Mary Quinn | Judging AKC Master Nationals

I gotta tell you, I know that you're not excited to be on a podcast, but I'm excited that you're on this podcast.

I don't know it's really my cup of tea, but I'm always happy to talk to you.

Thank you. I was wondering if it was me or you just love promoting the sport.

A little bit of both, but certainly you're a big draw.

Thank you. I'm gonna tell you, you're not gonna like this first little part. We'll get past this first part and then things are gonna be okay. I really enjoy you. I think you're a great judge and a great person.

You're so nice. Somebody pay you to say that.

When I chaired my first trial, I called you because I knew I was the weak link because it was my first time chairing and I needed strong links and you were one of those strong links. Judges who are good at what they do, set fair and challenging hides, just get it done. So I wanted to thank you for that too, and I just love talking to you about stuff, and I want other people to realize that, although I think you're trying to keep it a secret, aren't you?

I don't wanna get too popular.

That's what I figured. This is Alert! Scent Work. My name's Scot. I'm a scent work competitor and Murphy and Keeva's dad, and today it's Mary Quinn, who is a judge and also a competitor. Although we don't talk about your competitive life that much. Whose dog mom are you? Do you have one dog, multiple dogs?

I have two dogs. I have my veteran Labrador Gryffie. He's nine and a half. He's been with me since the beginning of this journey and we certainly grew together. He waited for me to catch up to his skill set, but he's been a wonderful dog and very talented at scent work and we've had a great time together. And then my rookie in the house is Opie. He's one and a half years old. He also is a black Lab. His approach to life is that it's fun and it's a big comedy. So it's been a learning curve to adjust to a different dog's way of doing things.

I know so many people that have this scenario. They have the dog that got them into scent work because it was better than them. And they were like, I wanna give this dog a fair shake, so I'm gonna get better. And then the second dog is the clown, right?

That's absolutely what I have, but I appreciate them both for their unique attributes and I'm having a lot of fun with both of them.

Yeah, I'm getting that way too with my other dog. I'm starting to appreciate her for who she is. I wanna know, before we get to talking about judging the AKC Master National, I wanna know a little background 'cause I've never really had this conversation with you, which is crazy 'cause I've worked with you and shown under you numerous times. What is your scent work origin story? How did it all begin?

It really started with barn hunt, and it started with Gryffie, of course, when he was a puppy. As I do with all my dogs, I always had treats in my pocket. When he would do something good, positive, I rewarded the puppy, but with Gryffie he always had his nose stuck to my pocket. I quickly realized that I needed to do something with this dog and his nose. I saw an article in the paper about barn hunt, and we went and gave that a try, and he did pretty well. There were some parts of it that he didn't particularly enjoy. Then I found out about scent work and we made the switch and we were immediately hooked and haven't looked back.

What was it in particular that hooked you? What was it that really sucked you in and made you say, I'm all in on this?

I think it was just watching the dog do what he could naturally do. This amazing ability that our dogs have to play this sport and use their nose is something that we can never understand, and to watch them do it amazed me. I was fascinated by the anatomy and the physiology behind it, and I enjoyed doing something where the dog was in charge. I wasn't asking him for anything. I wasn't telling him what to do. He was leading the way and I had to try and catch up.

So many people know you as Mary Quinn. You're a vet in a former life. Do you think that's part of the reason you said you love the physiology of it all? Is that part of the reason you think you love that aspect? Because some people like the odor theory. I've never had that answer before — the physiology.

I think my background allowed me to see it a little bit differently and try to understand what was happening in the dog's nose and the dog's brain. It also gives me a unique perspective because I spent my whole career reading dogs and understanding what they were telling me about their clinical problems. But with scent work, it's a two-way conversation throughout the search, and I find that fascinating and so rewarding.

I've heard that a lot lately and it's starting to dawn on me that this is really a game of conversation.

Gryffie and I have a whole conversation throughout the search without even saying a word.

I know.

We can't say a word, but it's truly a two-way conversation and I love every minute of it.

