Today was Katie’s first ever Rally trial…Novice A, which means we don’t know what we’re doing!  Seriously!  This morning started out with snow, and it was still snowing when we left for the one hour trip down to the trial venue.  We left early because we figured the roads would slow us up, but we arrived right around 11:00 when the trial began.  They were doing Excellent A & B, then Advanced A & B and finally Novice A & B.  So getting there at 11 when they were just starting Excellent wasn’t such a good idea.  It meant LOTS of waiting for Katie and me.  Lucky thing I bought her a little crate, so we didn’t have to walk around for the entire 5 hours!

I was curious how she’d do waiting around for that long.  She’s never done that before.  Usually we go to school and we get right to work! Go go go is Katie’s mantra.  But she seemed fine with it, wasn’t nervous about the building or the other dogs.  Even did bathroom without balking, so I knew we were good to go.  If we ever got to actually go.

Finally about 3:30 it was time for the Novice walk through.  I was anxious because by this time, after waiting around for 4 1/2 hours, she had begun shutting down emotionally and wasn’t taking any treats anymore so I was somewhat worried about her attitude in the ring.  But nothing could be done about that now.  So I walked the course three times and thought I had a pretty good handle on it, and where she might have issues.

We were the last of the nine Novice A’s so I got to watch everyone before me, and that was mostly helpful.  And I got Katie a bit more excited by bringing out the EXTRA SPECIAL treats as we were waiting in line.  Way better than cheese apparently.  So when we finally got in the ring she was looking expectantly at me and we set off.  She was slow on a couple of sits, and I had to ask her to go DOWN! twice at one station.  She just didn’t feel like it I guess.  Then just three stations before the finish we had to do an about turn heading into a wall, and she decided she needed to smell (for what seemed like a really long time) something on the wall before she’d about turn with me.  GEEZE.  That wasn’t even one of my expected problem places!

All in all though the judge was lenient and we got 98 out of 100 points!  And fourth place because there were 3 people that got 100 points.  So Katie actually placed, and won a stuffed lamb.  When we got home I gave it to her before I took the tag off and she took off running with it.    She’s very excited about having a new toy.

I’m happy with her and excited for her too.  But I hope she takes a nap soon.  I’m exhausted!