Obedience Trial #3

Gidget and I tried another obedience trial yesterday.  It did not go as well as our last one, but was better than our first try in everything but the down stay.  Gidget was lagging pretty badly for our heeling, so much so that she didn't complete an about turn with me during our off leash heeling.  She ended up crossing in front of me to get back to heel after I turned.  Her stand for exam was perfect as usual!  I was very pleased that Gidget didn't move until I called her for our recall, she's been standing up early a lot lately.  I did screw up a tiny bit there as my left hand was still in heel mode so I didn't have my hands at my sides when I turned to face Gidget.  Oops!  Gidget's front wasn't pretty, she was at more of a 45 degree angle off to my side.  Still a work in progress there.  Though it wasn't pretty, we had still managed to qualify up to there. 

Stays were up a short while later.  Gidget's sit stay was perfect.  She was between a giant stag hound and an extremely whiny border collie, so I don't blame her for being a little stressed out.  She did not want to lay down for her down stay.  I actually had to put my hand to the floor to get her to lay down while I was standing next to her.  Then she was standing as soon as I left her.  With repeated down hand signals she wouldn't go any further than a sit, and she did hold that sit for the rest of the 3 min. stay.  So more things to work on.

I'd love to blame the lack of walk through the day before (like our last trial had) and the lack of space to get a good warm up in (we did our best with the little space we had) for her not so great heeling performance.  Gidget did do wonderfully for our walk through a couple weekends ago at this location.  Our next trial has a run through the night before so that will help.  Not the best excuses, but they'll do for today.  As for our stays, we'll be doing more down stays while I'm walking courses and setting bars in agility class, that helped her sit stay.