Working Trials

Working trials is an exciting challenging sport for any dog & handler. Often described as the canine equivalent to three-day eventing in reality, is the civilian equivalent to police dog work. Dogs & handlers work against a set standard & have to be physically fit as it is a demanding sport – certainly for the dog & often for the handler! Working Trials has an established history dating back to 1924 when the Associated Sheep, Police & Army Dog Society held the first event. In May 1927, the first Championship Working Trial to be recognised by the Kennel Club was held by the Alsatian League & Club of Great Britain at Castle Bromwich.

All breeds can participate & compete, mainly GSDs border collies & a wide variety of gundogs but a huge variety work from a great dane to a papillon! Weimaraners can excel within the sport with several competing with some degree of success.

Dogs progress through ascending stakes ~ Companion Dog, Utility Dog, Working Dog, Tracking Dog & Patrol Dog which includes manwork.

The sport involves three main disciplines: Nosework, Control & Agility. The dogs need to excel in all three areas to be able to achieve the necessary standards & gain qualifications.

There are Open Trials where Certificates of Merit are gained & Championship Trials where Qualifying Certificates allow the suffix - CDex through to TDex and PDex - to be gained. In order to qualify you need 70% of the available marks in each section & 80% of the total marks in each stake to gain either a Certificate of Merit at an Open Trial or a Certificate of Excellence at a Championship Trial.

Nosework: In the tracking stakes – UD, WD, TD and PD, the dog follows a scent track laid by a tracklayer, walking a set pattern determined by the judge. The track is approximately half a mile long & laid on a variety of ground surfaces from grassland, ploughed field, crop to heathland. As the dog follows the track it has to find & recover articles placed along the track by the tracklayer. In UD the track is aged for half an hour before the dog works, in WD one & a half hours, in TD three hours & in PD two hours. The other component of nosework is the search square, where the dog has to search for & retrieve articles placed in a marked area within a set time limit.

Agility: Consisting of a three foot clear jump, six foot scale and nine foot long jump.

Control: Consisting of heelwork, sendaway, retrieving a dumbbell, sit & down stay, steadiness to gunshot & speak on command. In the PD stake, in addition to the control, agility & nosework exercises, the dog has to quarter the ground for a hidden person, complete a test of courage, escort a person following a search by the handler, detain a running person & perform a recall from a running person. These exercises are completed under strict control & the dog has to qualify WDex before entering the Patrol Dog stake.