We make a few trips up north each year so that the dogs can go to their wonderful rehab vet. We’re most concerned about Viktor’s legs right now. We like to time the trips with dog show opportunities.
Friday: We entered an obedience trial somewhat close to home. Griffin was entered in Beginner Novice, Pre-Novice, Pre-Open (first try), and Rally Novice. I realized I had left my only 6′ leash at the training center, so we detoured by to pick that up on our way to the trial and arrived at the trial site during the Pre-Novice and Beginner Novice judge’s briefings (separate rings). I wasn’t too worried about missing most of it because I’ve done both classes before. We were first dog in one ring and second in the other. The judge said they were not allowed to start early and would be starting at the listed time, which gave us about 5 minutes to get inside.
Beginner Novice – Not so great. We have been very focused on Novice and I had forgot that the BN exercises are in a different order. This resulted in some interesting handler errors and a non-qualifying score. His attention was good, I just made too many mistakes.
Pre Novice: Heeling was again lacking. A perfect score on his stand for exam! A few years ago I thought that we would never be able to do it! We ended up placing in this big class even with our poor heeling.
Pre Open: One of the biggest changes from lower levels is that the rules say handlers cannot hold the collar between exercises – so I was worried about keeping him with me. It wasn’t a problem – he was so happy and on task. We had NQ’s on two exercises – he didn’t do the drop part of the drop on recall and he managed to touch the broad jump with every single paw. His retrieves were excellent!
Rally: I did a great job walking the course – we managed a 99 (of 100). There were many parts I wasn’t happy with but that is a personal best score for AKC rally.
Sunday: We had entered another day of AKC obedience – this time up in Minneapolis. While this is only my fourth day of trialing in AKC obedience, it was my absolute favorite trial day ever – I had some not so good experiences with a judge, but it was so much fun to be there with friends. We didn’t get any qualifying scores but we had many great parts. We were there with friends (from different states!) and had carefully planned to enter Novice – including the long stays – so that we would be next to a dog we have trained with many times.
Pre Novice: The judge didn’t do a walk through (explaining starts, stay position, which direction to circle for the stay, etc) – or she did but started early which isn’t allowed per the rules, but apparently sometimes happens . On leash heeling was awful – he even stood on his hind legs to look over the fence! But off leash heeling was much better. We lost 17+ points for on leash heeling and only 3 for off leash! We had a perfect score on our stand for exam. His figure 8 was much better than on Friday. I think we also had a perfect score on the recall.
Novice: This class was in the same ring as Pre-Novice and very soon after our first event. One of our friends was very nice and convinced the judge to start on time as was printed in the premium and to not start early – that gave me enough time to get back inside for the briefing. Griffin did well – not much was different from half an hour before – other than the on leash heeling was better, probably because he had time to get used to the room. Another perfect stand for exam score! We were allowed to move onto group stays. However- we were counting on our friend being there and a known dog next to Griffin – and our friend chose to not move onto stays! Griffin was near a calm sheltie. That dog stood up right away and I wasn’t worried – I knew any mistakes on our part would not impact their score at this point. Griffin did the sit well. On the long Down he did change positions – but he remained in the same location. That change of position resulted in a NQ. I’m feeling much better about entering Novice in the future!
Pre Open: I made two big changes from Friday – I chose to use a verbal Down cue instead of a hand signal. And I used a “Jump” word instead of “Over” for the broad jump. Both of those were successes. We NQ’d due to wandering on heeling. I did learn that I can call him back once and still pass – but also that judges are more picky about this than they used to be. I’m really happy with how well he handled moving around the ring and the different exercises. His retrieves on both days had no mouthing!
After the trial we went to a park and took pictures. I’m really excited to train and enter more trials!
Things we learned:
- Rules say the judges cannot start before the printed time. But some do. Be alert!
- My dog can do group stays.
- Our heeling has been deteriorating. We need to address that.
- His retrieves are great!
- Especially in higher level classes there will be exhibitors who want to ask judges about their scores – this means that if I’m in the next class there is going to be a delay – and it’s hard to predict how long of a wait.
- Judges and stewards like to give advice. They know things about rules. But they aren’t always going to know the best thing for your dog.
- My dog can do perfect stand for exams!
- It’s way more fun to trial with friends than by myself.