Woo Hoo! I earned my NW2 and broke a family record too! But first, I have to tell you we got up at 3:30 am to drive up north to Brainerd for my nose work trial. Let me tell you, that is early. Before arriving at our destination, we stopped and saw Paul Bunyan. Remember I saw him in Wisconsin a few weeks ago. I guess he travels like we do! Babe must have slept in because I didn’t see her. Mom says Paul is a part of Brainerd and a must see, so I saw.
My trial was at the Crow Wing County Fairgrounds on the outskirts of town. Bailie and Madison stayed home, but Mom brought Olivia along to coach me and offer me support. Olivia was kind of mad she wasn’t searching, but she was still nice to me. Olivia did her first NW1 at this location. It brings tears to Mom’s eyes as the two people she hung out with at that trial, Linda and Kathy, both passed away in the past two years, not that old and from different cancers. Olivia also failed, missing one hide, so we were not expecting a lot this time.
Well, I am Nelson. I earned my NW1 on my first try at fourteen months old, earlier than any of my siblings and the only one to earn the title on a first try. Mom ruined my NW2 last month because she forgot to have me search one of the two vehicles. This time she promised not to mess up. We had five searches – two vehicle searches, one container search, one interior, and one exterior search. There were nine hides total to find. You have to be perfect, or you go home with empty paws. Look who was perfect!
Forty two dogs competed, twelve earned their titles and I came in tenth. I was the youngest dog, but only by days as my Dalmatian friend Yogi was also there and he is a week older than me. There were some scary moments in a couple searches, but I prevailed. Two searches has a single hide, two had two hides and one had three. Of course the three hide search was last and it scared Mom. I am good at exteriors, so I was not worried, and of course, Woo Hoo! I aced it. Mom says it was my best search of the day. You can watch it in the video above.
Our family holds all the NACSW Titles for GBGV’s except for two dogs who earned NW1 Titles one after Bailie and one after Madison. Mom wants to stop that from happening again and it is looking good!
This title is amazing as I am only seventeen months old. Olivia had just turned two when she earned her NW2, and she was the youngest in the family at that point. I’m not ready for the next level just yet, but we are going to be training and I hope to maybe give it a whirl later this year. Until then, Mom and I are just going to be happy I have my NW2 Title.
PS: Did you notice in the video that she painted her nails fluorescent lime green for the trial? She really was all about lime green for our team on Sunday!