On August 8 and 9, CANINE.NZ welcomed teams to Stanhope Road School in Mount Wellington for a full weekend of nosework, with Advanced, Novice and Intermediate teams all stepping up to the start line across two days.
Over the weekend, 73 teams competed across the three levels. We saw experienced teams working at Advanced, a large group of new handlers joining us for Novice, and many familiar faces returning to compete at Intermediate.
It was also our first time hosting a trial at Stanhope Road School, a venue that turned out to be a little hidden gem.
We have Scent Squad member Emma Ruck to thank for putting the school on our radar. Emma regularly visits the school through another of her hobbies and suggested that it might make a great location for nosework.
She was right.
Tucked away in Mount Wellington, the school gave us a private environment with an incredible variety of spaces, surfaces and potential search areas. With three different levels running across the weekend, that versatility gave our judges plenty of options while also providing competitors with space to comfortably manage their dogs between searches.
Finding venues that work for nosework isn't always easy, and we hope the teams who joined us enjoyed searching Stanhope Road School as much as we enjoyed hosting there.
Saturday Morning: Advanced
We started Saturday with 21 Advanced teams. Our Advanced searches were judged by Tracey Peterson, Rob Peterson, Kerryn Johnson and Sam Murdie.
At Advanced, teams are still completing the four familiar elements, Containers, Interior, Exterior and Vehicles, but the picture has expanded. Search areas can be larger, and dogs are now required to locate two hides within the allotted search time.
The individual hide placements themselves don't need to be complicated. Instead, the added requirement comes from covering a larger search area, locating both hides, and successfully doing that across all four elements.
Three of our 21 Advanced teams successfully qualified, giving us a 14.3% qualification rate.
Congratulations to:
- Zoe White & Calypso
- Bernadette Hart & Tilly
- Anneliese Allen & Nala
We were especially excited to celebrate Scent Squad members Zoe and Calypso.
They completed all four searches with full qualifying points and a combined time of 294.94 seconds, earning Highest Qualifying Team for the Advanced trial.
Their performance also earned them a Judge's Choice Award for their Exterior search.
This qualifier was Zoe and Calypso's second of the five Advanced qualifying scores they are working towards, a fantastic result for the team and a great way to start our weekend.
We were also happy to see Ingrid Shum and Kilu receive a Judge’s Choice Award for their Container search in Advanced.
Saturday Afternoon: Novice
Saturday afternoon saw 29 Novice teams take to the search areas. Our Novice searches were judged by Gina Reid alongside Probationary Judge Tonka Watson, Adele Williams, Gaye Stammers and Kelly Daniels.
One of the things we particularly enjoyed about this trial was seeing so many new faces.
Scent Sport Association New Zealand (SSANZ) is still relatively new to many people within the Auckland nosework community, and for a number of handlers joining us, this was their very first SSANZ trial.
Novice is where teams begin putting their training into a competition environment. There is the search itself, but there is also the experience of navigating a trial day, managing downtime, approaching start lines, working in unfamiliar environments and learning how your dog responds when the training picture changes.
Of our 29 Novice teams, 20 successfully qualified, resulting in a 69.0% qualification rate.
Four Scent Squad teams competed at this level, with three finishing within the top ten overall.
We also had another Scent Squad achievement to celebrate, with Nina Hannert-Nimmo and Emmie receiving a Judge's Choice Award for their Container search.
For everyone who joined us for their first SSANZ trial, thank you for coming along and giving it a go. We hope you went home with something to celebrate, something useful for your training, and perhaps the beginning of a new enthusiasm for trialling.
Sunday: Intermediate
Sunday morning brought our Intermediate competitors, along with considerably more rain.
Our Intermediate searches were judged by Gina Reid, Adele Williams, Kerryn Johnson and Sam Murdie.
Twenty-three teams competed at Intermediate, with 11 successfully qualifying for a 47.8% qualification rate.
The weather changed the feel of the day somewhat. One of the things we enjoy about our trials is the community atmosphere around them, but with persistent wet weather, many teams understandably spent more time staying dry in their vehicles between searches.
We really appreciated how everyone adapted to the conditions and remained such good sports throughout the day.
Intermediate is currently where the largest portion of our Scent Squad teams are competing, so there was plenty for us to watch and celebrate.
Five of the day's 11 qualifying teams were Scent Squad members.
Rachael Conrad and Austin received a Judge's Choice Award for their Interior search, while Supreet Chadha and Browse received a Judge's Choice Award for their Exterior search.
Our top two overall placements also went to Scent Squad teams.
Emma Ruck and Echo finished as Runner Up, completing all four searches with full points and an overall time of 72.64 seconds.
Taking home Highest Qualifying Team were Rob Mosen and Ranger, who also completed the trial with full points and an impressive combined time of 58.59 seconds.
Having Scent Squad teams take both Highest Qualifier and Runner Up, alongside two Judge's Choice Awards and five of the day's 11 qualifying scores, was a pretty special way to finish our weekend.
