Gidget and I attended our 2nd obedience trial ever at TCOTC today. We just got home half an hour or so ago actually. Last night we went to the run and done and got to do two lovely walk throughs with treats plus some extra play time in the ring. The fun we had yesterday definitely helped today!
Not much to say for our run today except we qualified! 2nd place out of 5 dogs, though the 1st place dog already had his title, show off :). We ended up with 186.5 points. Gidget's heeling was way better than our last attempt, but that's still where we lost the most points, 9ish between the on and off leash heeling. Obviously she heeled better at the run and done, I had treats on me and wasn't crazy nervous! 1 point off on our figure 8 and a perfect stand for exam, no complaints there! The rest of our points off came from the recall, she stood up a millisecond before I called her and her front was sloppy, as usual. Her stays were perfect! I couldn't be prouder of my pup!
We've been working on having more fun with our heeling and making her responsible for getting into position. When we're practicing I pretty much only lose her after giving her a treat, so I give her a treat and run away. Give her another treat when she catches up and run away again. Mixing that up with turns, circles, halts, downs, slow, fast, and the occasional skipping (me not her) makes it lots of fun. Playing like this has helped us a ton! We do a lot of short, fun, get into heel position work too where Gidget starts in heel position and I leap, hop, tip toe, skip, jump, run, or sometimes walk away in every direction and call her to heel. Both dogs really seem to like this game. Of course it just occurred to me last night that I need to be doing this with front too. Maybe, just maybe, that will improve our recalls. I've enjoyed improving Gidget's obedience skills (Gracie's too!) mostly in just the last month and a half. I hope we keep improving! More game ideas to keep our training fresh are welcome! Not sure when our next trial will be, but I hope to get our CD this year, and maybe even start open (scary!) Happy obedience!
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
Jinxed!
Gidget, Gracie, and I managed to get off the wait list for the American Rottweiler Club AKC agility trial this past Sat. I jinxed myself early in the day saying that I didn't care if either of the girls qualified in JWW since they both need to catch up in STD. Gidget's in Masters JWW and Exc STD, and Gracie was in Open JWW and Nov STD. So of course, neither dog qualified in JWW. Oops!
Gidget's JWW run was up first. The first 13 jumps were a fun bit of front crosses and turns and Gidget looked awesome! Then we got to 14, the weaves, she missed her entrance. The end of the course was fun but tricky and like many other dogs, the last jump of the course looked much more inviting than the tunnel which the second to last obstacle. Oh well, like I said, I jinxed myself! Gidget was plenty happy though and it was one of her fastest JWW runs!
Here's the video for Gidget's STD run. It's not pretty and I don't really care to talk about it. There were some good things: she got her weaves, I didn't mess up my front crosses, and she took the dogwalk after refusing the teeter. Let's focus on that.
Gracie's STD run was up next. I was really glad that the Mas/Exc classes were done in the morning, that meant that a lot of the people and dogs cleared out and Gracie and I didn't have to deal with them. I was a little concerned about how Gracie would run since she'd only been at this location once before and that was for a mini trial with way fewer dogs. Turns out I had no reason to worry! Gracie ran wonderfully! It seems she was a little worried, but just enough to throw off her first tries at her weaves in both runs, and both times when I brought her back to try again she was rather sniffy. Her head cleared quickly though as she completed her weaves on the second try both times and went on to finish nicely! Gracie got a 1st place Q in Nov B STD and her novice agility title! Gracie is now Grace O'Malley NA NAJ CL1 CL2-R!
Unfortunately the video I ended up with for Gracie's JWW run was about 10 sec of someone's feet and that's it. Oh well. We had a close call while waiting in line. A curious little sheltie got a little to close. Thankfully, between a short leash and quick reflexes, no harm was done and Gracie quickly recovered. It didn't help that Gracie's mat that I had set up before I went to get her was surrounded by dogs when I got back so we couldn't use it. I'd say we did pretty well despite these slight difficulties. For our run Gracie was a little distracted at first and ended up on the wrong side of jump 3 so we got a refusal and wrong course there. Then we had to take another shot at the weaves so another refusal there. Otherwise the run was great! I'm really just fine with Gracie staying in Open JWW for another trial or two though. She only needs one more Q for her OAJ and that can wait.
Gidget's second obedience trial is next weekend. I'm feeling fairly confident that it will go better than her first one. Until then, happy agility!
Gidget's JWW run was up first. The first 13 jumps were a fun bit of front crosses and turns and Gidget looked awesome! Then we got to 14, the weaves, she missed her entrance. The end of the course was fun but tricky and like many other dogs, the last jump of the course looked much more inviting than the tunnel which the second to last obstacle. Oh well, like I said, I jinxed myself! Gidget was plenty happy though and it was one of her fastest JWW runs!
Here's the video for Gidget's STD run. It's not pretty and I don't really care to talk about it. There were some good things: she got her weaves, I didn't mess up my front crosses, and she took the dogwalk after refusing the teeter. Let's focus on that.
Gracie's STD run was up next. I was really glad that the Mas/Exc classes were done in the morning, that meant that a lot of the people and dogs cleared out and Gracie and I didn't have to deal with them. I was a little concerned about how Gracie would run since she'd only been at this location once before and that was for a mini trial with way fewer dogs. Turns out I had no reason to worry! Gracie ran wonderfully! It seems she was a little worried, but just enough to throw off her first tries at her weaves in both runs, and both times when I brought her back to try again she was rather sniffy. Her head cleared quickly though as she completed her weaves on the second try both times and went on to finish nicely! Gracie got a 1st place Q in Nov B STD and her novice agility title! Gracie is now Grace O'Malley NA NAJ CL1 CL2-R!
Unfortunately the video I ended up with for Gracie's JWW run was about 10 sec of someone's feet and that's it. Oh well. We had a close call while waiting in line. A curious little sheltie got a little to close. Thankfully, between a short leash and quick reflexes, no harm was done and Gracie quickly recovered. It didn't help that Gracie's mat that I had set up before I went to get her was surrounded by dogs when I got back so we couldn't use it. I'd say we did pretty well despite these slight difficulties. For our run Gracie was a little distracted at first and ended up on the wrong side of jump 3 so we got a refusal and wrong course there. Then we had to take another shot at the weaves so another refusal there. Otherwise the run was great! I'm really just fine with Gracie staying in Open JWW for another trial or two though. She only needs one more Q for her OAJ and that can wait.
Gidget's second obedience trial is next weekend. I'm feeling fairly confident that it will go better than her first one. Until then, happy agility!
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