Well, another attempt at a UDX leg that comes up empty handed. It was great weekend, though. I saw many things I really liked in Jessie's attempts. First day, in Utility, we started with the scent articles. We've had that before and he always walks in on the first article retrieve. But he actually trotted in! Both times! I was so pleased by that. All his other exercises were wonderful until the last one -- the "go-out" part of the directed jumping. The point he was supposed to go-out to backed up to the Utility A ring. Right at the go-out point (where he needed to run to) there was a large male german shepherd dog, his owner, and the judge doing scent articles. I've worked so hard on Jessie and teaching him never to even LOOK at another dog at a show, and NEVER run at another dog. Well, here I sent him charging out to another dog. Poor Jessie didn't know what the heck to do. As far as he could see, either way he was in trouble. So he went half way and stopped and looked back at me. I could see he was totally confused. I guess I can't get mad. I'd rather see him stop like that then to think it's ok to charge other dogs at shows. Same exact thing the next day in Utility -- all his exercises went fantastic until the go-out, where once again timing had the same german shepherd was at the go-out point and Jessie just couldn't bring himself to go. I know what I'll be working on next week! LOL!
Open was much more successful. Since Mass we've been doing sit stays every day, a couple times a day and slowly upping the stress level on the stays. It worked. Perfect sit stays both days, and the 2nd day even had the downs first. I think I'll keep doing that with him -- a couple sit stays a day. Obviously I haven't been training that enough.
He got a 195 on Sunday and would have gotten a similar nice score on Saturday, but when he turned to bring me back the dumbell on the ROH, he was not in front of the jump, so he thought he'd take the fastest route back to mom and completely bi-passed it. Oh well, just a little error on his part -- nothing to get worried about. Then I lost us a point on Sunday in Open by holding my hand in the air too long when I gave him the signal to drop on the recall. You have to do it pretty quick and I kinda did a slow motion one -- glad I asked the judge about my score or I wouldn't have known I got hit for that. I'll be working on quicker signals!! Oh well, we still would have been out of the ribbons by half a point, so I don't feel too bad.
My little shih tzu, Bailey, had a great weekend as well. He got a 98 out of 100 in Rally, and first place in Graduate Novice (oh, well, he was the ONLY dog in Graduate Novice -- but his tail was wagging and he did all the exercises nicely and first place is first place in my book).
It was a fun weekend. The fall trial in Hamburg always is very nice and has great tropheys and lots of crating room. I got a crate fan for high scoring terrier, a little vase for high scoring kerry, and a nice beer tumbler for my graduate novice win. Very fun!
Posted by enoj
at 12:01 AM EDT
