21 March 2009

Working Trials -

A mixture of obedience tasks, agility and scentwork - working trials is very loosely based on Police dog training. It is not for the faint hearted, requiring a lot of time and effort to get into.

Starting at Companion Dog (CD) stake, you and your dog can then work through Utility Dog (UD) and Working Dog (WD) stakes before entering either Tracking Dog (TD) or Patrol Dog (PD) stake.

From the UK Kennel Club website:

Nosework

The dog follows 'a track' – laid by a ‘tracklayer’ (who is a stranger to the dog) walking a set pattern. The track is approximately half a mile long and laid on grassland, ploughed field or heathland with each competitor working on similar terrain to others in the stake.

As the dog follows the track it has to seek out and recover articles placed along the track by the tracklayer. In UD the track is laid half an hour before the dog works and in TD the track is three hours old. The other component of nosework is ‘search’ where the dog has to search for and retrieve articles placed in a marked area.

Agility

Consisting of a three foot hurdle, six foot scale and nine foot long jump. In the CD and UD stakes, the height and length is reduced depending on the size of the dog.
 

Control

Consisting of heelwork, sendaway, retrieving a dumbbell, down stay, steadiness to gunshot and speak on command. In the PD stake, in addition to the control, agility and nosework exercises, the dog has to quarter the ground for a hidden person, complete a test of courage, escort a person following a search by the handler, detain a running person and perform a recall from a running person. These exercises are completed under strict control and the dog has to qualify Working Dog Excellent before entering the Patrol Dog stake.