This is one of my favorite trial photos. It was taken at Performance Scent Trial (PSD) Novice Exterior search in MD last weekend. From my big smile (you can still see even from this angle), you must think Niko nailed the search, right? Actually, this was our first search of a full trial day and the only search he failed that day. He wasn’t focused on searching; there was something in the environment that worried him and I couldn’t figure out what it was. So I asked the judge where the hide was and had a big celebration with him, even after he failed to find it.
To me, having fun and enjoying the process is way more important than winning in dog sports. Don’t get me wrong. I love winning. I am a competitive person. If not, I wouldn’t travel across the world to come to one of the best engineering schools for my Ph.D. I love winning because winning makes me feel good. But to me, feeling good is not the reason we do nosework or any dog sports. The main reason is that I want Niko to feel good. The fact that he can go to trials, stay there for the whole day, and not react to any dogs or people, is already a big win for both of us. So even when he fails in the search, I sincerely celebrate with him from the bottom of my heart. I want him to know that he is the most awesome dog in the whole world because of how hard he tries.
But after this search, I quickly reflected on what could have caused him to fail. I realized that I was also stressed, and we didn’t do our regular routine before entering the search area. So I adjusted my emotions and took some deep breaths for the rest of the searches. I don’t want failure to go waste. If I learn something from it, then failure is not failure, but an opportunity to get better. He really nailed the rest of the four searches. He got 2nd place in container search and 5th place in distance search. But to me, he did a fantastic job in all 5 searches.
Dogtor Linlin 