#akc obedience

[elvenferretots]

The Molecule participated in a fun match today. Not perfect, but good enough I'm comfortable entering him in March.

[theadventurek9]

While not the most impressive of scores for these classes let me tell you why I am excited.

This is her third UDX Leg

This is the first time Aayla has qualified for Utility on the first day of a trial. (Normally she NQs the first day)

No weird send issues for any exercises (go outs, directed retrieves, articles)

Aayla had a bit of an issue with her metal article. She dropped it halfways while bringing it to me. Then she went back to the pile and searched for a very long time. The correct article was not in the pile anymore and she kept searching and searching. She didn't get discouraged or worried, she kept searching until she noticed the article she had dropped. Then checked it before bringing it to me. SO PROUD. Guys this is a huge deal. She searched the pile about 5 times with confidence. I was about to NQ us and step in to praise and help her. I didn't want to wait until she started doubting herself. Yet she caught on in time.

She had pretty straight fronts. And her left finishes were good. Her right not so much, but that's okay.

Confidence was medium, better than low, and hopefully it just grows for the weekend.

Most issues were stress related, with the no sits and slow sits. The auto finish for signals I think was my problem. I thought she was going to finish left and I think I looked over to my right to try and pull her towards my front and eat the double cue point loss. She over corrected and did a right finish instead. Lol.

But looking forward to tomorrow!

[gar-a-ash]

Getting ready for the trial in September! Today we're working on finishing a pattern before a reward, in both rally and obedience. You can really tell how much Reese enjoys rally more than obedience and honestly? Same. Suffer through it with me, my boy. Maybe we won't go all the way to Masters in obedience but I'd like to at least get you to Advanced.

[ursusunbearable]

Creative down stay.

[elvenferretots]

We do love a good fun match around here.

[elvenferretots]

Day six of 100 days of dog training:

It turns out when you train daily and tighten up criteria, your dog's performance gets better. Added a target touch on the stanchion to TenSoon's send away to straighten it a bit, and it worked like magic. Cut down the number of scent articles and scented my hands with food as well, and our article problems also magically disappeared. Feeling confident with our graduate open entries at the beginning of next month.

[elvenferretots]

Fell off the training weekend for good reason (very limited boyfriend time that I'm cherishing), but we went to a fun match while Jaz was here. Spot the Fiver in the Novice line up!

[pippindot]

We had a Novice Obedience trial this morning. First one since January 2024. And we NQ'd because she laid down 51 seconds into the 60 second Sitstay. Before that, we had a 192 and were the only dog to qualify in the exercises.

In spite of the NQ i feel great! Her working attitude during the exercises was fantastic, she was happy and willing throughout. We arrived literally as the Novice handler meeting was occurring and then we were the first dog, so no time to warm up. We were a little spacey and imprecise as a result but spirits were great and I feel good about it. The judge called her a nice working dog, and even strangers said she looked fantastic afterward.

The weather was beautiful, the judge was nice, unexpectedly saw some friends, so it was a good day. And it's nice to walk away from a training failure knowing exactly what it is, and not that it's perhaps an Ailment. She just. Would prefer to lay in grass. And we haven't practiced sitstays for so long she didn't see the point in not getting comfy if we were gonna be hanging out.

Next time!