Katie and I had an opportunity to drop into a competitive obedience class this morning. Most Saturday mornings I have to work, but for whatever reason my random schedule has me working 5-9 tonight. I like that this class has a drop-in policy that just costs me $10 to attend, whenever I can make it.

The problems began almost immediately. Even though Katie and I have on occasion gone to the park and practiced our heel, you wouldn’t know it. She’s better when we do a little bit, but every day. So while we were doing the heeling in a big circle we were pretty much out of control the whole time.

Plus to add to the excitement there was a little papillon that Katie had never met before.  In fact, I don’t think she’s ever seen a dog this small!  You can go here http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/papillon.htm to see a picture of a papillon.  Whenever we got near Coco Katie would jerk at the leash and try to sniff.  She couldn’t take her eyes off of the cute little thing.  Finally, midway through the class I asked Coco’s owner if it was OK for Katie to meet Coco.  We tried to get them to meet, but Coco was barking at Katie, and Katie was bowing down barking, or backing up barking.  I think Katie thought Coco was a SQUIRREL!  Squirrel alert Mom!!  Right here in class too!!!!

Katie did OK with her stand for exam.  She moved a bit, but at least it was toward the male “judge” instead of shyly backing away.  And she stood for me when I asked her, which she doesn’t always do.  We need to work on that more, but it’s hard to find strangers who will go up to her and pet her!

Then we did sits and stays.  What a disaster!  I don’t know what was up, but Katie was done with school.  On her sit (which was only 2 minutes) she got almost to the end, watching the other dogs get up and get set back down.  Then she just stood up and began wandering around!  What’s up with THAT?!  I got her to sit again by just yelling sit from halfway across the room, and she did.  It was like “OOPS!  I forgot MOM!”  Then on to down and stay.  Well.  There isn’t even a word for the disaster this turned out to be.  She almost immediately popped up into a sit.  I went back and couldn’t get her down for the longest time.  She popped up again a bit later.  I went back and eventually got her into a down again.  The third time she popped up into a stand I went and got her and moved her out of the line.  She was too distracting to everyone.  And I know she can do this, she just couldn’t do it today.

Her recalls from across the room were both beautiful.  She loves to run, and she looks beautiful doing it.  She gets a gold star for that.

All in all I can’t blame her.  We just haven’t been working on this stuff enough.  She needs to be outside in the park or the yard doing each of these things every day.  I just need to make myself get her out there.  I know I won’t be able to go to any trials, as I work every weekend, and maybe that’s why I haven’t been motivated.  But it’s like training for a marathon and then not being able to run the race.  You still get the benefit from the training.  So I have to remember that Katie and I will still enjoy our relationship more if we both understand the obedience rules.  Even without being able to show them off (or not!) in a trial.

She’s sleeping now.  Of course.  Crazy dog calmed right down when we got home.

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!

This morning Katie and I went to our first obedience fun match! It was really a 4-H  kids dog obedience match, but there was a ring for novice adults and their dogs, so a couple of friends from our last obedience class went with their Shepards, and I went with my Katie. It was less than 5 minutes from home, and it only cost $10, so how could I not go?  I took my camera and one of the husbands took a few pictures, but the lighting was terrible, so what I share with you will be grainy.  Still, it’s Katie in a ring doing WELL!

Katie did her heel pretty good… most of the errors were Mom, not dog…though she still doesn’t like to be right next to my leg.  She sat instantly each time I halted, without me having to tell her, and she came like lightening on her recall.  When I asked her to finish (going around me to sit on my left, which she does just beautifully at home) she walked around behind me but didn’t come sit next to me.  Turns out there was something behind me against the wall that she had to investigate!  They cleaned that up after our run.  LOL!  She did great on the sit stay (see picture above where she was distracted but didn’t break her sit!) and even  made it all the way to the end of the 3 minute down stay!!  That was the longest three minutes of our lives!  She shifted a bit and I knew she was thinking about wandering, but she didn’t! GOOD GIRL!.  We did two runs, the second off leash, and she did just as good that time too.  I am so proud of her!

One of the friends brought her family which included two little girls, ages 7 and maybe 4 years old.  They were instantly in love with Katie; she is so much smaller (and “fluffier!”) than their 8 month old Shepard.  Katie isn’t used to kids and initially backed away (once all the way under the chair I was sitting on, I had to tell her “TUNNEL!” to get her to come back out to me!) each time they approached.  But by the end of the morning Katie was playing with the older one, and tolerating the younger’s more intense petting.  It was really good for her and I’m proud of her for that too.

And even better?  There was no food allowed in the ring, so she did all that work without getting a treat!  I gave her treats in between runs, and told her what a good dog she was.  She snuggled in my lap for awhile, licked my face and seemed to have a good time.  But I know she’s exhausted.  How do I know that?  Cause she’s SLEEPING!  Or trying to.  The Mom keeps taking pictures of her and that is so distracting to a girl needing her beauty sleep, don’t ya know.

We’re having a great weekend, sunny, warm…hope you are all well and having good weekends too!

Now we’re off to nap!