#(side note: I did the math the other day and realized that she would've been 15-16 during her relationship with Anna and got really sad)

[autism-swagger]

Villanelle is such an interesting character to me, because over the course of the show you slowly realize she's like that because everyone treated her like she was inherently, intrinsically evil since birth. She quite literally does not understand emotions or people, and no one ever bothered to explain them to her.

[hazard-and-friends]

trial debrief (1)

this post is about the NW aspect, next one will cover EVERYTHING ELSE HE DID RIGHT

NW1 is 4 searches: interior, exterior, containers, vehicle. there is 1 hide in each, and you must get all 4 hides in 1 trial in order to title. this trial had a pass rate of 44% which is about normal for NW1s.

here i have linked the virtual walkthrough. we did exterior and vehicle back to back (the two i was most worried about) and then containers and interior back to back. i was worried about exterior bc mr the man likes to pee on upright surfaces and peeing is an automatic excusal. worried about vehicles just bc we haven't done them much.

exterior: pronounced! we waited inside a barn, then walked out, had about 5 feet of space, and then the start line. i held him back in that empty space and we did a little focus exercises so that he was actually paying attention, before i turned him to the start line and cued search. he went right in, scooped into the right wall, investigated the pooling smells there, then went to the end of the bench. 31 seconds, i think i could have called it earlier but it was LITERALLY THE FIRST SEARCH OF THE DAY WE WERE TEAM 1 so like. took some deep breaths and waited for him to be clear. (from judge comments the pronounced was bc of making sure he was engaged before starting? i think. i'm not clear. this wasn't a search he found particularly difficult.)

vehicle: pronounced! THIS IS THE ONE HE KILLED ME ON. he did in fact walk out and got very confused about why there were cars. why there were people. why were we standing in a parking lot :c :c :c. i dragged him (not quite literally) around both cars. he was disengaged and then decided to go sniff the barn wall. in my first correct decision, i let him. when he was satisfied i was able to turn him back to the car, he tracked an odor from the wall to the first car, stuck his nose up in the air and thought about going up. i engaged my brain, realized the odor must be on the other side of the car/between the two cars, and brought him around to the front of the cars. then--iirc, but our search video isn't available yet--he nailed it pretty quickly. took us TWO MINUTES TEN SECONDS of a time limit of 3 min, i was praised for my patience and handling. i did not kill him. this was literally half of our total search time.

containers: my second heart attack and honestly the other search i think should've been pronounced. 18 boxes in 3 lines. he comes in, blows past the first two lines, starts working his way down the 3rd line and skips a couple boxes at the end. asshole. eventually checks MOST boxes. stops on one box, sniffs intently, moves along. i make a mental note. stops on a SECOND box, sniffs intently, raises that paw...moves along. jo is on record as saying she would've called it then. then he went right back to the first box, stopped, sniffed, tapped VERY gently with his paw, i called alert. the math here was that if i waited for him to box smash, we would've gotten a fault, but you can get a fault and still pass. if i called it early and was wrong, that would've been that. 1 min 12 seconds.

interior: walks in, ponders the people, sniffs the videographer's shoes, i redirect him easily, walks down the mirror, SEES A JO. jo ducks out of sight, he contemplates the mirror and then alerts on the hide. 27 seconds. no fuss.

overall: i am super duper hecking pleased with his ability to search in 4 new locations while i am at the other end of the leash fretting. i am pleased with myself for not losing it in vehicle. we won no awards for speed but that's never my goal with him so that's ok. THRILLED HE DID NOT PEE.

alert behavior still involves a paw lift but he's gotten very delicate with it and we did not get faulted for it in vehicle even tho lots of people did so. not going to fuss too much.