# Versatility in Poodles



## MaizieFrosty (Apr 12, 2019)

I have no idea about the points, as I only do AKC and barn hunt and NASDA, but you should email Roslyn Beaman at the email address on the website and she can tell you how many points you have so far.


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## TeamHellhound (Feb 5, 2021)

I might do that after we accomplish a few more things. Right now, everything is pretty much on hold because it's too hot to even think outside, let alone do dog sports.


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## PowersPup (Aug 28, 2020)

Topper will be thrilled to know he could earn points for hiking, backpacking and pulling. We don't backpack, but we hike and while we do, he pulls! Topper has is TKN (which I recently learned stands for AKC Trick Novice. I thought all poodles had a TKN, meaning topknot) and one leg of his novice AKC Scent Work title. We hope to earn the second leg in mid-July and finish in mid-August. I really have no idea about any dog sports. There's a FASTCAT running at the same time as our competition in mid-August. and it would be fun for Topper to try it out there.


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## TeamHellhound (Feb 5, 2021)

PowersPup said:


> Topper will be thrilled to know he could earn points for hiking, backpacking and pulling. We don't backpack, but we hike and while we do, he pulls! Topper has is TKN (which I recently learned stands for AKC Trick Novice. I thought all poodles had a TKN, meaning topknot) and one leg of his novice AKC Scent Work title. We hope to earn the second leg in mid-July and finish in mid-August. I really have no idea about any dog sports. There's a FASTCAT running at the same time as our competition in mid-August. and it would be fun for Topper to try it out there.


The Miscellaneous titles may or may not count. Just sort of depends. 

What Scent Work element title does Topper have? I've just started working on Simon's scent training, and haven't even gotten as far as actual element training.


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## scooterscout99 (Dec 3, 2015)

This was a fun achievement to pursue . . . Nike has the VCM certificate. The most difficult part was the second championship, which he achieved in Barn Hunt. We did this pre-pandemic, when trials were aplenty.


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## PowersPup (Aug 28, 2020)

TeamHellhound said:


> The Miscellaneous titles may or may not count. Just sort of depends.
> 
> What Scent Work element title does Topper have? I've just started working on Simon's scent training, and haven't even gotten as far as actual element training.


We're at the AKC Novice level, which uses only birch. More advanced levels use clove and anise. We haven't started training those scents yet. The four elements are Container, Interior, Exterior and Buried. There is one hide per element. Container uses ten identical cardboard boxes set up in two rows. Interior uses a room or part of a room; Exterior uses part of an exterior space and Buried is the most challenging: the hide is buried in sand in a plastic tub covered with a screen. It was challenging for us because we didn't cover it in our nose work classes, so I trained it myself. 

At our first trial, we did one run of each element per day for two days - so we did eight runs. Topper got qualifying scores in every run - my goal was to earn four qualifying scores to complete the first leg of our Novice title. Topper exceeded my expectations and got a third place in our second Container run, and placed fifth in our first Buried run. We're going to our second trial in mid-July, repeating the pattern of doing each element for two days. We hope this will complete the second leg of our title. I need to decide on our third trial - there's one in mid-August that offers all of the elements we need, but it's a 90-minute drive from our house so there will be two very long days (unless I get really confident that we can nail qualifying scores in all of our runs. Our first trial may be been beginner's luck.)


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## TeamHellhound (Feb 5, 2021)

Oh, so you did a full trial, then? The club nearest me is only doing a couple of elements per trial, which is how they also do their UKC trials. 

Simon is currently working on a cocktail of birch, anise, and clove. This is my first time doing a cocktail, as my older dogs were introduced to one odor at a time. They were eventually on nine odors, birch, anise, clove vetiver, myrrh, wintergreen, thyme, pine, and lemongrass. Yeah, I knew we were super unlikely to compete in SDDA, but it was fun to train the odors.  C-WAGS doesn't use lemongrass any more. 

I just got some new containers and play sand so that we can practice buried hides. Back when the girls were training, you could use soil, and that's what they are used to.


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## 94Magna_Tom (Feb 23, 2021)

TeamHellhound said:


> Oh, so you did a full trial, then? The club nearest me is only doing a couple of elements per trial, which is how they also do their UKC trials.
> 
> Simon is currently working on a cocktail of birch, anise, and clove. This is my first time doing a cocktail, as my older dogs were introduced to one odor at a time. They were eventually on nine odors, birch, anise, clove vetiver, myrrh, wintergreen, thyme, pine, and lemongrass. Yeah, I knew we were super unlikely to compete in SDDA, but it was fun to train the odors.  C-WAGS doesn't use lemongrass any more.
> 
> I just got some new containers and play sand so that we can practice buried hides. Back when the girls were training, you could use soil, and that's what they are used to.


Soil sounds more challenging than sand. More realistic too. I wonder why they don't train it now?


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## Skylar (Jul 29, 2016)

94Magna_Tom said:


> Soil sounds more challenging than sand. More realistic too. I wonder why they don't train it now?





https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn-origin-etr.akc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/17150512/Regulations-AKC-Scent-Work-Changes-Summary.pdf



Babykins started with buried in soil and she does well with our local soil..... but we can't train when the ground is frozen and you can't bury hides for a trial in winter. We still train occasionally with buried in soil for fun.

In parts of the country that have clay soil most dogs were not qualifying because the soil didn't allow odors to escape easily (clay packs too densely).

Changing it to containers with sand makes trials more unform across the country. There are different types of sand with other issues such as whether to wet the sand and with how much water, indoor or outdoor- still lots of variables. Our first trial we had buried in sand outside after a horrible rain storm - yes we earned Qs - and I would consider what we searched to be both buried in sand and water. They didn't do a good job covering the boxes of sand when it poured rain.


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## TeamHellhound (Feb 5, 2021)

94Magna_Tom said:


> Soil sounds more challenging than sand. More realistic too. I wonder why they don't train it now?


Originally, the lower levels were in containers of either sand or soil, and the higher levels had the hides buried in the actual ground. Due to possible additives like fertilizer and such in commercial soil, it was changed to just play sand, which is more consistent nationwide, and doesn't have anything added to it. 

Due to safety concerns in places where soil borne diseases like Valley Fever or Blastomycosis are common, they changed the higher levels from buried in the ground to hidden in a container of water and/or sand.


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