I didn't realize that until recently and it's redefined the sport for me — how I participate in it and how much I appreciate it. That paradigm of knowing this is a sport about conversation is super powerful and definitely something I didn't know when I was just telling my dog to find it and waiting for the final response.

I think we don't totally realize until we get to the upper levels.

No, you don't. So you were into it as a competitor and then you decided to judge. What took you down that next level?

I think I was hooked on the sport and I started to trial around enough and I had experienced good judges and less than good judges. I wanted to contribute to the sport in our area because it was growing exponentially. I thought, well, if I become a judge, that gives the local clubs a regional option. I knew I would do a good job and research and educate myself. I wanted to find a way to contribute.

You're from the Phoenix area, which is interesting because AKC scent work didn't really start until 2017, 2018. The Phoenix area is now a hotbed of scent work. There are great judges, great competitors, well-run trials. It's hard to believe there was a time that wasn't the case. You came in and contributed at that ground level. Must have felt pretty cool.

I definitely was at the ground level. Alex Woodruff is one of the big contributors to the growth of the sport in our area. I learned from her and experienced some of her trials, and I'm happy to contribute.

Let's get to the AKC Master National. What was it like to be there as part of the very first AKC scent work Master National from the judge's side? Were there any emotions when you showed up at the Roberts Center? Did you have any thoughts? Give us the lowdown.

A lot of the emotion and thoughts started before I actually got there, with the initial phone call from the AKC Scent Work Department. I got the call, Hey, do you want to come and judge the National? And I was like, absolutely, sign me up. It was exciting that we were going to have a National. It was an honor to be invited. There was a high level of excitement and anticipation. As we got closer, there was discussion about how it was going to work. I was assigned the Master Interior two-room day, and suddenly I got apprehensive about this daunting task and nervous about how it would all come out. When I got to the Roberts Center and they gave me my search areas, I went into judging mode and became hyper-focused on my responsibilities. Everyone was thrilled to be there and it was an amazing experience.

What were you apprehensive about when you found out you were doing interiors? You did interiors on the first day, the two-room, and then buried on the second day.

The way they set it up for the preliminary rounds was they wanted to give teams a Q if they got the search correct. The search parameters were similar to a standard Master trial, except the time limits were shorter. In Master Interior you normally have three spaces and must get room one correct to go to room two, room two to go to room three. But to ask one judge to judge one hundred seventy dogs on three rooms — I'd still be judging right now. So they split it over two days. On the first day I was given two rooms, and on the second day Silke had the third room, and they put those together as one Master Interior search. I was nervous because I'd have one hundred seventy teams going through my search area. My biggest concern was having hides stable over that time period. Ideally the odor picture for the first dog would be the same as the last, but over twelve hours that was impossible. I was most concerned about hide stability, but it turned out not to be a problem.

You mentioned there was talk about wanting to make sure the contestants knew they were correct when they finished the room. Did I hear that right, that they got all the hides?

That was another thing that was tricky for all the judges in that they were not told if they got the search right. Unlike a typical Master, everybody went from room one to room two, and everybody got to search room three on the second day. It didn't matter if they got it right or not.

I've talked to a couple other people involved, and it never dawned on me that that was another way things were different — that you didn't have to get the first room right to move to the second. I'm glad you brought that forward.

They didn't want to penalize teams, because if you missed the first room, then you missed the opportunity for two more rooms to get additional points.

You were involved, it sounds like. How involved were you in the conversations when they were planning and talking about how to make this happen? Pretty involved, somewhat involved?

I was not involved in the grand organization. That was up to the AKC Scent Work Department and the AKC Performance Department. But I did have some conversations with Halle McMullen, the AKC field rep, about how we were going to work the two-room interior on the first day, how we were going to handle the two-minute time limit, whether people had to get room one correct first to go to room two — things like that. My involvement was limited to how we were going to deal with this Master Interior.

Were there other conversations that we would find interesting? This planning aspect never dawned on me, but of course those decisions had to be made.

The other thing that came up was how we were going to deal with the time limit. We decided to give two minutes over the two rooms. If competitors used thirty seconds in room one, they had a minute and thirty seconds left for room two.

