Leigh and Rhubarb | From Day One Setback To Master National Champions

Thanks for having me. This is, this is exciting.

Is it exciting? I think it's more exciting for me. I mean, is, go ahead.

It's really exciting. I, I mean, this whole thing has been a whirlwind, but I, I love talking about scent work, so I'm always excited to talk about it and, and this is a new, new thing for me.

Yeah, I, I love talking about it too. That's why I started this podcast, so I think we're gonna get along swimmingly today. Yeah. Did you ever dream you'd win this thing? I mean, did it ever occur to you you could win this thing?

Oh, uh, I dreamt about it for sure. My goal going into it was really like I wanted to make the top 100. I thought we might have a chance at the top 25, but it really didn't cross my mind that we had a chance of winning it. So it was a shock for

Yeah. That's so cool. Well, let me formally introduce what this is all about. I'm Scot, Murphy and Keeva's dad. And today with me is Leigh, who is Rhubarb's mom and the winner of the first ever AKC Master National Scent Work Competition. That's a little wild to say out loud, isn't it?

Oh yeah, I, I've heard it a couple times and it still feels like it's not real.

Right? Yeah. The first Scent Work Master National Champion. Have you actually said it out loud yourself?

Uh, my friend made me say it out loud to myself, and I almost cried a little bit.

Yeah. I want you to say it out loud again. Say it out loud.

Rhubarb, she's a Scent Work Master National Champion.

Yeah, because I, I've seen you write it and it just, it has, it hits differently when you say it,

Oh yeah,

I think. Yeah. Those three days look kind of like a crazy ride.

Absolutely. It was, I mean, we traveled 13 hours just to get there. So it was a whole four or five days of stress and fun and nerves and excitement. But it was a lot. It was great.

Yeah, and that first day, I guess, was a little rough. You did something that many of us who have competed at the Master level have done, and we'll get to that. Don't give that away. That's a little teaser for people to keep listening, but that first day. Was it rough? I, I kind of got that impression. Maybe at least one of the runs was,

It was definitely the roughest of the three days. For sure. It was kind of getting your bearings for the

Right. Yeah. Right. 'Cause it's a whole different, it's a whole different thing. Right. The way the competition was structured, it was a different environment. It was probably, alright, well we'll get to all that in a second. I can't wait. But I wanna know, first of all, your origin story in scent work, 'cause it doesn't look like you've done it that long.

No. Yeah. So Rhubarb, she turned two in June and she's my first dog ever. So I didn't grow up with dogs. I always wanted one. I got her 'cause I wanted a running companion and really didn't know anything about dog sports. But I got her in the early fall and I wanted her to be able to swim. So I, I signed her up for a swim class at our local training facility and the coach of our swim class ended up being our scent work trainer now. And she was like, this dog is great. Why don't you put her in sniffing? Like, she's a lot of energy. It seems like it might be good for you two to do together and build your bond. And I was kind of like, uh, what's that? Like, uh. It seems kind of silly, but we'll try it. And we were pretty hooked from the get go, but what really caught us was the Vizsla National was 20 minutes from my house. And that was our first trial ever. So you can imagine a national obviously is special, but having it be your first dog sport experience with a bunch of other people with the same breed, she did very well. She got all four Qs and a couple placements, so that hooked us off the bat and we've been nonstop since then.

So is it just the successes that's hooked you or is there something else about scent work that really kind of sucked you in?

It was the success and just realizing that her and I together could do something really cool. It really helped strengthen our bond. She started at scent work training at about six months. She was still very much a puppy. You know, she's super high energy, crazy, and I was trying to kind of rein that in. So finding something that we could work together on and really work towards a goal. I'm a super competitive person by nature, so it really clicked for, I think, both of us and helped us create a really strong bond that we've cultivated since then.

I love that, that it's something that you could do together. I had a similar story, like my dog was pretty good too, and that kind of hooked me in and then I, I got deeper and deeper into the theory and just enjoying the sport.

Right.

So that sounds pretty similar. Was there a point that you ever thought to yourself, wow, Rhubarb's really good at this? I would really dislike myself if I didn't pursue it, like all the way full tilt. Did that go through your mind ever at all?

I think it was more gradual for us. But I kept getting feedback from judges or trainers saying like, she's, she's really good at this. She could be good. And I was kind of like, well, like, yeah, she's good. She's, she's a high drive, high energy dog who loves to sniff, but I don't know what that really means. I don't know what good means. And then as we kept doing it and kept doing well, it kind of clicked that, hey, like maybe she could go far in this. And I started making friends in the dog world and that spiraled and, and now all of my closest friends are people who we sniff with. So it was gradual, but it has now taken over my life for sure. In a positive way.

Yeah. And it's, it's, it's amazing, that social aspect of it. It's something that's really rewarding that I never expected.

Yeah.

