The Sport
The search. The score. The standard.
The Search
A DDT trial is made up of elements. Up to four per trial. Each one a distinct search environment: a room, a vehicle, an outdoor space, an industrial area. A genuine challenge in a genuine place.
Your team enters and the search begins. What happens inside it: the communication, the decisions made under pressure, the trust that only exists between a dog and handler who have built something real together. That is exactly what DDT was designed to see.
The Scoring
Every element is scored across nine categories. Odour Location. Area Coverage. Obedience to Search. Handler Tasking. Handler Recognition. Odour Recognition. Commitment to Odour. Indication. Team Impression.
Each category sees something specific. Together they see the whole picture. Not just whether the dog found the odour, but how the team worked to get there. The communication. The precision. The quality of what was built between them showing up in the work.
Scores are recorded for every hide within an element, averaged across each category, and combined into a single Element Total. Judges Discretion is extra credit on top, rarely given, genuinely earned. The result is your Element Final.
Every score is permanent. Every result lives in DDT Pro.
The Divisions
DDT has three active divisions. Prelim, Novice, and Intermediate. You may enter at any level. There is no requirement to start at the bottom.
Prelim runs with one hide per element and five minutes to find it. Novice adds a second hide and increases the complexity. Intermediate gives your team eight minutes, between one and three hides per element, and does not tell you how many.
As the division scales, the hides scale with it. Placement height, concealment, distance from source. The nine categories and the way they see your team do not change.
You may ask for a time check at preset intervals during your search. In Prelim and Novice: halfway, one minute remaining, thirty seconds remaining. In Intermediate: halfway, four minutes remaining, two minutes remaining, one minute remaining. The time is yours to manage.
Not For Competition entries are welcome at any level regardless of what division you are running in. Come and work your dog. The standard is there when you are ready for it.
The Odour
DDT places no restrictions on the odour a team competes on. Birch, clove, anise, gun oil, narcotics, explosives, conservation, cadaver, bedbugs. If your dog is trained on it, you can trial on it.
Odours are grouped into three tiers based on complexity and availability. Tier 1 odours run at standard time. Tier 2 adds two minutes to the search. Tier 3 adds four. The clock adjusts to the odour. The standard does not.
The host provides the odour in most cases. Where an odour is rare, specialist, or requires a licence, the competitor provides it and the host accommodates. Every team runs on equal footing regardless of what they are working.
The Venues
DDT trials are held wherever a genuine search challenge exists. Aviation museums. Football stadiums. Cinemas. Libraries. Industrial facilities. Historic landmarks. Working environments.
Any venue that presents a real challenge to a real team. Because precision detection work happens everywhere in the real world, and the sport was built to reflect that.
Every Team
Any breed. Any size. Any background. DDT has no breed requirements, no experience prerequisites, and no restrictions on what a dog weighs or where a handler is coming from.
Nervous and reactive dogs are welcome. Bitches in season may run at the end of the day where odour placement allows -- speak to the host as early as possible and they will accommodate where they can.
The only requirement is a microchip or registration number. Everything else is between you and your dog.
Moving Up
Progression in DDT belongs to the handler. You decide when you are ready for the next level. You may move up at any time. You may never move back down.
Prelim asks for a trial win or three scores of 75 or above. Novice asks for the same commitment across five trials. When the work earns it, the door opens.
Qualify for championships at one level and move up before the event -- you may still compete at the level where you earned your place.
There is always somewhere worthy of what you are building.
Not For Competition
Not every team that steps into a search area is there to compete. Some are there to learn. Some are there to see how their dog handles a new environment. Some are there because they are not quite ready and they know it and they came anyway.
DDT welcomes all of it. You may enter Not For Competition at any level regardless of what division you are running in. Your dog works. The environment is real. The standard is there when you are ready for it.
There is no wrong reason to show up. The retired couple and their spaniel. The handler who has been competing for years trying something new. The working dog team seeing what the sport has to offer. Every one of them belongs here exactly as they are.