I didn't know that.

If they used a minute and forty-five seconds in room one, then they had fifteen seconds left for room two. When they called finish in room one, my timer would tell them how much time had elapsed. Then we moved to room two and they had whatever was left of their two minutes to use in room two.

And then room three — that was a whole new two minutes for the whole room?

That was another two minutes. That was the next day and a different judge.

Very cool. Did you have an overall strategy going into how you were going to design your searches? You probably couldn't make that decision until you saw the space unless you saw it earlier.

I didn't see the space until the night before day one. It was basically two hotel rooms with an adjoining door. One room was a sitting area with a couch, TV, table, and kitchenette. The other was a standard hotel room with beds and a bathroom. The interiors took place across the street from the Roberts Center at a smaller hotel owned by a local trucking company. It had been newly remodeled, so no dogs had been in the hotel and no scent work trials had been held there. That was awesome. Each space was about three hundred square feet. My biggest concern was how to place hides that would look the same for dog one and dog one hundred seventy.

When you were designing the searches, were you trying to design a regular standard Master level search, or were you trying to make it harder because of all the great dogs?

I thought about having all these great dogs, but the bigger challenge was everyone's nervousness. So I made what I would typically make for a Master Interior. I had two hides about ten feet apart at the same height, converging a bit on a neighboring table and causing some pooling, but it wasn't excessively difficult. The second room had an inaccessible hide in one of the nightstands. The hides were not difficult. The difficulty came when people overthought them.

The pressure was on — people traveled miles, it's a big event, the first event. You probably start overthinking stuff. Nervousness was a major thing you saw. Did you see anything else with handlers, good or bad?

It was quite apparent in the first search of the first day. People were twitchy and doing things they wouldn't normally do, like calling alerts on an obvious distractor. People settled into it over the first day, and by the second day they were not as nervous.

I talked to contestants and got that same impression — after the first search, people settled into regular trial mode. Much like it sounds you did. It sounds like you treated this like another Master search, keeping in mind your search area had to be viable for a long period of time.

I didn't feel like we were doing anything besides a Master trial. Yes, it was the National, but that came with its own stresses. I set hides that I would set for a typical Master Interior.

Overall pretty happy how everything worked?

Yes. I saw the same odor behavior throughout the day. I was happy with how things worked. The outcome was as expected.

I suppose you went back to the hotel with a smile.

I did. I was pretty tired, but I was happy that I didn't screw anything up.

I know that would've been a gut punch if the first few dogs missed something. I imagine you ran demo dogs too. Did you run one or multiple?

I had one demo dog available and everything was working fine. There were other demo dogs available if needed. On the final day, while I didn't judge, I helped, and they ran two demo dogs on both final searches.

I've run demo for you a couple times and one thing I admire is if you see something that isn't going to work — even a hint — you're thoughtful about how to handle it, and I've seen you move stuff as a result. I appreciate that because not every judge does that.

You want it right and fair. If you're not going to make changes based on your demo dog, then why are you running a demo dog?

Let's move to day two — buried. Tell me about that setup. What did it look like?

Buried was typical. The square footage was similar to a standard Master Buried. It was in a conference room emptied of tables and chairs. They requested we put down a plastic covering on the floor. The square footage and shape didn't allow for much creativity in arranging tubs. I was worried about hide stability, so I spread out the tubs as far apart as possible. It was a random pattern.

Normally it's thirty-six inches between tubs, right? So you could go even further?

As much as I could, yes.

Why did you choose that?

Because the hides would sit all day and I didn't want odor drifting onto neighboring tubs. I wanted the first dog to have the same opportunity as the one hundred seventieth.

Was anything going on with airflow?

The HVAC came on and off, but it didn't impact much. The search felt stable.

I was looking at buried day two — the one you judged. There were a lot of faults. Fifteen percent of handlers had faults. What was going on?

People were dropping food. People were double calling. Because the tubs were in a random pattern, they had difficulty keeping track of what they'd already called.

Makes sense. Again, nerves.

