My first working trials event ...

So spent a few hours at a working trials event today .
Every one seemed nice ,a good few different breeds ...

2 points i did notice
1. Everyone was moaning about just missing by a certain point or half point, which reminded me of my mum when she doesn't win at bingo by one number .lol
2 .90% of the competitors where women of a certain age ..lol

I watch the tracking from a distance and the control and scale/jumps pretty close...

In trials you have to gain 70% of the available marks in each section and obtain 80% of the total in order to qualify for a CoM.

So the minimum mark to qualify in UD/WD Open for example is 160/200.

What some participant focus on is the .5 mark which they missed rather than look at the bigger picture, if you got 159 instead of 160 you actually failed by 41 points, not just 1!

The majority of all dog sports are made up of middle aged women as they have the disposable income and time to devote to them.

I thought you might have been at Three Shire Schutzhund trial today and watch the West Herts Working Trial tomorrow.

If i was aware of it i would have done ...lol

I re read the post you mentioned the events in and never noticed the 3 shires event till now ...DoH!!!

Totally wish I could drive, or knew someone locally who does WT as I would definitely love to spectate at some point!

WT is probably not the best spectator sport tbh

At first it seemed a bit like forumla 1 - until you know what's happening and you've had a shot you don't really get it (not that I've had a shot of an f1 car....)...

I seemed to be the only local amongst the folks i spoke to ..
Hope they all had enough petrol to get home .lol

Yeah... I did some googling and found a local lady who used to do WT... dunno if she still does... and that's a HUGE ask if she still does, to invite myself along if or when she goes to an event! and pick me up en route as the council has cut all the buses.... impossible!

I hope so too....

There can be a lot of travel involved. However in Scotland you can trial approx once per month to two ot only months. There's couple quite close to home for me, two or three about an hours drive away.

In the trials I attend there's quite a few people I see often and about 10-20% I do not know and who are not local (but for this purpose I would call 'local' Scotland!)

In the future I'd love to buy a caravan so when I'm at a trial a bt further away from home I can make a weekend of it.

I would have been at the Three Shires if it hadnt have been for my "dear father in law"

I forget i live in the SHIRES sometimes so when i see things like 3 shires written down i don't put the 2 together ..lol
Only been here 4 years so that my excuse ...