Inaugural AKC Scent Work Master National 2025

Winger and I traveled to Wilmington, Ohio to compete in the first ever AKC Scent Work Master National! Unfortunately, no photos or video were allowed of the competition. The first two days were an elimination round where the dogs completed Container, Buried, Interior, and Exterior searches to accrue points based on number of hides found plus negative points for false alerts, faults, and zero points for NQ-able offenses (destroying a container, eliminating in a search area, etc.). Of 200 teams, the top 100 would advanced to the Final Round on day 3.

On day 1, Winger started the day strong as first dog on the line (!!) with a perfect Interior search. The next two searches were Container and Buried where we left hides behind, but no false alerts and no faults. Our last search of day 1 was Exterior, where Winger ran a blazing fast perfect search. We ended day 1 with 80 points, no false alerts and no faults.

Day 2 started with Buried, where again, we left a hide behind. Interior was up next where an alcove in the back corner and a sunny window created a very challenging pooling odor puzzle. Winger hit the single hide in the room straight off the start line, then spent some time searching around the window sill but ultimately did not find anything else. The last search was again, Exterior and again, it was a textbook fast run. This was my favorite search of the entire trial--a 4 hide converging odor puzzle with two of the hides in close proximity. It challenged the dogs' ability to sort the hides and drive to source as well as the handler's ability to trust the dog. We ended day 2 with 130 points, no false alerts and no faults.

Day 3, we made it into the top 100 and advanced to the Final Round! My entire goal for the weekend was to make it to top 100, so everything else afterwards was just bonus! The Final Round consisted of two searches: Exterior combined with Buried and Interior combined with Containers. In a lucky twist of fate, instead of having a full Buried search (our weakest element) adjacent to an Exterior and a Container search adjacent to Interiors, the Buried tubs and containers were scattered throughout the search areas, which is how I like to set up to practice those elements! So Winger went into each search having seen a set up like that. We stayed in both searches longer than I would have liked, but found all the hides in Buried/Exterior and only missed one hide in Interior/Containers plus no false alerts and no faults.

Anticipation was high as we waited for final scores to be released, and Winger ended up in 16th place!!! Even more exciting were our final placements in the Exterior searches from the first two days: 2nd place from day 1 and 1st place from day 2! Which means Winger was faster than 200 dogs (and 199 lol) in his Exterior searches.