Today we held our Beginning Scent Work Clinic, and it was a smashing success! We had a great group of dogs that all made noticeable progress before leaving. Our clinic was taught by AKC Scent Work judge, John Fisher. John did a background on Scent Work, a quick highlight of AKC Scent Work, facilitated the hands-on portion, and rounded everyone back up at the end for a Q&A. Before leaving, everyone received a Scent Work kit that included some birch odor and different hide materials, courtesy of the RMVC.
After the initial introductory information from John, attendees got to watch some advanced dogs in practice! Neeta with Revi & Rumble, Ginger with Kili, and Jenny with Cheeky demonstrated an interior search. Everyone enjoyed watching the advanced dogs do their thing and we were inspired to tackle the drills with all the new dogs!
After seeing what our end goal would be, we learned about the drills we would start today. After a demo by Lindsay and Archer, we broke out into rotation groups and everyone starting training!
By the fourth rotation, the dogs were already scenting more for the odor than the cookie! It was so cool to watch. We had dogs as young as 5 months and as old as 14! It’s truly a sport for all and anyone who owns a Vizsla knows how much they love to use their nose!
We can’t wrap without thanking Perfdog for organizing our entries and paperwork. It made putting on the clinic so much easier! Another huge thank you to Jenny Follett, Neeta & Rod Cope, Ginger Sammonds, and Lindsay Tita Adams, for not only helping to plan the clinic, but for being there to demo our exercises, facilitate the rotation groups, take pictures, and fill our welcome bags and hospitality table. Thank you to Leah Davis for coming early and staying late to help with set up and tear down. John Fisher, thank you for building out the birch kits and running a great clinic! We definitely got a few people hooked on a new game today!
Finally, thank you to all who joined us! We were so pleased to have such a great turn out and hope everyone had fun watching the light bulbs turn on for your pups today! We hope you will use your birch kits to keep practicing and take your skills to the next level.