Yeah. So that

It's hard to make friends as an adult, so.

Isn't it? You're so right. So this is, this is just perfect. Alright, I just wanna give a little bit more context before we start talking about the actual event. So it sounds like Rhubarb is an exceptional dog, just reading through your Facebook posts. Starting out pretty young. You haven't really been doing it that long. Your Detective Q rate, I think you got your 10 for your title in 12 runs, which is about an 80% Q rate, which, that's insane. Do you have any idea how insane that is to most of us that are listening?

I started out, I was super nervous for my first Detective run. The first one I think was the only one we didn't place in, because I was so like, I don't think we can do this. We're not ready. And she found, I think, all of the hides in like four minutes. And I spent another six minutes checking the area. Like, I, I was panicked. But after that we kind of got a confidence boost and she really, we figured it out together. I know you've had an episode about the art of calling “Finish”

Yeah.

and knowing when your dog has, has cleared an area. And that's, that's I think the number one skill we've worked on in the past six months or so. That's really, really changed how we work together as a team.

And it's amazing to me, it doesn't sound like Rhubarb, you know, normally you keep a dog in that long after they found everything, they're gonna start false or just offering behaviors. But it sounds like Rhubarb's really honest.

Yeah, she's, she's a very honest dog, especially interiors, exteriors. She does have a trained final response that's more distinct for containers and buried, which is a lay down. So occasionally if I keep her in too long in those elements, she'll offer that. But I can usually differentiate the, “Mom, what do you want me to do? I'm just gonna lay down 'cause that's what I get rewarded for,” and an actual alert. But other than that, she's pretty honest. She'll search indefinitely if I ask her to.

What's the thing that tells you that this is just her laying down, that she hasn't found odor?

Well, I've tried to avoid it obviously, especially now, but she'll look at me and she'll give me this little mouth snap. She goes, and it's kind of like a sassy like, “Hey, come on, like we're done.” I, I've captured it on video a few times and now I can look for it. And it's her being like, “What, what the heck are you doing?”

That's great. That's great. I was also looking, so again, an exceptional dog and I'm sure you're tired of hearing this, which I know is not true 'cause we're never tired of hearing how awesome our dog is. Eighteen searches on April 2nd: two Detective, eight Master, eight Excellent. Eighteen out of eighteen. That is crazy what endurance that Rhubarb has as well.

Yeah, she has a ton of endurance. I mean, Vizslas are our go-go-go type of dogs. But early on when we were competing, once we got out of Novice, I entered her simultaneously for her Elites. So we would enter Advanced and Novice at the same time. And then as we moved up, Excellent and Advanced and so on. So she has a lot of practice doing a lot of searches in a weekend or a day, which I think has helped us a ton when it comes to these big events and just stamina in general.

I'm gonna tell you though, I did the exact same thing. I did Novice and Advanced, and then I did Advanced and Excellent. I entered double events and it started slowing for us when we got up to Excellent/Master. So I, I personally am in awe of the fact that you throw in a couple of Detectives and you were 18 for 18. I mean, that's just an amazing accomplishment.

Thank you.

Let's talk about preparing for Master Nationals. Did you do anything special to get ready? Did you change your training at all? Did you consider some stuff that you hadn't considered? Did you have a strategy?

Yes. My trainer, Summer Whitaker from Canine New England in Walpole, Mass is amazing. And she was just as excited as I was to be entering this event. She doesn't have a dog that she can go to Nationals with. So it felt like she kind of helped me through it and was just as excited to work towards that, which was amazing. So she set up a lot of searches for us in the months prior to practice the combined elements, the exterior/buried and interior/container, which I think was super helpful. Specifically placing hides like hide on a chipping container next to a blank buried box, very close. So I think those type of practice scenarios really helped Rhubarb distinguish, “Hey, there's odor here, but it might not necessarily be in what you're used to seeing it in, in a buried setup.” And that actually did, I'll, I'll go into the specific search later, I'm sure, but that actually did really help us in one of the final searches. So that, that was one piece of our training. And then the other thing that we did, which I think made a huge difference was we took two weeks off of scent work prior to the event and we just did fun things. Rhubarb loves to hunt. So we did some junior hunt tests and I took her up to our bird trainer. We did a lot of hiking, we did a lot of runs, and I just took all pressure off of her leading up to this trial, which I really think helped her stress level and overall just got her super psyched up and ready for the competition.

Do you think there was something, too, that she didn't do this thing that she'd been doing, you know, so much that I would imagine she loves and for like two weeks, and then when she shows up, she gets to do it again? Do you think that was it? Or was it really just more about letting her be a dog, not stressing her out, keeping her loose.

Both for sure. Every time we take a break from scent work and whether it be a couple days or a week or two weeks, I don't think I've ever taken much more of a break than that since we started. But every time we do take a little time off, she's like super pumped up to get back in the game. So I think that that was also a factor.

Cool. So you prepared for some of the combined events, which is something that we don't see in a normal scent work competition, gave her a couple weeks off in preparation. Was there any other kind of strategies you had? Because the, you know, some of the other differences, it was short times, although I don't think that was probably much of an issue for your team. 'Cause it looks like your dog's pretty fast. The scoring, the way they were gonna do the scoring, did you have a strategy for how you were gonna approach calling your alerts or not, or was that pretty much the same?

Yes and no. My goal for the first two days was just to treat it like a regular trial. I know that the scoring was different, but I felt like trying to think about that too much wouldn't help me or her. So first two days, I just treated it regular, focused on finding all the hides as opposed to calling “Finish” quickly. And then the third day, again, I'll go into the searches a little bit more, I'm sure. But my thought process was as soon as she gives me any indication that she's done, I'm calling it.

Alright. I like, so I, you know, I was, I was armchairing this Master Nationals. I was thinking, oh, if I could go, what would my strategy be? And I didn't come up with this until after I looked at the score sheets afterwards. It looks like if dogs found all the hides, they were in good shape. They were gonna be in the top ten, top twenty pretty easily. So it sounds like that you normally might call alert a little bit more quickly, but were just trying to be a little bit more sure in this. Is that correct?

Yeah, that was my thought process. I don't think in practice I did that because I still missed a couple of hides and I think the kind of like autopilot took over. We've done a lot of trials. So I think I just did what I normally do as much as I could. But yeah, in hindsight, and especially going to the next one, the dogs that found all the hides were good to go. Like every dog that found all the hides made it to the top 100, maybe top 20.

Yeah.

And then the last day, I think only six, six or seven dogs found all hides. So if, if you find 'em all, it seemed like you were in a really good spot.

Yeah. So you could take a little extra time to be extra sure. Alright. Alright, so let's go to Master Nationals. You're standing there, you just pulled up, you got out, you, you set up in the crate area. Did you crate out of your car or the crate area?

I did both. I, I had a great crate inside. But we also took breaks in the car.

Alright. So you set up. And you're standing there. Paint the picture for me. What was the atmosphere like?

It was really exciting. There were a lot of familiar faces and a lot of semi-familiar faces. I'm on social media obviously, and I knew a lot of people from posts and from, you know, debriefs and the AKC scent work Facebook page. So I was excited to see that there were a lot of really good dogs and handlers there. And it seemed like everyone was in the same mindset. There were definitely nerves, but everyone was friendly, introducing themselves. I met a couple people that I talked to on social media beforehand. So that was really fun to connect. But overall it was a really positive atmosphere, and especially during the briefing, I think everyone was rearing and very excited to get started.

That's cool. I do wanna get to the day by day breakdown, and I do want to hear about some of the specific searches and challenges that you overcame or that, I don't wanna say failed at, but, you know, some of the challenges. You did miss a few hides. So I do wanna talk about that. But before we kind of get into the nitty gritty details, I'm curious, what did the searches look like? And when I say that, I mean, you know, sometimes trials happen at these really cool venues and sometimes trials happen where they kind of have to set up search areas for you, interior and exterior, put some props out and stuff. What was it like there? Like let's start with the interiors. Were they offices or were they conference rooms? What, what did they do?

So the interior day one was offsite, actually. It was about a half mile from the Roberts Center in a motel. So it was two hotel rooms. One was kind of set up as a kitchen and living room area, and the second one was a regular hotel room with two beds. So that didn't feel like a staged search at all.

Now that feels awesome.

On day two, it was a little different. It was in the Roberts Center and it was a pretty open space. There were some more staged items. There was like a six person round table. They did have a ladder placed out there, and then some bins and boxes and that kind of thing. So that one felt more like what you'd see if the venue doesn't have a really nitty gritty interior space for the dogs to search, but it still, it still felt like a good search to us. The hide did end up being on a jacket on the ladder, so that was

Okay. Yeah. And then what about the exteriors? How were those?

The exterior day one was our hardest search. It was large, it was on a patio that was partially covered, and it kind of expanded down along the edge of the building. There was a bar area and a fire pit. And it was just, it was definitely the biggest search that we had all weekend. That was our, our, our hardest search as well. And so that was day one. Day two we went back over to the motel, and it was an exterior, two picnic benches, and some chairs set up. That one was a little bit more staged. So there was kind of a mix between more natural searches that didn't feel like things were placed and some other searches where there were definitely objects added to the natural area.

All right, let's go to the day by day. So let's talk about day one. You had a little bit of a, you said some panic traveled down the leash at one point. What happened?

