skip to main |
skip to sidebar
The automatic finish still hasn't resolved itself but I stopped worrying about it after I checked the rule book and realized that you don't need to do the finish in pre-novice :) Then other family issues came to a head and I just about forgot about the trial altogether.
Yesterday was the big day. I wanted to get up there super early so I could relax and watch the other classes. Unfortunately I was going to be the first up in the pre-novice class so would not have an opportunity to watch someone run through it first. 'Oh well, it's all for fun', I told myself. 'Then why', I asked myself, 'do I feel like throwing up?'
Two hour drive in the fog and rain to the show site. Got there early, but not super early but no problem. Found a parking spot...pottied Clancy and staked out a spot by the ring.
Things I learned:
- Don't stake out a spot by the ring with Clancy.
In my jumbled, stressed out line of thought, I figured having him with me would give him a chance to acclimatize to all the activity and dogs so that he would be able to focus on me once we got in the ring. Yeah, didn't work that way. By the time we got in the ring, Clancy was climbing the walls. Focus? Heeling? Sit? Never heard of them. I don't know if it made it better or worse that the judge is a member of the obedience club I train with. He must wonder if we ever attended a class.
Clancy did hold his sit (all 30 seconds of it - longest 30 seconds in history!) which redeemed him a bit, enough that I didn't actually put the 'free to good home' sign around his neck. There were four entered in pre-novice and none of us qualified. I'm now re-evaluating my 'pfft...it's only pre-novice' attitude.
After we were done I put Clancy back in the van over the lunch break. I vowed that he wasn't coming out again until it was just time to go into the afternoon class. The waiting is the worst part....constant second-guessing: should I get him now? No, not yet. What about now?
We were supposed to be second into the pre-novice class but I ended up having to scramble as the team before us didn't turn up. No problem. Got Clancy and had him heel from the van to the site, throwing rapid fire treats to keep his attention on me. Into the ring, with a 'well, we couldn't do any worse' sigh and....
Clancy was the little dog I was expecting. He heeled beautiful, with full attention. Got every sit - if I had to be picky I'd say they might have been a little crooked but good thing I'm not picky at all. No lagging, no forging on the circles left/right. Perfect recall right to front (and a straight sit!) Oh, so proud of my little brown dog.
Did you notice I didn't mention the sit for exam. Yeah, that was where he nq'd. For almost a year we've been training the stand for exam. So he knows what to do. I like to think he was trying to be helpful. I put him in the sit. Judge said 'leave when ready' and Clancy's little brain went 'oh no, mom forgot - I'm supposed to be standing!' and popped up to a stand. I mean, how do you be mad at that? Even the judge let out a 'darn'...LOL. I put him back into a sit and he stayed for the rest of the exercise.
So no ribbons but that's okay. The judges and show staff were great. I learned lots and had fun and made it well worth the money. And now that the first trial is under our belt, bring on the spring show circuit!
Oh no! Smart little sheltie has decided obedience is boring and he'll spice it up a bit. Even though we don't practice the front & finish, he's put the two together and swings to heel on the recall. Gack, two weeks to pre-novice and *now* he decides to get funny?! I'm trying to re-teach him using the 'around' instead of a swing heel. But two weeks! I do not work well under pressure.
Sweet talked my daughter (okay, bribed her) to video Clancy's excellent progress with the weaves. Of course, I edited out the multitude of unsuccessful weaves. Where's the fun in that?
Then of course, my videographer lost interest and started her own monologue.
It's so hard to find good help nowadays.
I was so excited about Duffy that I forgot to even mention Clancy's training progress in the last post! He's doing so well, maybe I just figured it would be superfluous to mention it. Hehehe...superfluous. That doesn't come up in training too often.
Clancy's obedience work is proceeding apace. We're entered in a pre-novice class next month to see how a trial run under trial conditions goes. He shouldn't have any trouble with the pre-novice exercises (knock wood!). His focus improved dramatically post-op. Somehow those little girl dogs (and the occasional boy dog) just don't seem as enticing as they did before he was neutered. Much to my relief. There's lots of fine tuning needed. He tends to forge on the heeling patterns - I'll take that over lagging any day! Figure eights suffer mostly from my inability to actually make it through the pattern without getting dizzy and stumbling. What's with that? His group exercises were solid - recently I've seen some going down on the long sit. In his defense, our training class is very late at night (well, after 9:30 pm) so I think that's his way of telling me we should be home in bed! So we'll see...we'll see...I'm hopeful to be trialling by the spring. Ever the optimist, I even bought him his own dumbell last week.
Agility. Did I mention that we started agility training last spring? Did I mention that he loves it? Did I mention that he's fast. Much faster than his handler. I'm not sure how he manages to arrive at what he's supposed to do without any effective coaching from me. Our biggest hurdles (ha, pun intended!) are the weaves - the evil weaves...or weevils, as we call them - and the teeter-totter. Big surprise.
Channel weaves & weavamatics, he did pretty good at the introductory sessions. But once they were upright, he lost all concept of what to do. And apparently my attempt to train him only ended up confusing him even more. Sorry 'bout that, little buddy. So this past week we went back to basics and retrained with the 2X2 method. After just a few days, it's 'clicking' with him. And because we're training on grass he's loving the big chunks of cheese that I have to throw so that he can actually find it in the wilderness. Our new 'tug-it' toy from Clean Run is in the mail LOL.
The teeter is a little trickier as we don't have one to practice on at home. I'm not as worried about that as his issue is that he loves it. He gleefully goes barrelling across, clearly loving the BANG as it hits the ground. So the next few lessons will be working on teaching him some self-control on the teeter.
I`m constantly amazed and impressed with Clancy`s attitude. He`s a wonderful bundle of confidence and sheer joy. It`s going to be an interesting run.
Wow, that's embarrassing. Here it is September and the last post was November. So we didn't quite disappear for a full year. Just an almost-year!
I'll lie and say we've been just so busy training and competing that there hasn't been any computer time. Sure, that's what I'll say. This is the Internet...no one can prove me wrong. Except maybe all my Farmville friends who'll fink on me LOL. We have been doing lots of training, a bit of fostering, and just general keeping busy with kids and school and work stuff.
A Finnegan update, seeing as the last post was mostly about him. He was adopted into his forever home about a week before Christmas. Much to our relief and my children's delight as I refused to put up the Christmas tree while he was in the house. Finnegan was a darling dog, but basically a four legged whirlwind with energy to spare. If it weren't for the whole working full-time thing, we might have considered keeping him. I would have loved to do agility with him as he would have had a blast! But there's a time and a place for everything and now and here were just not the right match.
After Finnegan came Seamus. Seamus was a former rescue who was returned for rehoming. He spent two or three months with us and I cried when he found his forever home. There was serious second guessing about sending him off to his own family because I selfishly wanted to keep him forever. But it was a wonderful home and just a perfect fit, so all's well that ends well.
And now, now comes Duffy. Also a rehome. And here to stay. All that's sweet and gentle about collies is personified...er....doggified!...in him.
Finally, the smoothie of my dreams. It's a long story but the happy ending is that he's here to stay. He has inserted himself into our household with barely a ripple to disturb the calm. Even Mikki seems fond of the big guy. And Clancy finally has a trail walking buddy to crash through the bushes with. All is good.
*Doctor Who
