Obedience Novice A Trial - for our 2nd leg

I wasn't sure what time to go there today, since they were splitting everything up into 2 rings, and since I'd rather be early than late, I decided to play it safe and go early.

We got there at 11am and the place was a mad house. There was no where to put our crate and I circled around for awhile before I was told a spot to put it. Sam and Mally and Glee and Maximus were able to set up pretty close to us, so that was good. Michelle wasn't there yet because she decided not to show Maisy, but was still going to come to watch us.

They were still doing Utility in our ring when we got there, so we had a long time to wait. I couldn't even check in yet. After Utility, the judge took a 30 minute break, then went into Open, which was another hour as least. We didn't end up going into the ring til after 3pm. Waaay too long for Redders to be in his crate.

I was really nervous today because he did not do well at the fun match this week. I didn't make a blog post about it because I didn't want to relive it. Basically, I yelled at him for chewing up hs crate mat just before we went into the ring, and during heeling he was off in left field and didn't sit at any of the halts. So I was extra nervous today just hoping to god he wouldn't repeat the performance. Plus I was a little cold, so I was uncomfortable which didn't help.

Anyway, there were only 2 people in Novice A. The 3rd person who was supposed to be there didn't show up. So it was just me and my friend Glee and her Doberman, Maximus. It was pretty cool to see the 2 dobes together. The judge gave us our briefing and showed us the heeling pattern - really nice guy and just stressed to us to have fun and don't worry! He even let us take a 5 minute break after the walk through to prepare our dogs, and waited til the awards ceremony in the next ring was finished so we didn't have to try to run during all the clapping. I thought that was really cool of him.

Once Glee and Max went into the ring, I went and got Red out of the crate. I fed him treats and did some focusing. I really wanted to watch Glee and Max, but I had to concentrate on not freaking out and getting Red focused! I fed the last piece of hotdog well before we went into the ring and made sure he wasn't going to choke it back up!

We were called into the ring and started our heeling pattern. The sits were ok, though a little slow. During the figure 8, I messed up my footwork on the halt and after that, he wouldn't sit at the halts anymore! gah! Th stand for exam was good, but th off-leash heeling was frustrating due to his lack of sitting at the halts. The recall was a very crooked front and didn't sit on the finish! grrr... At least the sits/downs were ok, though I was starting to worry on the down because he was very restless and was fidgeting a lot. It seemed like A LOT longer than 3 minutes... I just kept praying the judge would tell us to go back so I could release before he did something stupid! But it was fine and we qualified for our 2nd leg!

Here's the video:




We got a really nice silver medallion plus the usual green qualifying ribbon and red second plac ribbon. Here's Redders modeling his medallion (click to enlarge):



The score was 186.5, and the judge told me it was because of all the sits - which I already knew. I'm just so confused on why he would stop sitting all of a sudden?? He does it great during practice, but the fun matches and trials... who knows... Definitely something I'm going to have to grill into him. But no time now because our last trial is tomorrow to (hopefully!) finish our CD title!

I am going to be a basket case tomorrow...