I've told this story a couple times now, so hopefully this is clear, but it was our first search of the day, the large exterior space. I set Rhubarb off and she starts searching, working clearly an elevated hide that was along this bar area, and I don't know how long she was searching for, but I looked down at my watch and I hadn't started my timer,

Uh,

so I'm sure you know what that feels like, but I was like, “Oh my God.” And you only have two minutes, and the search area was huge. So I panicked. I press, I have some preset timers on my watch, so I pressed one minute and I just hoped to God that we had not already searched for more than a minute. But then while I was doing that, fumbling with my leash and my watch, I kind of turned and pulled her off the bar area.

Mm.

So she was kind of, she stops and she looks at me like, “What are you doing?” Which she almost never does. She's very, very independent. And I was like, “No.” So I re-cued her and then she eventually did find another hide along the wall. It was kind of, maybe it was like an outlet cover, but it was flush against the wall. I'm not really sure exactly what it was contained in. But she finds that, and I look down, I have about 15 seconds left, so I realize we don't really have time to go rework that elevated hide, and we've missed a significant portion of the search area.

Oh.

So I called “Finish,” we were under time, thank God, so I didn't lose points there. But it, it, it felt like a terrible search, which you don't wanna walk out feeling that way, and you don't want your dog realizing that you were unhappy. So we played tug and I tried to pretend like I wasn't upset, and I put her in the crate and I walked out and I was like, “Oh no, I just ruined the whole thing.” You don't know how many hides you missed, or if I, I assume that we had missed one because of the way she was working, but I didn't know if we'd missed more. And we had. So it, it felt terrible after that. But it was also kind of a blessing in disguise, because I got all my “oopsies” out really early. I was like, well, we can't do worse than that. Now I'm not gonna forget to set my timer. Rhubarb hopefully has no idea. She just got a huge reward. Sometimes I overcompensate with her reward when I mess up. So it, it did end up being good for us in the long run. We lost 20 points, 10 points for both of those hides. So we were immediately dropped down in the standings and were playing catch up for the rest of the preliminary round. But it ended up okay. Obviously.

Right. And you didn't know. You didn't know the results of day one until late, late, like two, three in the morning, right. For all the events.

Yeah, I didn't know until I woke up the next day. So that was also a super new thing for AKC. You obviously get a “Yes” or a “I'm sorry” at the end of your search. So that definitely added to the nerves and the experience overall of just not really knowing how you did.

So that exterior, one of three hides, puts you in 118th place. I mean, I'm just saying that for context of the, you know, the dog that ended up winning Master Nationals started out in 118th place because of that little foible. Are you almost happy that you didn't know right away where you were? Or would it have been easier, like, you get what I'm asking?

Yeah, I'm happy that I didn't know because I would've been more upset than I was. I was kind of looking at it from the bright side saying, okay, we probably missed one, but maybe that was it. Maybe we just missed one hide. And I, other people seemed to be walking out of there like, “Ah, I don't know how I did,” so maybe it was just a really hard search and not a lot of people got that elevated hide. So I was trying to be positive about it. I think if I knew how badly we really did end up in the standings, I would've been a little bit more discouraged.

Yeah. Yeah. So maybe it was a blessing that you didn't know. So you finished out day one pretty good. Containers two of two hides in 30 seconds, buried three of three in 42 seconds. You had a pretty solid interior search, it looked like, ended up the day 51st overall, which again, you didn't know until the next morning. I do have a couple questions about containers and buried. So two of two in 30 seconds. What was the pattern? Was it a circle or a U?

It was a circle,

Yeah. All right.

with the start line kind of as a break. So part U, part circle.

Yeah. If it's lines, I don't expect to see 30 second Master search times generally.

We did end up doing two, which this was interesting. She did, we did two passes, one pass one way, one pass the other. She found the second hide on the second pass, which is unlike her as well. And later, talking to other dogs, I, I heard that a lot. So the airflow in the containers room seemed to be that—and the judge had made a note of that in the briefing—that the air conditioning was kicking on and off, and that the airflow seemed to be a little bit funky. So it, it seemed like that was necessary for a dog to get both hides, which was interesting. And, and I'm glad we did it. I'm glad we went

I'm guessing that normally you don't make two rounds.

I don't make a rule of it. I like to do one pass, but my dog's a dog and the search areas are always different. So I, I base it off of her behavior. Sometimes she's so fast that I don't, I think she could have missed something. So sometimes we'll go back. And then sometimes she's dialed in and I'm like, that looked good to me. And there's not a ton of external factors, it's not super windy in here or, you know, it's not a an odd space, so we'll just do one pass. But I try to play it by ear.

Right, so this one, because it was some weird airflow, you chose to make those two passes, it sounded like. Was there anything you saw that led you to believe that you needed to make a second pass? Other than just knowing the airflow was a little funky.

