First APDT Rally Trial

Morgan and I showed at our first APDT (Association of Pet Dog Trainers) Rally trials this past weekend in Durham, NC. It was really fun and I learned a lot about my dog, my nerves and my training. We had to go into Level 1A because it was our first time doing APDT Rally. The cool thing about it -well there were a lot of cool things about it but the one that attracted me the most was the fact that they allow food in the RING. You can feed your dog at every stationary exercise. I thought by bringing food into the ring, it would help get Morgan to focus more and not stress out in the ring.

It worked pretty well. When we entered the ring, she was not very enthusiastic and I tried to jolly her up and not drag her into the ring.
When she got into heel position, I gave her a piece of pork loin (something that I took home in a doggie bag after one of my many meals eating out with job applicants). That perked her up and her eyes were glued on me. We had several moving exercises that she did pretty well. She has a tendency to forge in competition so our left turns weren't that great and there were a lot of them (left 270, left 360, spiral left, etc.)

On the second stationary exercise there were 3 signs that were what they call, married. It was a halt sit, sit down sit, sit stand-they are married because the dog doesn't have to sit again for the second exercise if she is already sitting for the first exercise. However, you ARE allowed to give her a treat after the completion of each stationary exercise. What happened the first day, we did our halt sit-I gave her a cookie. The next sign was sit, down, sit. Because she was already sitting, I just asked her to go down and then get into a sit, another cookie. On the third sign, again, she was already sitting, so I just asked her to stand, and you guessed it, she got another cookie. You should have seen the smile on her face for getting 3 cookies in a row! She moved beautifully after that and didn't forge that much. We did have to repeat a couple of exercises because of the forging but made up for it because they have BONUS exercises after you complete the required exercises. Morgan nailed all the bonus exercises including one I didn't think she could do! ;) She got a 5th place on Saturday morning (you read it right 5th place, lol) with a score of 199. Saturday afternoon, she was way better but still only got a 200 but she got a third place. This morning she did her best work and got a 203, second place and her title.

In trial four, I learned something about my dog. She was extremely attentive before going into the ring and thrilled with the turkey that I had for her.
Just before we went into the ring, someone's dog started whaling and howling loudly. She immediately got a worried look on her face and I tried to jolly her up and she wasn't having it. I gave her a cookie at the start line and almost as soon as we started heeling, the dog started that loud whaling again. She looked in that direction again with a worried look so I had to redo the very first exercise. Unfortunately, I had to do three obstacles before giving her a cookie again and by then, I had mostly lost her. But we soldiered on. Lefts were abominable and we had to repeat the sit, down, twice. REALLY? I was working hard and I go into show mode so after the first one or two signs, I didn't hear the dog any more but I could tell by the way Morgan was reacting that she was hearing something and it wasn't me J. This tells me that I need to proof with that kind of distraction. I'm sure Merlin, Pen and Gally will be happy to do some screaming while Morgan and I train J It also tells me that even the best cookies don't work when she is really distracted. Finally it tells me that maybe four trials in two days is too much for the girl.

What I learned about myself that always surprises me is how competitive I am and that competitiveness give me nerves. I actually had nerves that first morning-not as bad as I do for AKC but I hadn't expected to be nervous at all. My being a little nervous was a good thing, though because I think it told Morgan that a) we were really at a dog show and b) we can work together even if Mommy is a little weird at a show. By the second trial, my nerves were gone and she did well. This morning I was more nervous than the 2nd trial but by then, Morgan had gotten used to my nerves, I think, and did very well. I was not nervous at all for the 4th trial (we already had the
title) and she performed the worst, so part of what I learned is that maybe I need to care a little bit to get a better performance out of Morgan.

I am encouraged and I am going to do a lot of off lead work with her from now on so that we can venture forth to the next level with the help of food.
The next level is fun, fun, fun-recalls, sending to the jump (coming soon to AKC Rally), fast from a sit, leave the dog and run have dog come front.
There is retrieving in level 3.

This group does four sets of 4 trials per year. Another group does trials in Myrtle Beach but I don't know how often. So even if we have to show in APDT only for a year, it will be worth it to get my girl happy in the ring. I hope our group wants to do some APDT trials too but I'm not sure we have a space big enough to do it.

New Weave poles

I set up my new stick in the ground weave poles for Morgan today and she did quite well with them. Today she remembered her love for the white bumpers and she raced through the weave poles to get the bumper. YAY!