Nerves, and it's harder to keep track in a random layout versus a line, circle, or U-shape.

Weird question — did you have a good idea which teams would end up on top based on the two elements you judged?

I didn't, and I was fascinated by that. Everyone who was there was qualified. Every dog had a Master title. Many had Elite, Detective, and Summit titles from NACSW. I expected twenty or twenty-five teams to distinguish themselves clearly, but there was so much parity that anybody could have won. Anybody could have done it.

When you say parity, you mean everyone was kind of at the same level?

Everyone was the same. Even if they had a bad search or two in preliminaries, you didn't need perfection to get to finals. There were one hundred eighty points possible over the first two days, and I think the cutoff to get into finals was around one hundred thirty. You didn't have to be perfect.

I talked to the person who came in first, and her first couple days weren't extraordinary. Some teams were consistent, some were in the forties, fifties, sixties, and then came back on finals day.

It's interesting. If you look at the top finishers and go back to see what place they were in after day one and day two, you wouldn't have picked them to finish in the top four.

Someone told me their strategy was to save their dog — do enough to get into the final day, because they didn't need to beat themselves up. They just needed to be in the top one hundred. I don't know how many people did that.

Probably not enough.

Based on what you saw?

By the end of day two I saw a lot of tired handlers and tired dogs.

From stress, over-arching, everything. That's a strategy point I'm taking away if I go next year.

I don't think anyone would've known until we went through it.

Right — first one.

Yes.

What did you think about the scoring format? It's different from what we're used to.

At first I wasn't sure, but I think it made for a fair contest. It wasn't about being the fastest. It was about getting the most points on the first two days to get into the finals. Every team had an equal chance. High-drive speedy dogs weren't automatically on top. Methodical dogs who found as many hides as possible did well. That was because of the point system. I liked it.

I don't know how much you can speak on the third day. It had combined exterior, buried, and interior container. Did you watch any? Help with any? Thoughts?

I was not the official judge, but I stuck around and was Donna's elevator steward. I looked at both searches. Donna's interior container was truly a combined search. She had a conference room sitting area for the interior part, and containers spread throughout. A lot of people thought it would be a standard container search followed by a standard interior search, but it was truly combined. The same was true of the buried exterior setup.

Did you watch dogs? How did handlers and dogs deal with it? I'll pop in a personal experience — I've done an interior with novice boxes out and dogs got obsessed because boxes had value. People forced, thought there must be a hide in the box. Weird stuff happens. Did you see that?

I didn't watch dogs because spectators weren't allowed and I was staging dogs. But I heard afterward that people didn't even see the containers — didn't register they were there. In exterior, there were buried tubs around, and a water tub relatively close to a hide on a tree. Some dogs called the buried tub as hot. It presented interesting puzzles.

The first-place competitor I spoke to trained by putting buried and containers in interiors and exteriors, so when odor drifted onto them, they were ready. I never would've trained that way.

That's definitely a takeaway for anyone wanting to go to the National. I think it threw a lot of people. They assumed two separate searches — container and interior — and didn't appreciate the combined element.

You said some people came out and talked about not even noticing containers. That was probably for the best — let the dog do the work. Might have helped them.

From a judging point of view, what do you think the event got right? What impressed you?

I was excited and impressed that we had it. As a lover of scent work, having a National is amazing. It's something to work toward. The AKC Scent Work Department and AKC Performance Department should be commended — the logistics were daunting. The preliminaries being similar to a traditional trial was great. Then day three being a clean slate made it so anybody could win. The point system kept things even.

Nationals brought in top teams from all over. Did you see consistent strengths or weaknesses?

I didn't see regional differences. One thing that was cool was the kinship and camaraderie. Regions came together. The Texas group had custom t-shirts. The Northeast team had t-shirts. People brought support staff — extra people who weren't running dogs but were there to help handlers. There was a lot of camaraderie like a regular trial.

That's fun. Support staff — like boxing. Somebody holding leashes. Someone spritzing your dog's nose before the search.

They even had their dogs' names on their shirts, and the support staff shirts said support staff.

