River and I attended a barn hunt trial at Dogwood training center in Ostrander, Ohio the weekend of July 30. I believe it was their first barn hunt trial and they did a wonderful job. I know it's labor intensive with all the messy straw, building the course, making sure the rats are safe and well cared for and making sure everything runs smoothly for the competitors and they did a great job. The first day, River and I didn't do so well. She finds the rats fairly quickly but her alert is very subtle and very quick and she wants to move on and unfortunately, I don't always know if she's found a rat so we didn't qualify either trial. On Sunday, I was determined to get our final Q for Open and move up to Senior. I watched very closely and when River sniffed a particular area for 3 seconds I called it and found a rat. The second rat was a bit more difficult. I saw River barely scent one area and she ignored the rest and then she was standing along the gate. She was d...