However, I think I need to back up a little because she keeps missing the first pole. I've got to go back an build more value for this first pole, darn it. My thinking is that this should only take a couple of training sessions--especially since I now have turkey!!! :)

Weave Poles

We started training weave poles again and Morgan is doing great. She was zooming throught those poles with lightening speed and then I had to move the poles together. She slowed considerably. As usualy with poor Morgan, I moved to much too fast but I have to hand it to her she was having fun and didn't quit on me. I finally made more subtle changes and she did great. We have a lot of things to work on before we can show so I should stop being so impatient :)

She usually does cookies in the hall with great enthusiasm but today she was distracted and can only think that it was becuase I set up the weave poles (in the same ring) before I started playing cookies in the hall. She WANTED to do those poles. LOL.

Where does time go?

I see that I haven't posted since OCTOBER!!! What an awful blogger I am. Here are some highlights of Morgan's training:
1) She would not perform her freestyle routine without food so we ended up pulling our act.
2) She managed to get a leg in Rally Advanced even though she had no attention and she left the ring on a 270 right.
3) We never got more chances to practice swimming and I never finished the forced fetch with her.
I have had such a rough time training this dog that I had just about given up. Then I remembered how much fun we had 2 summers ago doing the Sue Garrett Recallers' Class. So I signed up for a new class. That is the good news. The bad news is that I haven't really done anything with it because I have been so busy taking care of Caroline's dogs and fetching and hauling stuff from Caroline's house to her rehab site. She had a total ankle replacement. I've had a lot of other things to do as well so my time has definitely not been my own. It is not how I wanted to spend my break and I'm beginning to feel a little resentful about it. But there are still 9 days until Christmas and I have another 2 weeks after Christmas that I can catch up with my class.

Morgan has been doing well with her agility class. I have been better about practicing her 2o2o and she has enjoyed the class. I just bought some stick in the ground weave poles so we can practice them at home. Tomorrow, I get to pick up a bunch of agility equipment from my friend Diane who is off to a job in the middle east for three years.

Seems like a lot happened in 2 months, huh?

Freestyle demo and practice

I didn't report on our demo. Morgan was part of a freestyle demo that Peggy and I did for our club last Thursday night. I loaded myself down with cookies and off we went. At first we did our singles routine which was done to Flashdance. I JUST got the choreography for it done two days before so to say that we weren't ready for prime time was an understatement. However, Morgan didn't do terribly. I think she liked being the center of attention but it didn't keep her focused on me. The chicken helped.

During the pairs routine, she was just the tiniest bit better. At least she didn't start a fight with Matt like she did today in practice. Well, she got in his face and he didn't like it at all. There were parts of the routine she did really well and other parts that were bad. I felt encouraged because none of the moves was awful.

However, today, with no audience and no chicken, she was simply terrible. She wouldn't do any of the moves and those she did do she did slowly and without any enthusiasm. This dog is so very frustrating to me.

Freestlye practice

This morning we did our freestyle practice like I used to walk the excellent courses in agility. We started at the end. I told Peggy that Morgan wasn't getting the ending becuase we have spent most of the time doing the opening. I told her how I remembered the course in agility by walking the last five obstacles, then the last 10 and then the whole course. It worked great.

So today, we practiced the last section of our routine. Morgan was finally getting it. Yay!!!! She even seemed to be having some fun. On Wednesday, we have to practice our single's routine.

GCOC agility match/Poodle Club Match

I took Morgan to do the agility match because she isn't ready for an agility trial yet. I decided that I would do four obstacles and get the hell off the course if she stayed with me. I fed her cheese like a pez machine before I went into the ring and put her cheese away before we went in. I do believe that she really likes all the running and jumping in agility so she didn't seem to care that I didn't have food. She was brilliant. Took direction easily and changed her path when I asked, didn't knock one bar, and even did a rear cross which I kinda bobbled. :) I was very proud of my girl.

I judged obedience in the poodle club match today but I was determined to take Morgan through her paces in rally and obedience. I literally yanked her out of the motor home and 5 minutes later we were in the rally ring. I gave her cheese before we went in and I took a small piece in with me. She did fabulously. I am so pleased. Her heeling in Novice was absolutely gorgeous (I did have chees in the right hand that I transferred to the left when she did something particularly well. However, on the off lead heel,she didn't miss a step. Yay, yay, yay, yay!!! I think my girl is beginning to understand the game.