Monday, September 24, 2012

Heel? What's That?

Gidget and I participated in our first AKC obedience trial this past weekend.  I was super nervous!  Thankfully there was a friendly face at the novice ring (thanks Cyndi!)  The judge was super nice too.  We were a little too ready to go, the judge had to remind me to wait to enter the ring til she called me in, oops!  Gidget seemed super excited, maybe she was just more awake in the morning, or she may have been very interested in leaving the nearby exit door.  Whatever it was, this was not the same dog I had at our walk through held in the same location, same ring even, a while back.  That dog lagged and sniffed, this dog forged and wasn't even close to heeling half the time.  She completely ignored a halt too.  Between the on leash heeling and the figure 8, the judge suggested I loosen up the leash some (she really was nice and helpful).  I wasn't used to how Gidget was working with me, plus nerves, so the leash had been tight for most of the exercise.  The figure 8 went a tiny bit better, Gidget got the halts, the leash was looser, but it still wasn't very pretty.  Skipping to the off leash heeling (get the bad stuff over with), it wasn't pretty at all!  She even left me by a good 10+ feet in the direction of the door.  In all this ugly heeling Gidget did have a few brief moments of being right on, where I truly felt connected with her.  When I say brief though, I really mean brief.

On to the good stuff!  Gidget's stand for exam and recall were perfect!  I didn't think to check to see what our score was so I don't know that they were really perfect, but in my eyes they couldn't have been any better!  I just remember thinking, "Look how straight she sat!" during our recall.

So after all that messy heeling I thought for sure that was an NQ, but it was time for the stays.  The sit stay was going just fine until I was about one foot in front of her on the return, she stood up.  The down stay was one more perfect exercise!  Next time I'll have to remember to send her positive thoughts through both stays, "Good Gidget, stay right there, good girl..."  I'm sure that's why her down stay was perfect!

The judge read off the qualifying teams after the stays... we were the only ones to NQ :(  Not that I was surprised at this point.  The judge came up to me afterwards and asked if I knew why we didn't qualify.  I thought for sure it was the horrible heeling, but no, we had qualified for the individual exercises, lots and lots of points off, but qualified.  No, it was that Gidget had stood up before I got back into heel position during the sit stay!  One tiny little thing had kept us from qualifying.  Though had we had perfect stays, I would have questioned a Q. 

I was feeling kind of emotional when we were all done.  Sure I was a little bummed, but I think it was really just the relief of it being done.  I had been really really nervous!  More so than Gidget's first agility trial I think.  Anyways, I was kind of in a hurry to get out of there, but was pleasantly surprised that two strangers separately stopped me to ask how we did and encouraged me to stick with it.  I've always heard that obedience crowds can be iffy, I'm really glad I got to see the really good part of the crowd!

So lots for Gidget and I to work on.  Especially need some sit stay proofing and lots of heel work!  Hopefully some more walk throughs in new locations will be in our future.  Happy agil... er... obedience!

Monday, September 10, 2012

Really Good Trial Day!

The girls and I participated in an AKC trial in La Crosse this past Sat.  It was an all around really good day (with room for improvement)!  Unfortunately my camera batteries died part way through the trial so most of the videos were on my mom's camera.  I have to wait til the end of the month to get them and will add them to this post then.

Exc A Std was up first.  The teeter was at the end of the course and the course looked really fun.  I was thinking, "Finally a chance at another Exc A Q!"  Gidget rocked the course, a great attitude, did everything I asked of her, but her darn handler had to go and do a couple really sloppy front crosses.  Bad handler!  I believe it was the first of those sloppy front crosses that got us a refusal.  So NQ for us. 

Gracie's Nov Std course was up next.  We had a bit of a long wait before we could start, long enough for Gracie to get a tiny bit distracted anyways.  I love in the video you can see her attention snap back to me with just a couple shakes!  I don't know if it was the long wait or just nerves of the first run of the day, but Gracie wasn't quite ready to play with me when we started.  She had to go check out the teeter first.  She put one paw on the teeter (which the judge apparently didn't see) then came back to back jump the second jump before continuing on for a perfect rest of the course.  1st place Q!

Exc B JWW was next!  The course called for several front crosses (especially since I don't care to do rear or blind crosses with Gidget right now) and I was determined not to have a single sloppy cross this run!  I focused on my footwork and placements during my walk through.  I gave myself a bit of an attitude change too, trust that Gidget will do what she's supposed to do and focus more on doing what I'm supposed to do to help her succeed.  So when I said "Ok" at the start line, I took off watching Gidget out of the corner of my eye, and got to my spot for my first front cross.  I'm sure it wasn't perfect, but it was a whole lot better than my crosses in the standard course.  I kept it up and we made through the whole course perfectly!  The only kinda not so great thing was that Gidget took the weaves super slowly.  Oh well, 3 more points for us!  Will add video when I can.

Gracie rocked her JWW course!  My favorite part was sending her to the tunnel from the previous jump, then sprinting over to the landing side of the next jump to be ready for a front cross.  It's so fun to be able to do that!  1st place Q and Gracie's first AKC title!  Will add video ASAP!

Last of the day was Time 2 Beat.  I was tempted to pull Gidget from this one because we had to do the teeter twice.  I'm glad I didn't, not that we had any success at the teeter, but her attitude was wonderful for the rest of the course.  I did get Gidget to do the teeter the first time it was up in this course, but it took some work and time.  We ran out of time the second time we got to the teeter and she refused to go near it.  I should have thought to end our run after the first kinda successful teeter and ran off to party, but I didn't.  Future plan for teeters at trials: if we see the teeter a second time in a trial day (she has little/no problem with the teeter the first time she sees it, she just doesn't want to do it again), when she does it successfully run off and have a party! 

Gracie rocked the T2B course too!  She was the second fastest qualifying dog!  She even did 12 weave poles (first time seeing that in a trial) without an issue!  I think she actually did 12 better than she did 6.  I think this bodes well for us for when we get to Open!  She's really turning into quite the solid partner!  T2B videos to come too!

Man, I have to wait til the end of Oct. for our next trial?!  How will I ever survive?!  Oh yeah, a new training building, more classes, the Canine Good Citizen test, an obedience trial, and CAT!  Can't wait!  Happy agility!