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.
Rally O Fun
Please refer to Exhibit A
This is Exhibit A…
This is a Broad Jump.
Who would have thought that you are supposed to jump this thing…
Our club Rally O Trial was tonight. Beautiful night for trialling. Hot day had cooled down. The team had done a fantastic job in organising everything and our Judge, also an Agility and Endurance Trial judge so we know her pretty well, had set a challenging but good course.
Had been an interesting night. A lot of dogs had decided to ‘do their business’ in the ring. That isn’t a good thing as it creates distractions for other dogs, so unfortunately they get a DQ. My mate Mawson learnt about that night… Opps mate. But turns out that isn’t the only way to get DQ’ed. Yep not going over either of the jumps (there are 2 in Rally Excellent) gets you DQ’ed.
So mum was more worried about the bar jump. Yeah a possibility I would drop the bar but nope I flew over. We made a bit of mess of the offset figure of 8. Mum got a bit lost as to where she was going and I used it as an excuse to sniff the distractions. Lost a few points. Really need to work on the 3 steps back but that wasn’t the issue.
We may have lost 21 points at this stage, so not great, but turns out it isn’t great when I walk over the broad. Just for the record it is tough work walking over these raised pieces of wood. They are quite unstable. But for some reason mum then said, with a laugh, ‘you are supposed to be an agility dog’. Judge laughed too… Turns out I was supposed to jump over them. Think what I did was way harder!
Mum kept going and finished off quite nicely. Even did the Honor position perfectly with our wonderful Honor steward, one of my agility friend’s mum, looking on very professionally.
Well a learning for next time… Must jump over not walk over the Broad Jump.
Woohoo… My 1st Rally Excellent Quallie
Super busy morning with 5 toddlers and 2 babies at our house for brunch. 3 of the toddlers started off scared of me but won them over and had them playing ball with me and not wanting to leave by the end of their visit.
Also a paws up to the toddler. With the 3 toddlers being a bit scared, plus a lot of food being consumed at toddler height, mum thought it would be a good idea to put me in my crate. Well my toddler wasn’t having a bar of that. Clever little kid headed my way as soon as mum wasn’t looking and undid the zipper to let me out. Hmmm mum put me back in and found a paperclip to stop toddler undoing the zip. Yep double paws up to the toddler… She remembered there is a top zipper on the roof of the crate. Undid that one and I jumped out the roof. Toddler Teamwork!
So after that busy morning I had to back up tonight for a Rally O trial. My 1st Rally O trial at Excellent level. Excellent uses a lot of the same stations as Advanced but adds into it some changes of position (things like sit/drop/sit and sit/stand/sit), another jump and some tough things. The 1st is 3 steps backwards in heel position. Although we have been practicing this as a Tuesday Training Tip I’m not great at it yet. In Rally Excellent we also have to do what is called ‘Honor’. It means once we have finished our go through the course than we go to the Honor position. It is usually a spot inside the course but to the side. Mum has me on a 2m lead and I am told to go into a sit or a drop position and have to stay there while the next dog completes the course. It is essentially a Stay.
So turns out I did ok. The backwards steps were messy (opps sorry mum), I did sniff the distraction in the offset figure of 8 and got a bit distracted by some dogs sitting on the side of the ring but I did it… I got 71 points (need 70 or more for a pass so just scrapped through). Then I actually laid still while a GSP friend Shimmer had her turn in the ring. Oh yeah mum was so excited!!! Even got my own sausage sandwich as a SUPER TREAT!
So a great day where toddler really showed her true team spirit topped off by my 1st Quallie in Rally Excellent.
One tired puppy now… Don’t even have the energy to harass dad for some of his pizza…zzzzzz
1st World Dog 