Yeah, she got distracted by the camera person,

Oh, okay.

before she found a hide. She looked at the camera guy and I think she wanted to go say hi, to be honest, 'cause she was pulling on the leash a little bit. Because of that, I knew that there was a possibility that she had clicked out of her searching gear. So we did the second pass because of that and the airflow the judge noted.

Perfect. I think that sounds like you made a really, really smart choice there. That's pretty awesome. In buried three of three and 42 seconds, what was the buried pattern?

Buried was rows, kind of. I hate when it's not a circle or

I know, right? I do too.

It was the same room as day two. The room was an L shape, so the rows kind of followed the room. So it wasn't like four rows of five or whatever it normally was, because it was an like an offset L. So it was harder to kind of follow a pattern. They did—this is awesome to note and was one of my favorite things of the whole event—the dogs were allowed to go off leash in every search except for buried on day two, which was amazing because I love to run my dog off leash. I didn't run her off leash in containers because of the amount of people in the room. But I did run her off leash in buried, because that's where I find she's the most pressure sensitive. I think I mentioned before that she on occasion will give me a false alert if we spend too much time, and that I can reduce by being farther away from her. So I ran it off leash. And she went to the back of the room first, and it was kind of—the three hides were, I don't remember, was this day one or day two, where there were three? I think day one.

Day one had three. Day two had two.

Yeah, they were as far away as possible from each other. So if you think of an L,

Mm-hmm.

the corner and then the two ends of the L. So I tried to make sure she sniffed all the buckets, but she was kind of going right to the hides. So that made me feel a little bit more confident about if we'd missed a bucket. It seemed like she was sourcing them out relatively far away from where they were.

Cool. Tell me about the interior. How did the interior on day one go?

Interior was good. All of the hides were inaccessible, which I thought was interesting. The first room had two. There was a cabinet in the kitchen area and then the washing machine. Not really sure where they put it in the washing machine, but she alerted as if it was inside the washing machine and we got a “Yes.” So she found those two hides pretty quickly. And then we cleared the room. That was very straightforward as far as her searching goes. The second room was a little bit more tricky for me. It was pretty tight. There were two beds in there, so there's obviously the little alleyways between the beds and then between the walls. And the hide was in a nightstand on the far side of the room. But she, there was a closet on the near side of the room that was open, and she immediately went into the closet and started working up. So she was on her back legs, kind of sniffing around as if there was a high, high hide in the closet, and then put her feet back down and nailed the bedside table. So in hindsight, that was her working the odor that was moving upwards and then back to the table. But I made her check the closet again before we finished.

I think that's probably a safe thing to do, right?

I mean, anytime your dog starts working something that's high, it's a little bit nerve wracking for me 'cause elevated hides can be difficult. So I'm like, “Oh no. Is it up high in this closet? Do I have to make it a tough call or can it be more of a straightforward, hard alert that's very clear?”

Right, so she got the nightstand, and then when you took her back to the closet, it was pretty obvious then to you that she knew that that was the same odor and she was just dismissing it.

Yep. Right in and out, just 'cause I asked her to, and then I called “Finish.”

Oh, perfect. That's what you love. Alright, so, so day one started off a little rough, but you know, you got through it, right? 51st, so you're in the top 100. You're still doing pretty good. Day two. How did that shape out?

Felt much better. I got kind of a pseudo confidence boost from our exterior search. There were four hides in exterior, but we found three, and she found the three hides that we did find in probably 30 seconds.

This is crazy.

It was insane. It was one of her fastest searches to get those three ever. There was a hide in a cooler right next to the start line, then at the base of a post of this kind of pavilion thing that was covering the picnic tables, and then immediately to a hide on the picnic table. So she went bang, bang, bang. Three really quickly. So I felt like, okay, just let's just clear the rest of this area. There was a grill that was clearly well-used behind the picnic tables. So after she found those three hides, she went and started sniffing the grill, which to me looked not like odor behavior at all. She wasn't telling me about anything, and it was clearly the grill smelled fun. So I let her do that for a little bit and then she wasn't really calling off of it, it seemed like it was really yummy smelling. So I grabbed her harness and turned her around and sent her out back to the search area. And it turned out there was a mirrored hide on the other side of the picnic table right next to the grill.

Oh.

But in my head I was like, she just bang, bang, bang found three and then disengaged. And very often for Rhubarb, if she disengages, it means there's nothing else there.

Yeah. Yeah. She was self-employing at that point.

Exactly. Nine out of ten times—and this happened last weekend in our Master exterior—there was one hide. She found it and then started crittering. That's often what I see with her. So I felt I, even though she was stuck on the grill, I felt relatively confident about it, if that makes sense. So I turned her around, we searched the rest of the area and I called “Finish,” and that was one of our fastest searches. I'm not sure where we would've shaken out if there had only been three hides, but I know our time was one of the fastest. So even though we didn't find all four hides, I walked out of that search being like, that was phenomenal. We did it. I would've told you with 99% certainty that we'd found all the hides in that search. I felt so confident about it. Which again, blessing in disguise. I, I felt great going into the rest of the day.

