More AKC Obedience for Griffin

Last month we did our first AKC obedience trial. It was very small – I thought that was probably due to the show being on Friday. I’ve learned that it was probably more about the trial grounds/location. Yesterday’s trial was also a Friday but much bigger! Many more dogs entered, 3 separate rings and 3 judges – we got the opportunity to be in each ring!

Warm Up: The last trial was very, very hot and held in a barn at a fairgrounds. We went later in the morning so I had time to exercise him both at home and at the trial site. Due to the heat he was a little more ‘flat’ than usual.

This time the weather has been much cooler and our first class was at 8am (2 hour drive from home). I exercised him heavily the day before and gave him a 5 minute off leash frolic on the way to the trial. When we arrived we didn’t have time for a walk or much of a warm up – I estimated 4 more minutes but one of the dogs before us wasn’t showing.

Pre-Novice: Great! His on leash heeling was the worst part and everything got better and better as we went along. He had some expected errors (first heeling as the poorest, moving on the stand for exam) and mostly very great things. I was very, very happy and will be entering this class again soon for more practice before we go to real Novice!

Beginner Novice:  I accidentally entered us in “B” instead of “A”  – so we were in a class of 13. Like before – initial heeling was the poorest piece but things got stronger from there. I missed awards because I was in the rally ring and we left before scores were posted. Some parts of this were better than last time (figure 8). I wish I would have stayed or asked about our score to compare it to our first experience in this class. I do know we qualified! One thing we observed was many dogs NQ’ing  – during the “stay walk around the ring” portion several dogs got up as the handlers passed the ring gate – the dogs seemed worried about the handlers leaving.

Rally Novice: B: Huge class! 20+ dogs!  I almost missed the walk through and was the very last one. The course was much, much shorter than the WCRL ones I’m used to. We ended up with a Q but a low score due to some serious handler errors. I went slow at a fast sign….realized that when I got to the real slow sign at the end of the course!). I also didn’t think carefully enough and on a “Call Front Return to Heel” I did the similar WCRL sign of “Call Front About Turn.”  His overall performance wasn’t great – disconnected heeling, but very passable for rally and I don’t think it was a bad experience for him.

Other Notes: I’m new to AKC obedience trials – I repeatedly got ‘in trouble’ with the stewards for not knowing my numbers that had been emailed. It was a little stressful that all three had to question me and didn’t want to look it up (or let me borrow a judging book to look it up myself). Next trial – I will write them down on a paper and keep that in my pocket!

I also had one of my most unpleasant experiences – a large dog of a breed known for being…not so friendly with strangers… was hanging out with owners/friends in the bathroom. The dog growled at me and the handler barely glanced at the dog. I didn’t want to push it, so I left and came back later.

What’s Next: I’m ready to enter more! I want to also try the “Pre-Open” class.  Being at trials is addicting. I used to take a lot of agility classes and when classmates were competing it made me work harder and want to be doing that too. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in that type of environment. Attending events of the last few months has been very motivating – “I know we can do better next time!” This has helped our training and helped to prompt me to send in more entries.

Griffin and I need to work on our heeling. In familiar environments we need to work on lowering arousal and 100% focus. We also need to work on good starts in unfamiliar environments. And we need to go back to doing more distraction training.