Something interesting happened after the post.
We hosted a WCRL rally trial on August 23rd. Griffin is not allowed to be running yet so we did the Level 1 (on leash) class. I haven’t been training him on any of these skills because he’s not supposed to be moving very much. Our last good training was in mid-May.
No photos. Enjoy this one from March.
Each run is out of 200 points – with an optional “bonus” exercise worth 10 more points (so it’s more like 210 points total). In the past Griffin has had really horrible scores at this level – barely passing. His off leash work in the higher levels has been much better.
At the trial we ended up with very high scores, 210, 209, and a 200 (I did the wrong bonus – so a perfect score other than that!). That means other than our handling error we only lost 1 point in three runs.
But was it perfect? No. Rally scoring is looser than obedience and my criteria in training is different than that of the judge in the ring. Some of his turns were not completely with me, I had to call him back twice when he thought about leaving. His stand was crooked. We have a whole list of details to work on. Some of it we have started on, some of it will have to wait until he’s further along in his physical rehab.