And if you'd have found out that you missed one, you might, that might have bummed you out a little bit.

Exactly. So, although we did miss one, it didn't have a huge effect on our ending standing 'cause it was a preliminary round and I just got a confidence boost.

Yeah. Alright. So let's talk about interiors then. You were four for four interiors, seventh place, so a really good performance there. How did that shake out?

Interiors was a relatively straightforward search on day two. Just one room. I don't know how to describe it. It would've been an empty room. They, they definitely put some table—it was where containers was on day one. So they did give us the caveat that there wasn't gonna be a blank room. Usually it would be zero to three. But they said it was one to three because there was odor in there the day before. So that was a little bit of a help. There was one hide. It was on a jacket that was hung on the ladder in the middle of the room. Rhubarb did kind of one pass, one direction, hit the hide. I had her go one pass the other direction, and then we called “Finish.” It was very, very straightforward as far as interior searches go.

I guess I'm probably confusing people 'cause I said four of four hides. But I need to reiterate, it was a little weird the way they did interiors. They did the first two rooms day one, and this was just one room on day two. So it was just the one hide. But then your combined score was four for four.

Exactly. It was like a regular Master interior. They just split it up over two days.

Yep. And then you ended up getting seventh place. So that was awesome. And then buried, two for two. Fourth place. So another blazing fast. What was the buried lineup? What did it look like that day? Was it a circle?

Nope, almost.

Oh, I'm sorry.

No, I was really hoping for a circle. It was the same room as day one. A very, very similar arrangement. Maybe a little bit less of rows, more staggered boxes. But again, it was straightforward buried. There was really nothing notable about it. The hides seemed clean and she hit them very strong, so I was happy with it when we left.

So, day two, you're in 42nd place, so you achieved your goal of being in the top 100. Moving on to day three. And that's where things really came together it sounds like. So, let's talk about that last day. Tell me the story.

Yeah. My favorite search of the whole weekend was the interior/container, which was the first search we ran on the third day. They didn't do a briefing, which they had done for day one and two. They didn't do a walkthrough, so we were going in a little bit blind. They had given us a description of the search area, but it was a combined two spaces, two rooms that had an archway, open doorway. A conference room type boardroom with big table and lots of chairs around it, and then a living room with the kitchen on the side. And then a bunch of containers kind of strewn about. It was on the fifth floor of the Roberts Center hotel. So there was a little bit of some staging funkiness going on there, having the dogs take the elevator up. One to four hides, two and a half minutes. And this was definitely our best search of the whole competition. There ended up being a hide in each of the quadrants of the rooms. So cut into four sections, there was a hide in each one. Rhubarb hit off the start line a hide inaccessible. It was either on the countertop or in the cabinet right to the left of the start line. Then she kind of made a pass around that front room to the fireplace, which I'm sure you've heard talked about

No, I haven't. What about the fireplace?

The fireplace hide was the hardest hide of the whole competition. So there was a fireplace with three toolboxes in front of it and it had a mantle. And on the mantle there were a couple vases. Rhubarb went up and put her paws on the mantle and kind of did a shimmy along it and sniffed along the mantle, and then went down and sniffed the three toolboxes in front and moved on. So to me, that looked like clear odor behavior, but also she didn't hit on anything. So I kind of made a mental note to go back. But then she went into the back half of the room and hit the second and third quadrants. There was a hide on the whiteboard in the conference room, and then on the other side, on the wheel of one of the boardroom chairs. So that was pretty strong. So we'd found three, took her back into the front area and back to that fireplace, and she again sniffed the containers in front and stopped and looked at me, which is not her container alert, it's a sit. But that was like, “Hmm, Mom, there's something here, but where is it?”

Yeah, what's going on?

I did re-cue her, which I again do very rarely, but sometimes when necessary, and she immediately stuck her nose right into the vent of the fireplace in the middle of where she was going up and the containers on the ground and sniff-sniff-sit-look. So fourth hide, alert, “Finish,” I think a minute and 12 seconds. And not only did she do it fast and well, I knew we were right, which I think was the biggest thing that could have happened, because I had the hugest confidence boost going into our second search of the day. And I know I'd talked about how we prepared, but that was exactly the scenario we'd prepped,

Oh, okay.

a hide not in a container next to containers.

Right. Right. So that's where that practice paid off. I bet you, you were just like, heck yeah.

It felt so good. We did a huge tug session. She, she was psyched. I was psyched. The judges weren't giving any feedback, obviously, because they couldn't, but the judge knew that I knew that we were right. So she had said, you know, “That was great. Awesome job. You should be proud.” So it was the first time I'd gotten any feedback from anyone. I felt awesome. And it felt great that it was when it mattered.

