So if you ever wanted to read a novel on someone's weekend at a dog show, here it is:
On Saturday I just entered in Prenovice and Wild Card Novice as a warm up to make sure he'd be okay for the real deal. I knew he wouldn't show until awhile after lunch, but I know he needs a long time to get settled in plus I had preordered a lunch so I got there by 11 (it's a nearly 4 hour drive). Turns out I didn't get into the ring until almost 5.
We started out in prenovice. Heeling was good overall. A little forging on the slow (1/2 point). Nothing on the Figure 8. Then came the stand for exam. He held the stand find as the judge went over him, but as I started to return to him he broke and spun a circle with me (10 points :doh
. Then a half point for the finish on the recall. So we were off to a (not) wonderful start with a 189 in prenovice.
On to Wild Card Novice. Heel on leash went well except a leap on the fast (2 points). Then the little sucker did the same exact thing on the return on the stand (this judge hit us 5). The judge was nice enough to let us redo the exam, and my dog moved on the return a THIRD time. Off lead heeling was great, no points lost. 1/2 point for finish on the recall. The judge was really really super nice to ask if we wanted to try the exam one more time before we left the ring. He suggested I make a wider circle on the return, so I did and this time he held it (finally!).
After that we had a match and I had signed us up for a run in each class, so I planned on going into each ring and doing stand for exams. First person to work with us, as soon as I took a step towards my dog he would shoot off to the side. It took us about 5 tries before he would actually hold the stand. Throughout the night we did exams with 5 or 6 other people and he held those fine.
Finally left about 8 that night.
So I go back to the hotel and whine and moan to Michelle and tell her I want to pack up and go home because my dog has issues, but she tells me to get my butt out there and finish his CD.
So I get to the show site early again, and the first thing I do is ask someone to do an exam. And yep, as soon as I walk towards my dog he breaks. So now I'm super frustrated and sit down to think and decide I think that he thinks I am walking in to correct him. I do a whole lot more utility exams where you call your dog to heel rather than novice where you return to the dog, so it would make sense that he got confused with me walking in to him. So I practice with several more people, only this time I make sure I am looking at a spot on the floor way off to his left side and walk towards that spot instead of walking directly towards him. Once I got about to his hip area then I started turning in towards him to circle around. Once I started doing this he started holding his stands fine.
Our first class today was Wild Card Utility (our first time). My dog was high as a kite! I don't know if I've ever seen him that wound up, and you know with Flip that is saying a lot! We had a couple of times he shot out before he was told to, a couple of times he slammed into me on fronts, and once he decided to jump up and lick me on the face instead of finishing. We scored a 95. Nope, not a 195, just a 95 :doh: But the most important thing I got out of that run was I noticed he was giving me wide about turns. So as soon as we stepped out of the ring I went over to the matted area they had for practice and worked on tightening up our about turns.
About 12 minutes later we were up in novice. Now of course I never actually said this out loud because that would be the biggest jinx in the world, but I went into this trial really really wanting to get HIT because both of my boys got HIT on their CD legs and I didn't want to have less from Flip. But going into my run I knew that the open B winner had a 199 so there wasn't much room for error. And darn it if as the judge was saying the very first halt, Flip sneezes, misses seeing my halt cue, and forges, looks at me, then scoots back into heel position and sits. Well crud, that's a big hit right of the bat and I'm disappointed knowing that probably ended any chance of HIT. But then the rest of his run is just wonderful. I was pretty sure that he hadn't hit us points anywhere else, and it would just come down to if the judge decided that first sit was a one or two point deduction. I was so excited when he said a 199!
The run off was against a handler with multiple OTCH dogs (and was showing a Quiz half-brother, who just finished his OTCH the day before). We were first up and I knew we had done a really good job, but the other dog was looking really really good and I thought she probably had it until the end of the pattern on the slow the dog went just a little bit wide, and that was enough for us to win!
So there you go, every heart pounding detail of my weekend! Anyone still left out there? :wave:
