Twists and Turns

Hmmmm. It's been awhile.

Things have changed. New job, new training class, new venues. We're now taking classes at the Monadnock Humane Society, a necessity now that I'm working on Thursdays, when our old class met. The class is great, lots of fun, wonderful people and dogs, a super teacher, and just concentrating on rally obedience.

We're doing APDT (the Association of Pet Dog Trainers) rally-o now. This is primarily because Bethena has some arthritis in her elbow and started refusing jumps. In APDT (unlike AKC rally), you can have the jumps lowered if you have a medical reason for doing so. APDT is not only willing to make accomodations for dogs (and handlers) with disabilities, but they also allow all dogs to compete -- not just purebred, AKC-recognized breeds.

Our first trial was last Saturday at MHS. Iggy and Bethena were both entered in three Level 1 trials, as A dogs, meaning they hadn't earned their Level 1 title yet. (After you earn your title, you can continue to compete in that level, but you do it in a separate class, as a B dog.) It was a long and tiring day, but they held up really well.

In the first trial, Bethena had a beautiful, beautiful run and got lots of compliments. She also got an NQ (non-qualifying) score, because she popped up out of a down. Although you can retry many things for not doing an exercise beautifully, not staying in a "sit" or a "down" after you've been in position is not one of them. Iggy, on the other hand, was tied for first after the run! He was in a run-off with two other dogs and ended up in third place because of a tight leash error by me.

In the second trial, Bethena was a little sloppier but garnered a pink fifth place rosette while Iggy qualified without placing.

By the time of the third trial, I was fading fast. Bethena had another great run, but another NQ from popping out of a sit. I have to admit I was disappointed -- it's all well and good to talk about having fun, but I know she can do all of these things and I want everyone else to know it too. She has so much fun and is so bright and happy, I'm glad that's an obvious quality about her (even if it can be an overwhelming sort of happiness at times....).

Iggy had another great run at the end too, he is such a good boy and will always do what I ask (as long as he understands what I'm asking). Not nearly as flashy as Bethena, his style is more deliberate. In some ways, they are kind of like the tortoise and the hare. As in that fable, the tortoise won out here, too -- Iggy got another third place, this time winning another three-way run-off! With his third qualifying run of the day, Iggy got his RL1 title.

Once we were done, I helped out for the last Level 2 trial, serving as the time keeper for those runs. (In all classes except 1-A, I believe, ties are settled by time. I don't know why Level 1-A is different.) Normally, runs are posted by competitor's number and dog name, so this was my first chance to see competitor's names. In the "small world" department of the day, it turned out that I had gone to school with one of the other people entered in the trial in Norwalk, Connecticut. Hunh.

Now we are entered at the end of January in the next trial at MHS. It will be just one trial that day, Iggy is entered in Level 2-A and Level 1-B and Bethena is entered in Level 1-A. I guess between now and then, we'll have to work on getting Iggy up to speed on the Level 2 exercises, like jumping!