The first two Scent Hurdle tournaments of 2018 are complete and are we off to an amazing start. This will be all words as I never once thought to take a picture at either tournament.
January 20
This evening we attended an AKC tournament at Spruce Meadows, we started very late due to the dog show running late but still managed to have a ton of fun. This was our new Miniature Schnauzer, Gandalf's first tournament and he managed several clean runs. Unfortunately Digger, another Miniature Schnauzer who is over 15 years old, was struggling with the jumps so Gandalf did not earn many points. He is at the beginning of his Scent Hurdle career though so its far more important that he learn to run clean, we'll worry about earning points later.... maybe - our team runs to have fun with our dogs not to earn the maximum number of points in a tournament. He did get his first 5 points for sure so congratulations to Shannon and Gandalf on their debut in Scent Hurdle!
This was also the occasion of our first 10 point run in many years. Cuda, Stark, Tonka, and Whistler running together can run under 35 seconds. Amazing speed by these four dogs; congratulations to their owners Kay, Grace, Kris, and Julie for having such super-fast partners.
January 27
An independent tournament at Wet Creek, we ran two tournaments over about 5 hours. This was only Gandalf's second tournament and while he did cross over once and needed some help on a run or two he managed a number of clean runs. Excellent work for an inexperienced dog.
Whistler, Tonka, Stark, and Cuda managed three more runs under 35 seconds including one of 33 seconds. These four are fast! Speaking of speed even Ahab managed to be in a heat that ran 36 seconds, normally Ahab is so slow any heat he runs in has no chance of coming close to being under 35 seconds, the trouble with being an old tri-pawed, but he had a really good run that race. And as long as he still wants to play then he will play; we support our dogs through all stages of their career.
After this second tournament we had a few dogs reach some milestones Ahab and Tonka both earned their SHDM (Scent Hurdle Dog Master) titles at 500 points, Whistler earned her SHDMX-G (Scent Hurdle Dog Master Excellent, Gold) at 2000 points, and Gandalf has earned his first 30 points. He needs 20 more to earn his first title, if things go well he should be able to earn them in the next tournament.
Well done to everyone and a huge thank you to Ready, Scent, Go! for putting on their tournaments and to the AKC for letting Scent Hurdle race after the show.