Making Trial Days Work Better for Every Dog
Over the past two years, we've continued to experiment with how technology can help our events run more smoothly.
We know people don't necessarily come to a nosework trial because they want to spend more time looking at their phones. But when technology is used thoughtfully, it can make the trial experience considerably easier for handlers, volunteers and, importantly, the dogs.
That matters because of the type of environment we want to create at CANINE.NZ events.
We want the handler with the highly social dog to feel welcome. We also want the handler whose dog needs space from other dogs or people to feel equally welcome.
A good call board system means fewer dogs waiting unnecessarily around search areas, less congestion and better information for competitors about when they need to prepare. Rather than bringing a dog out early and waiting in a line, handlers can give their dogs the downtime they need and bring them out refreshed and ready to search.
Finding the right system has been an evolution.
We initially adapted a third-party platform that wasn't designed specifically for nosework but helped us understand what we needed from a live call board.
For our more recent trials, Scent Squad member Rachel Fox and her husband Aaron helped us develop a Google Sheets-based system. Competitors could follow the running order remotely and receive an email when it was getting close to their turn.
It worked well, but using it also helped identify what could be improved. The Google Sheet didn't display consistently across every device, not everyone wanted or received email notifications, and one of the biggest pieces of feedback was the option for SMS notifications.
This weekend gave us the opportunity to try something new.
Scent Squad member Supreet Chadha and her husband Samuel created Diffuse, an app designed to provide a more streamlined live call board experience. Stanhope Road was our first opportunity to put Diffuse to work across a full CANINE.NZ trial weekend.
For us, it brought together many of the features we'd been looking for and gave us another opportunity to see what works when managing multiple search areas and a large number of competitors.
Seeing Diffuse operating across 73 teams and three levels was incredibly exciting. As we continue using it, we're looking forward to working out how we can further customise the way we use the platform around the particular needs of our CANINE.NZ events.
A huge thank you to Supreet and Samuel for giving us the opportunity to trial Diffuse, and for the time and skill they've put into creating it. We also want to acknowledge Rachel and Aaron for the work they put into our previous call board system. Each step has helped us learn more about how technology can create a smoother experience for our competitors, volunteers and dogs.
Thank You to NatureKi
We were incredibly fortunate to have NatureKi supporting our August trial weekend and providing products from Orijen and Acana for our competitors and award recipients.
These are brands we know and use ourselves, which made this partnership particularly meaningful. When we approach businesses to support our events, we want to share products with competitors that we would genuinely be happy to give our own dogs.
NatureKi provided a fantastic selection of products for our Highest Qualifying Teams, Runner Up teams and Judge's Choice Award recipients across the weekend.
They also made sure everyone went home with something, with an Orijen sample included in every competitor goodie bag across all three levels.
We loved being able to add something extra to the weekend for our competitors while recognising some of the fantastic performances we saw across the three trials.
A huge thank you to NatureKi for supporting our event and our nosework community.
The People Behind Our Trials
Every time we host one of these events, we're reminded that Scent Squad is much more than a group of people who happen to train nosework together.
Every member brings something different.
Within our group, we have people with skills in technology, photography, apparel and printing, veterinary medicine and animal care, administration, data and analysis, along with all of the practical skills required to turn an empty venue into a functioning nosework trial and somehow put it all back together again at the end of the weekend.
Those individual strengths are a huge part of what allows CANINE.NZ to host these events.
Our Scent Squad members give up their weekends to help with set-up, stewarding, call boards, competitor management, judge support, photography, pack-down and all of the small jobs happening behind the scenes.
Many of them are doing all of that while also competing with their own dogs.
Without their support, these trials simply wouldn't happen.
So once again, thank you to every Scent Squad member who contributed over the weekend. The community we've built around these events is very much a reflection of the people who continue to give their time and skills to them.
A special acknowledgement also goes to Supreet Chadha of Mustard Bloom Media, who captured our weekend through her photography. Some of the photographs accompanying this recap are hers and allow us to share some of the moments happening throughout the weekend, both in and around the search areas.
That's a Wrap on August
Seventy-three teams. Three levels. Two days. A new venue, a new call board system, plenty of rain, and a lot of nosework.
Across the weekend, 34 teams earned qualifying scores:
- Advanced: 3 of 21 - 14.3%
- Novice: 20 of 29 - 69.0%
- Intermediate: 11 of 23 - 47.8%
But a trial weekend is about more than the numbers.
We welcomed new handlers into SSANZ, watched experienced teams continue progressing through the levels, celebrated some fantastic performances, trialled a new system designed to improve the competitor experience, and saw our community once again come together to make the whole thing possible.
Congratulations to every team who qualified and to each of our Highest Qualifying, Runner Up and Judge's Choice recipients.
For those who didn't get the qualifying score this time, we hope your searches gave you useful information to take back into training. Every search gives us another piece of the picture.
Thank you to our judges, our volunteers, NatureKi, Stanhope Road School, our Scent Squad and every competitor who spent part of their weekend with us.
We'll see you at the next start line.