Working Trials in the Midlands

hi All,

I would like Jenzi to be involved in working trials when she's older. She certainly is able to pick things up quickly and now I have her recall as I want it to be, I can concentrate on other areas of training too.

Obviously I'm starting off with obedience because I think it's a basis for all other types of training/working for dogs. After all, without the most basic stuff in place, there's nothing to work on.

At the moment, wrt obedience, she's being trained in sit, down, stay, wait etc with an emphasis also on recall, retrieve, distance control (to start work on once recall and retrieve are sorted) and scentwork.

I've been told that I have to start off the recall and retrieve in a certain way (old school training) but then I'll have to change it to suit the requirements of WTs. I don't accept this and have decided to train Jenzi in recall, retrieve and scentwork/tracking in as close as way as I can think of to WTs.

If anyone has experience of WTs and can give me any advice I'd be very grateful. I train her every day, without fail. At the moment she's only 6 months old so she can't do anything re competition for at least 12 months. Personally, seeing how quickly she picks things up (apart from recall) I think that's more than long enough to get her to a very high standard to a point where she will at least be placed.

Also, does anyone have any experience of or can recommend somewhere within the West Midlands area where I could take Jenzi purely for WTs training please?

Laura xx

We don't do working trials, but we are running a tracking day near Nottingham on 3rd October 2010. It is being taught by an ex search & rescue and security instructor from the RAF. A great, entertaining friend of mine. Have a look on the events page of our website for more details if you are interested. Whatever you decide my advice on working trials - buy lots of warm waterproof clothes - it always seems to rain!

Afraid I don't have experience of WT but both Leamington and Rugby DTC have WT sections - I think Rugby is quite ad hoc and you say when you want to do it and they put it on as I understand. We go to Rugby for agility/obedience - they have a set up that suits us where you pay £58 for the year and can attend as much training as you want in all the disciplines offered. Works out very cheap if you have multiple dogs and want to do more than 1 class...