle where the hide was placed.  She could not make herself do anything more.  She dropped the cord like a hot potato & moved on.

I can’t (and don’t) blame her for not wanting to get near a smelly dog poop bin.  I proof my dogs for a LOT of distractions — deer poop, chicken poop, dog urine, goose poop, sheep fur, feathers, horse manure. dog saliva are among the most notable.  I have not – and will not – proof for dog poop.  Too yucky, and potentially problematic for safety & health’s sakes.

The judges generously offered reruns to all competitors, and I and another handler accepted.  The re-do was a fun search where one hide was in a tree!  And the other was in a batch of ground cover.  Kiyo was very tired at that point, and couldn’t quite twig (ha, ha, a tree joke!) on to what she was supposed to do until she caught the odor of the hide in the tree.  After that she was all business, and found the ground cover hide.

All in all a good weekend.   21 successful runs out of 22 official runs. (Kiyo had 2 extra runs yesterday to boot.)  Because each of them had successfully completed searches in all 5 classes between yesterday & today, they both earned their Iron Dog awards.

This weekend Kiyo completed all of her novice classes, and so earned another title for having done so.  Toka titled in all of the PSD elements except for speed, a class we just started to tackle this weekend.  One more qualifying run and he’ll have that title, too – also earning his superior novice title.

These results despite a rainy morning yesterday, which  morphed into a hot sunny day.  It was pretty hot today, too.  Plus, Kiyo has a urinary tract infection, and so is on antibiotics.

I still have to figure out which dog placed in which class (ribbons & score sheets carefully collected, just too tired to do it tonight.