My chocolate lab, Atlas, and I are a Nose Work team. We’ve been training and competing for nearly 6 years now. He’s got a degenerative bone disease, so he’s not supposed to run. What do you do with a lab puppy full of energy who isn’t allowed to run? The trainer suggested nose work and I admit, I scoffed. But, the training wiped out my energetic pup and we’ve been at it ever since. It’s actually at the core of a novel I’m working on, but more on that later.

This weekend we headed to Salt Lake City to attempt (for the 3rd time) our NW3 title (Nose Work Level 3). It took many attempts to gain our NW1 and our NW2, so no surprise that it’s taking us some time to get to a NW3. A big shout out and thank you to Positively Tailored Dog Training for hosting a well-run trial at the Douglas Military Museum.

Sadly, Team Atlas didn’t title.  But we did come in 3rd place in Vehicles and 2nd place in interiors. Both of these are amazing results. And, because we were at a military museum, we got to search a tank and a group of field cannons–both of these are experiences Atlas has never had before.

We’ve got two more trials coming up in December, so fingers and paws are crossed. Frankly, Atlas doesn’t seem to care about the ribbons; it’s all about him having fun searching.

So, our journey continues.