Viktor is almost 3 years old. He’s very physically and behaviorally immature. One of our vets thinks it may be possible that he has some type of dwarfism considering some of his physical traits (40lbs!) and behavioral traits (very puppy-like). We’ve done a few rally (heeling) trials at our ‘home base’ training facility but finally were ready to enter somewhere else!
Facility
Heeling training
I made a misjudgement entering this trial…I thought it was at a different location (fairly spacious) and two weeks later. But about a week ago I discovered my errors and we quickly did some more last-minute training to prepare.
We were at the Hamilton Dog Training Club – two hours away from home and just big enough for one ring. The great thing is that means there are 2 sides of solid wall and that there’s a door really, really close to the ring. The bad news – lots of people/dogs in the space. The club is awesome. It’s apparent they host a lot of events as they were so prepared with ribbons, prizes, stewards, set up of rings, smooth transitions, etc. No shaded parking, but really good outdoor dog walking.
Viktor’s Turn
As I’ve done obedience and rally before, we were entered in the B class (experienced dogs or handlers). Viktor was definitely not as skilled as some other teams and it was a “hard” course for him. Right turns make him happy and help him focus. This course had mostly left turns.
But it went well, Viktor mostly had a loose leash, he stayed mostly on task, and only looked around a little. A big accomplishment for him was no barking – sometimes in the past he has barked at me out of excitement. He did try to rub up against me for scratches and even eyed one of the walls, asking to rub against it. As rally scoring is it’s own interesting thing, we ended up with a 94/100 and the first of 3 needed passing scores for this level.
What’s Next
I’m tempted to hurry back in and do more trials with him. But I also know that we’re a long ways from being ready for the next level. We likely will take some time to do more training before we make our next attempt. I need to do a better job of bringing him inside when we host trials or visit trials so we gets more training practice in that type of environment. I also need to do more to get him out in group classes -either as a demo dog with me or while someone else is teaching classes.