What a Pawsome Day!!!

Today we had my clubs Obedience and Rally O trial. Love trialling up at our “home club”. It is always such a lovely supportive atmosphere and today was no exception… and we had stuff to celebrate today.

The weather was doing its best to be gloomy…

but we were having no part of that. Despite the rain on and off all day everyone seemed to be in good spirits and that helps us dogs. I know I like working with mum a lot more when she is positive and happy.

We started off with mum giving me the chance to blow off some steam and have a run around the nearby oval. She was a little concerned as I was hyped…. Think mum was worried I was warming up for Agility rather than Obedience & Rally O.

As the rain got a bit heavier mum was also a little worried I would repeat my “Princess Bodhi” act from the recent MMW trial and refuse to drop. Hold on mum…. don’t go making assumptions.

It wasn’t long and it was our turn in the ring in CCD. This was my 3rd time in a CCD Obedience trial. Every time I have been really good through the heeling pattern which is where lots of others don’t do so well. Mum didn’t think today was my neatest effort but I still did pretty well. Our Judge was also someone we train with at the club so mum was making sure we had “trial tone” in her voice and her mannerisms when we stepped into the ring so I didn’t think it was play time. I was even really good when our Judge patted down my back for the Stand for Examination. Oh and my Recall rocked!!! That is one of those things I’m great at in the trial ring and far more problematic when we are out and about… hehehe.

So we passed the heeling pattern and then it was time to wait for the “Groups”. This is when mum gets nervous. You see we have been here before. I do the hard heeling stuff and then decide to stand up at 57 seconds in the sit or do the sit and then decide I’m just not going to go into the down position (nup… wasn’t doing it). Lucky mum loves me… lots of cuddles while we waited…

One of my Agility mates got through to the “Groups” too and we were next to each other. My mum and his mum even had us practicing sitting beside each other before we went in. We were brilliant outside the ring of course…. but my mate got a little distracted when we got in. Just as the 1min Sit-Stay got started he decided to get up and check out what else was happening. Thankfully he turned left not right and went and sniffed the dog on the other side (don’t know if he was bored of me or maybe I didn’t smell so good). Mum said her heart was in her mouth and I think she was counting down the seconds. But I did it. And I did the 2min Down-Stay too. Hardly moved a muscle. And then guess what??? With a score of 91 points…. we won the ring!

It was then lunch break and I even got a yummy sausage (yes given to me and not stolen) for being such an awesome dog.

Then it was time for Rally O. Rally O was our first experience in trialling and for anyone who would like to do some sort of dog sport or obedience trialling we would highly recommend it as a way to start (must write a blog post about what Rally O is all about as it is really great). Our 1st trial was about 16mths ago. We moved through Rally Novice pretty quickly picking up our Rally Novice title at last years Sydney Royal Easter Show.

We then went on, and despite a couple of little hiccups along the way, got our Rally Advanced title.

So it means we are now in Rally Excellent. I have done OK in Rally Excellent. I had 2 passes (just…. with 71 points… need 70 to pass) and a shocker in our club trial back in Jan when I walked over the broad jump… oppps. Sorry mum. But I made up for it today. A really interesting course from the judge where it was quite tight with not a lot of room between stations. That is good because there is less time for us dogs to get distracted but mum needs to be conscious of her movements and the lines and angles we were taking. We really liked the course as it made mum think too. I started off with a little sniff rather than the weaves in an early station but after that I settled on in and worked well with mum. Actually pretty well and we got 92 points and won the ring! Oh yeah!!! Mum was just a bit excited.

So we picked up lots of pretty ribbons today.

The Toddler was really excited when we got home and mum showed her. She knows mum takes a photo of me with my ribbons so the Toddler got about styling for the shoot…