At Minster, on a Saturday, we reached the stage where we had a whole class of clients and dogs that had passed our top award of Gold II. We decided we needed a new target for them to aspire to so we created the Advanced Challenge! The Advanced Challenge consists of 16 very difficult exercises – from stays with distractions (eg placing bowls of food under their noses!), distance control with hand signals only to teaching 6 new tricks (some to be performed at a distance), scent recognition (being able to choose their owners scented article out of all of the groups articles), independent weaving and directional control (moving the dog left, right, forward and back at a distance) and more. All of the exercises require lots of time and effort from the owners practicing in between classes and a strong partnership with their dog.
We are exceptionally proud to have presented our first two rosettes to Vicky & Quincy who were first to pass the Advanced Challenge in February, closely followed by Ruth & Buddy in May. We are going to have to get our thinking caps on to find a new challenge for these two! Please join us in congratulating them.