Griffin’s Obedience and Agility Trials

Both events were ultimately not that exciting.

The obedience trial was especially disappointing.  Before our turn, I had to leave for another commitment!   At the trial site, Griffin was very excited and his arousal level was much higher than at an agility trial.   We’re looking for another obedience trial to enter and will be changing our warm up plan to help him better settle.  With as excited as he was, he probably would not have been able to do his best work.  I don’t know if he was just more excited that day or if the environment specifically was that much more exciting to him?

Last weekend, we did our first USDAA agility trial together. I was really excited because we had done run throughs at the location and he was really great (other than slipping on the floor).  I was also excited to do two days of trialing. The only other time I had done that was over 10 years ago when Blaze was 18 months old and we were entered in junior handler classes at a USDAA trial.

Good parts of the trial:  Griffin was fast.  In training we struggle with speed. He’s never slow, but he doesn’t put in anywhere near maximum effort, maybe only 75%.  At the trial he was definitely 100% effort and speed.  His start line stays were also beautiful. They did not deteriorate at all over the weekend. He was just as steady and still and calm on the last run as he was on his first run.  This actually surprised me, if we were to have a problem this is what I expected.   He kept up all bars, even on a tight part of the course and with the slippery floor.

The less great part:  Extreme interest in visiting the bar setters. I expected this at the CPE  trial last month but he didn’t even glance at the people.  Thinking back, I don’t know that he saw them. At this trial site, the wall areas are clean and the bar setters really stand out. Every single run he did some amount of visiting.  Outside of the ring, he showed little or no interest in people.  In the ring, he was sure they were long lost friends.  Someone watching commented that it was unfair my friends were working in the ring during my turn. She couldn’t believe my dog didn’t actually know those people. No qualifying scores, but I as surprised that we did have a few placements.

So…now we have some training to do before our next event.  We’re hoping our training plans will have both quick-fix parts and some long term impact.