And then buried/exterior. Tell me about that. So that was three hides. You did it in a minute twelve,

Yeah.

I think it was 50 seconds faster than second place. So another blazing search.

So that one was the only time I really felt like I, I had some strategy thinking going into it. I really was like, you know, I know we did really well in the first search. If we do have a chance at winning this, I gotta call it as soon as I can. As soon as I feel like it's, it feels good to call, I'm not gonna dilly dally around. Thankfully Rhubarb was super clear. So again, we were off leash in an enclosed patio area. There were a bunch of buried boxes on the brick of the actual patio, and then there was kind of some gravel landscaping along the edges that was also in play and some trees and shrubs. Rhubarb did a perimeter of the search and found all three hides in that first pass. There was a hide on a tree in the base of the kind of branches where they all split off from each other. There's another one on the other side in like an outlet that was protruding from the ground, and then another one in a bucket in the left front corner of the search area. So all low hides on the same plane, but in three different corners of the patio. So she did her one pass, went around, bang, bang, bang. And then I had her search the fourth kind of corner, and I, she looked at me and I called it. I think she sniffed all of the buried buckets, to be honest.

Oh yeah. Did you realize that at the time, or is it in retrospect you realize that?

I, I didn't ask her to sniff them. I know she passed by a couple, but there was a lot of wind moving around and kicking up and swirling, 'cause there's three walls enclosing and a fence in this space. So there's a lot of funky airflow. So I made a conscious decision not to ask her to double check anything, if that makes sense.

And, and why is that? Why did you make that decision?

She is so honest and so diligent with her odor that 99% of the time I don't have to ask her to find a hide. So I knew that if we had a chance of winning and if we were going to be competitive, trying to use that 1% to maybe find another hide, it wasn't worth it for me.

And waste, waste the time. It's a time, it's a time thing, right?

Yes, exactly.

Got it, got it, got it. Well, it paid off because you ended up taking first place that day. Which is absolutely incredible. How did you find out you won? What was that like? Paint that picture.

This, this was another one of—well, apart from finding the fourth hide in interior—this was the second best moment of the day. They had announced that they were gonna have the award ceremony at like seven thirty. So I assumed that we were gonna find out then or soon before. So I was hanging out. My New England teammates and I were gonna get dinner at the restaurant in the Roberts Center. So I was hanging out in the parking lot, walking Rhubarb, and I got a text and I opened it and it said “Rhubarb”—it was the results—and it had “won.” And as I was reading the text, I heard screaming from across the parking lot. And so I ran with Rhubarb to my teammates who were all screaming and excited. And they were like, “She won, she won.” And I was screaming, “She won!” and I was crying and everyone was giving me a hug and it, that was unreal. To find out that way with everyone there and, and being so supportive. It was very, very unexpected. But also it's immensely rewarding to have the people who were supporting me throughout the whole weekend. I cannot go without saying that the other ladies that were there from New England were so, so, so supportive the entire time. From when we had that flub up in exterior, they were like, “Don't worry about it. We're, you know, you guys are an awesome team. It doesn't—it's—you just have to make the top 100,” all the, all the right things. They said them. And then at the end they were just as happy as I was that we came out on top. And it's important to note, there were seven teams from New England, or eight teams from New England, and seven of them made the top 40.

That's awesome.

Yeah, we've got a stacked group.

Yeah, I guess so. I don't know if I want to come there to compete or not.

That's at your own risk. No, it's fun. We have a lot of fun, really huge scent work enthusiasts in New England, and we all have a great time.

Alright, so I've got a couple more and then we'll wrap this up. But this has just been, this has just been amazing. You had mentioned on social media that Rhubarb improved with every search. What did you notice changing in your dog, your teammate, as the time went on? What do you think that difference was?

Yeah, I think there were a couple factors. One, the travel, the first, you know, getting there, spending 13 hours in the car, it was clear that Rhubarb was a little bit exhausted from that, as I was, on day one, and we were both settling into a new environment. So I think that played a role. I think as she got more comfortable being where we were, she got better. And I do think as I got more confident, which happened as we progressed through the three days, she definitely felt that. She's not a super environmentally sensitive dog. She's not particularly reactive. And she did fine with the staging. She doesn't love when a bunch of dogs are, you know, in her space. But she's, she's pretty good as far as that goes. But I think she did get more comfortable being there as time went on. So that definitely played a role in our improvement. The structure of the competition played to our advantage, because she has a lot of stamina in terms of searching. So the three days of searching in that respect didn't bother her, and then it also was helpful for her to become more comfortable as it went on.

Yeah, it sounds like it did work out really well for your team in that respect. How did you celebrate your victory? Have you celebrated? What did you do and, and what did, how did Rhubarb celebrate?

