Broken tradition

For the first time since Legend was very young, we did not spend Memorial Day weekend at Purina Farms doing NADAC.  I was a little sad to break the tradition, but don't worry, I still spent it outside, with my dog, doing dog stuff!

I opted this year to go to the Nosework trial near the Lake of the Ozarks.  I didn't make the draw into the NW3 trial so didn't get to compete. I helped with set-up and some of the volunteer coordinator activities and spend most of saturday and sunday timing.  Which meant I got to see a lot of searches, including a lot from the Elite day of competition.

As a bonus, Legend got to be the dog in white (test dog) for the Elite day.  This is a pretty big opportunity for a dog not even competing at that level yet!  But she handled it like a pro and I look forward to competing at that level!  The most fun search was "the gym."  I thought it was going to be just a part of the gym but it was actually the whole building- three basketball courts wide and some alcoves as well.  It's a little overwhelming at first but most of the hides were along the perimeter, plus one on a volleyball net pole.  Since Legend's default search mode is to run the perimeter first this worked well for her, plus she is very thorough and checked all the structures as she passed them.  We were really pleased to have this opportunity and to hear comments about how well she had done.

The trial site was really pretty-overlooking the lake on three sides.  The exterior search which I timed on sunday was on a pavilion with a direct lake overlook, so we had an awesome view all afternoon.  We also had super weather and the camp  was not as spread out as the one last year, so it was not as tiring trying to keep everything moving along.

The only downside was there was no lake access from the site and Legend was very disappointed when we got there and she could see the lake, but not get to it!