Blaze and Griffin
Last weekend we hosted our third rally trial through WCRL. We invited students of all the classes to come and watch, trying to describe it as a type of “heeling competition event.” We ended up with a handful of spectators at various points and one of our young class attendees helped with time keeping for a big part of a day. He went home that night and was reading the rules and hopes to enter the next trial!
My favorite part was that we had four instructors/assistants participating in the event. In the past there have just been one or two of us. We had two people participate who watched in August and have been working on the skills since then. Both had great moments on course and those teams had a 100% qualifying score rate!
I had my first real judging assignment. I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy judging ‘real’ events as much as I love judging 4-H, but it was a lot easier and almost as much fun. I need to judge three more Level 1 classes before I can go into the process to start working on Level 2. It was challenging to be hosting the event and judging and trying to work my dogs.
Blaze had two really beautiful runs – we’ll ignore the crooked sits because at 13 he just isn’t able to move all the way into heel position. In his first ever attempt at Level 3A we did great with the directed jumping (his weakest exercise) and he did a really nice job with the position changes at a distance- I was worried about those because breaking a stay is a disqualifying fault. On our second run he had a moment of running out of the ring right after the start – right into the arms of the designated dog catcher. In our last run of the day (Level 2B) he had a really beautiful run, staying focused the entire time. I’m really sad we don’t have his good runs on video – our video person only remembered to get his run away! I really like that we were able to get in two bonus exercises that day. In the past trials I didn’t risk it. I really hope he will be well enough to run in our late August trial. In the past few months he’s slowed down quite a bit.
Blaze didn’t want to pose for a photo.
Griffin alternated between being very sharp and being incredibly sniffy (on the freshly mopped/vacuumed floor!). When he worked, the quality of the work was very nice, including position changes. In the last trial we had a few situations where he would do the wrong behavior (sit/down/stand) – this time he was 100%.
Goals for the next trial: Blaze being in good health to work- Blaze getting more Level 1 Q’s and Level 3’s if he has the endurance. Have his directed jumping stronger as well as the position changes. Griffin getting trained for a leave it, a better warm up routine, and fixing the anticipation in his moving stand.