Oh, we've got lots of treats, as you would expect. But the next morning after the competition, we drove to Michigan and I picked up my new puppy.

Oh wow. What?

Yeah, I didn't anticipate winning, because that took a huge positive but huge emotional toll. And then picking up a puppy on top of that was crazy. I don't know if Rhubarb really thinks about it as her reward. She's still kind of acting like, “Why is this thing in my house?”

I was gonna say, that doesn't sound like a reward to some dogs. They'd be like, wait a—

Yeah. But she did get a puppy. It's definitely not a reward in her mind, but she'll get there. And when we did finally get home after all that, our training club threw us a little celebration party at our scent work class with some cupcakes and some of our scent work training friends brought baked goods and I brought the ribbon in and showed everybody. So it was,

That ribbon. Is it huge?

Oh my God, it's almost as tall as me. I still don't know what I'm gonna do with it. But it's beautiful. It's, it's amazing.

Wow. What a story. So, thank you so much for sharing all those details. You did such a great job just taking us through the moment, taking us through the searches, making us feel like we were there. Just an amazing, compelling conversation. I can't thank you enough for coming on the podcast and talking about this.

Well, thank you so much for having me. I love talking about scent work and I love talking about my dog, so this was a lot of fun and, and I'm happy we could chat.

Yeah, we're not done yet though. Are you ready for Seven Questions?

Okay.

You know the routine, right? I'm gonna ask seven questions, looking for the first answer that comes to mind. Just give me a couple sentences. I might ask for a little bit more, but otherwise, just keep it to a couple sentences. Are you ready?

Okay.

What is Rhubarb's favorite reward after a great search and get specific.

Her duck toy is her favorite reward. She has quite a few duckies, but if I say we're gonna play ducky, she gets very, very excited. She's obviously very food motivated as well. She likes hot dogs and cheese, but a good game of tug with her duck Duffy is probably her favorite.

What's one piece of advice you'd give to your beginner scent work self, even though it really wasn't that long ago.

I would say video your searches. And you and not your dog. I didn't really get that advice until later on, and that was a huge helpful thing that I think really changed my perspective on searching and, and being able to be more in tune with Rhubarb's behavior. And then also just don't get too hung up on the competitive side of it. It is really fun to win, but it's also even more important to not necessarily lose, but NQ and be able to learn from those NQs and figure out what you can do better next time.

If your dog could talk, what would Rhubarb say about you as a handler?

She'd say I don't give her enough treats,

You gotta, gotta pay on a little bit more. You're a little stingy, huh?

And that I should let her sleep in a little bit more.

Okay. What's your dog's biggest search quirk or funny habit that makes you chuckle every time Rhubarb does it?

Well, she doesn't get distracted very easily. She doesn't alert on food, but she will tell me about birds. And she has pointed quite a few times in searches. Most of the time we can point and then be like, “Okay, thank you for telling me about the bird, let's move on.” But occasionally it's, it's cost us a Q or two.

What's the best compliment you've ever gotten at a trial?

There was a timer in one of the searches that, well, after the search had ended, maybe hours after, pulled me aside and said, “Hey, I was watching, I was the timer in your search, and I really thought it was amazing how you and your dog worked together and how you read her. And I was just so impressed.” And it really stuck with me because not only was it a great compliment, but she had remembered us specifically well after the search was over. So that was really nice.

And then came up to you. It wasn't just like after the search, as you were leaving, she actually, you know, found you to tell you that. Yeah.

You know, probably hundreds of dogs that day, and she came up to us specifically that day.

Yeah. As a handler, what's one thing that you do that you think really makes a difference and that maybe all of us as handlers should keep in mind that might improve our performance?

I think—this is something I tell a lot of people—always end on a good note. When you're training your dog, if it's not going the way that you want or they're not working the way that you expect them to or they usually do, find a way to make the ending of the training session positive, because you know they're dogs and they're just trying to do their best for you. So if you can set up the session in a way that makes them feel good about it on the closing note, I think that that makes a big difference.

And finally, are you going back next year to AKC Master Nationals to defend your title?

Hopefully. I'd love to go back again. I cannot imagine the pressure and the intensity I'll be feeling and how different that will be, but I love playing scent work with my dog, so I'm always game for another opportunity to do so.

All right, Leigh and Rhubarb, congratulations on making history as the very first AKC Master National Scent Work Champions. What an incredible story, and I think there's a reminder here that even when the first day doesn't go your way, or the first search doesn't go your way, you can still recover and finish on top.

Yeah, definitely. We've had our ups and downs, but she's a great dog and I try to be a great handler for her.

All right, Leigh, thank you very much. My name's Scot, Murphy and Keeva's dad. This is Alert! Scent Work, where we love to celebrate the dogs, the people, and the moments that make this sport so good. And until next time, trust your dog, set your timer, and enjoy your search. That was so much fun.

Thank you.