Yesterday Katie and I got to go to an advanced competitive obedience class. It meets every Saturday morning, but I’m usually working, so this was the first time I’d been to it. Katie’s first time too! 🙂

We got there pretty early, so we walked around in the parking lot of the mall, sniffing stuff and doing the potty thing. She’s getting good at being able to go in strange places, which is handy. After I got that all cleaned up and thrown away we ventured inside. There were only a few other dogs there at that point, two big Rotweillers and a big German Shepherd. They were practicing coming, and stopping and going DOWN! and waiting. They all looked good, very professional. I felt WAAAY out of my league. I had never called Katie from across the room, then yelled “DOWN” when she got part of the way and had her go down like they were doing. Katie had never waited to chase after a toy until she had been told to “GO GET IT!” Heck she didn’t even heel very well; while these dogs were attached to their people at the hip, gazing adoringly at them, ready to respond to every whim, Katie heeled with her nose on the ground, looking to pick up any leftover treats. SIGH. I was intimidated, and whispered in her ear that maybe we were in the wrong place.

More people came in with their dogs, another couple of Shepards, a Boxer, a Wheaton Terrier, a Doberman, an Australian Shepherd.  All of them bigger than Katie.  All of them with more experience, and it appeared, more confident handlers.  Poor Katie!  So we started going around the room in a big circle, heeling as the instructor called out commands and worked one of the Rottweilers.  Katie was keeping up pretty well, though still not exactly where she needed to be.  Then the instructor commanded us to do a moving down.  Unsure what that was I sort of watched.  Everyone put their dogs into a down, Katie went down too.  Then everyone started walking but the dogs stayed!  WOW!  Katie stayed too and I trotted to get back in my spot.   The humans walked around the room, up next to the dogs, until we got back to our own dog.  Not a dog moved a muscle.  Even Katie.  I was so proud of her.  We did several other things with our heeling, and she did pretty well.

Then we did sits and downs.  A THREE MINUTE sit!  That is forever.  Katie sat between the Boxer and a Shepherd.  We all walked way down to the other end of the room.  She stared at me.  I stared back.  People started talking amongst themselves and one by one almost all the dogs broke.  Katie kept looking at me.  I kept looking at her with my arms folded, my feet planted apart.  She looked at all the other dogs moving, getting yelled at, getting reset up.  She looked back at me, I looked back at her.  She never moved!  I was so so HAPPY with her!  Of course then we did the down.  FIVE minutes, though I didn’t know how long it was because I missed what the instructor said.  I got her into a down, walked away, then faced her from the other end of the room.  Arms folded.  Feet planted.  We watched each other.  Some of the dogs flopped over and went to sleep.  Katie and I just watched each other.  She woud occassionally shift her hips, you could see she was thinking about what was up.  Was she done working?  Was it OK to explore.  She looked at the other dogs, no one was wandering.  She looked at me.  I looked back.  And she NEVER MOVED!  I can not believe my little hyper dog lasted 5 minutes without breaking!  Such a girl!  She got lots of treats for that when we went back to them!

Then it was Stand for Exam.  Well.  Katie HATES being touched, especially by a stranger.  She is always happy for people to come up to her, but when they reach out to pet her she backs up.  She rarely does well on this, sometimes she won’t shy away too much, but she never stands still.  Guess what?  She let two different strange men walk up to her and run their hand along her back and didn’t move.  I was six feet away from her and she was standing in the middle of a room full of strangers and she let them touch her and didn’t balk.  At this point I am beginning to wonder if I brought someone else’s dog!

Of course she was good on her recalls, she loves that game, didn’t even anticipate and break early.  She was perfect.

So all I really need to work on is heeling, getting her to heel where she’s supposed to, rather than surging ahead or getting behind, and especially getting her to stop checking the floor out for good things to eat.  Hopefully the weather will hold and we can go to the park and practice some more.

Meanwhile I am so proud of her!  What a good girl!