Fun Match

Up and at 'em early for a fun match today! It's about 30 minutes away and we got there at 9am.

Did our usual, left Red in the car while I carried in and set up the crate and all our stuff, then got him out of the car, took him around to the potty area (he never goes though), then went inside. We did a few warm ups, played some tug, then put him in the crate so I could get a coffee =)

I signed us up for one Novice Obedience run and one Rally Excellent run, since we're going to be going for our RE next month and neither one of us has done Rally in a long time!

Novice Obedience:

On-leash heel: Started out normal pace, then went into a slow pace. He bumped me a few times and the "judge" had us stop and start again. The second time he was better and didn't bump, but I requested not stopping us in the middle of a heeling pattern again because it throws him off. We went through it and he was fine.

On-leash figure 8: Very good! He's getting much better at not bumping as we go around the posts. Very happy with this.

Stand for exam: Great, no problem.

Off-leash heel: No problem, the same as the on-leash. Stayed with me fine. I think I told him to sit once at a halt because he was not paying attention and was distracted by what was going on in the next ring. But he was fine.

Recall: Great! Came in nice and fast and had a nice front - still a little crooked, but it was better than what he's done in the past, so I'll take it!

It was a qualifying run if it were a real trial, so that's all the matters! I do think he is bored with the exercises though, which is why he can get distracted during the heeling. He's been through it a million times!


Rally Excellent: He did fine. It's been awhile since we've done Rally so I hadto walk through it to make sure I knew what all the signs were. It was a tight course, but it was better than they usually have which is why I chose to do it. I hate it when they cram 25 signs in a little tiny ring - its difficult to manuever and easy to get lost. But we did fine - I think we would've qualified for that too.

I've been teaching Red the backing up heeling and its going quite well! At first I started to see if he would do it in front of me, but he kept backing up and out of my way as I stepped toward him, so we did it in heel position. At first I started from a sit and went backwards, but he'd just scoot backwards on his butt. But then I started heeling forward, then going backwards and he got it! I can't believe how fast he learns - its really neat to watch. And he was so excited to be learning something new too =) It's been awhile since he learned anything new. It's like I'm afraid to teach him anything else because I'm afraid I'm going to teach it wrong and then be stuck. He's the type of dog that is hard to fix once you've already taught it incorrectly. I'm going to have to start training for Open, though so I'll definitely need some help!