That's cool. Was there a moment over the weekend that stuck with you?

A couple moments. Some people told me they were thrilled to be there and brought their older dog out of retirement to do the event. That struck me because I have an older dog. They didn't think they had a chance to win; they just wanted the experience. That was special. There was also a blind dog there. I watched him a couple times — amazing that he was doing the same thing as sighted dogs. He made it to the finals. That says a lot about our sport.

I agree. That's something I love about scent work — the variety of dogs who can do it. Any age. We have a dog here with no use of back legs, with wheels, and that dog happily rolls through searches. And unusual breeds — not just Aussies, Labs, Border Collies. When a breed you wouldn't expect shows up and gets it done — I love that. Did you see any of those?

There were sixty-six different breeds represented. One cool thing was if you were the top dog in your breed, you got a medallion. There's an Akita from your area — Susie and Coco. Coco is thirteen and still giving it a go. She won the breed medallion.

Really? That's awesome.

She was the only Akita there.

We take the wins however we can get them.

Coco won't win land speed records, but she was giving it a go and did a great job.

Mary, are you ready for Seven Questions?

Ready.

You're the first to say that so confidently.

I've listened to your podcast.

Most people groan and gasp. You're prepped?

I was ready.

All right. Seven Questions with Mary Quinn. When I'm judging, beyond seeing competitors succeed, I love it when—

I love it when they come out of the search and say, that was challenging but fair.

Tell me your dogs' favorite rewards after a great search. For each dog.

I have Labradors, so it's food. It doesn't matter. It can be dry kibble, carrot — they don't care.

Do you use anything in particular?

Whatever comes out of the closet. They do not care.

One piece of advice you'd give your beginner self in scent work.

Treasure every trip to the line.

Yeah. You're one of those judges — in morning briefing you say that, tell a story, and people cry.

It has impacted how I view the sport because of my own experience.

Right.

It goes too fast. Our time with these dogs can go away quickly, and I have changed because of that.

What's one thing you wish competitors knew about being a judge?

I wish they knew how much we put into it, how much we think about it, and how much prep we do.

How should competitors process a tough day?

Let it go and realize they're going home with the same amazing dog they came with. The dog does not know or care if they didn't get the green ribbon or finish a title. They're happy to go home with you and try again another day.

Do you have a signature distractor?

You know the answer.

I hear your story.

I did not put it out at the National — that might put people over the edge — but my signature distractor is the farting ninja auditory distractor. It's a little toy with a motion activator that makes a farting noise. It makes people chuckle and dissipates tension and stress. Dogs don't care.

Maybe for that reason you should have brought it to Nationals.

I thought about it, but maybe that's too much. I'll keep it for home trials.

What's the best compliment you've ever gotten in a trial — as judge or competitor?

Usually it's from people who don't get the search correct but say, that was fair, I made the mistake, and I learned.

I said that to a judge last weekend. Missed two hides, but loved the challenge. We weren't ready today, but in three or six months we will be. If your dogs could talk, what would they say about you as a handler?

Depends who you ask. Gryffie would say I was extraneous. He'd say, mom, you hold the treats, wait at the start line, I’ll take care of business and report back. Opie thinks life is amazing. He'd say I was the coolest person in the world and he's having so much fun — can we do it again tomorrow?

What is your most memorable moment as a judge? Could be when animals kept showing up in your searches — you judged a trial for us and a moose showed up, and turkeys.

I don't know what that is. I don't know if they think I'm Dr. Dolittle. It does seem I attract animals into my search areas. I don't do anything to ask them to come — they just show up. At your trial we had moose and turkeys. Other trials I've had feral cats, potbelly pigs wandering through my search. It just seems to be me.

Mary, thank you so much. I know podcasts aren’t your thing, but I appreciate you coming on. This has been one of the most fun conversations I've had, and I knew it would be. Thanks for that inside look at judging the very first Master National. Competing is one thing, but hearing what goes into designing searches, planning the event, and watching the top teams work through them adds a whole new layer of appreciation. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thanks for having me. It was a joy and a pleasure to talk to you as always.