NOT A Good First 2010 Trial Performance(s) for ME

The Casco Obedience Club Trial did end up being the perfect one for Magoo's first showing ever, my first trial of 2010 since (June 2009 legs earned on both Bri and Jack), and Bri's first trial since the same June 2009 trial. It had very large classes, but was a pretty tame show area. Still, I was far more nervous of this first 2010 event that I wanted to be. After working the dogs that morning, my best bet was that Bri may stand a chance at her last leg, and that Magoo would not stand a chance. Boy was I wrong LOL.

First of all, Bri has done very well before; it was totally my mistake in only acclimating her for a week before the trial. After viewing our tape, I am also quite certain that during the auto sits; I am probably not walking the same when practicing with her as when I was in the ring. My body language seemed to be confusing her, so it's going to be very important that I really pay attention to body position and footwork between now and May 20ths trial. You will note she did every auto sit...somewhere in the ring, it just was not beside me sometimes it was behind me (and I remember wondering where the heck is Bri Bri? I didn't want to mess her up further by looking for her at that point). Sometimes it was behind me; sometimes she walked away a little before doing it. She was paying attention to me well during the leashed heel, but was still farther ahead than I would like, so I need to reposition her for heel AND I also want to move her into a bit more of a six inch distance from me. I also underestimated how excited she would be to be back in the ring. During both the leashed and off leashed fast heeling, you can see her excitement charge ahead. She loves being the center of attention, and that has worked for me in the past. This time though, I was too cocky that we would get sleepy calm Bri in the ring. In fact, she did not light up that day until we stepped into the ring. So Bri and me had no chance in getting our leg during this trial, and that was totally my fault. So here we come Vacationland, and we have a month so this should be very much improved.  In the meantime, enjoy how cute Bri was, while I performed horribly.



Magoo despite his puppy antics earlier in the morning was more focused. There is one instant during the off leash heel where he walks over to the fence, but he returns when I am told to halt. So we would not have pointed out for that. However, at the last part of the tape, you will see that I seem confused during the recall. I thought the judge asked me to move my dog. I said "stay, and what move my dog?" She said no leave your dog, and I said "stay" again. At which point she said, you can't say stay again, you must leave your dog. I effectively disqualified us. The judge did allow us to do the recall, which was good as practice for Magoo. His heel was good, but most of his sits were crooked or in front of me. He did a really great figure eight, but missed one of the sits. And during the recall he sat crooked for front, and almost did a front for finish.

My entire fault, totally. Magoo is my first client dog in the ring, though I am doing all the training for free as practice. He is also the youngest dog (1 and a half) that I have brought into the ring. Not happy with my performance, but happy with both of the dogs, Bri and Magoo. As a team we will all show much better in May. Just dusting off the cobwebs now. One thing that was good is both tapes didn't look as bad as the performance actually felt. I am the worst at this, but the worst thing one can do is let their nerves get to them if it does not start out stellar. As much as I know this, I always know that I need to practice in that setting as well as the dogs, in order for me to get accustomed to it again.



Am I going to stop showing because I had a bad performance? Heck no, it's all about improving skills and seeing what your errors are when training. Then you can move that advice on to your clients (as best as possible) in their training. You can never expect your clients to do as well as you do, BUT if you are not more advanced and haven't investigated what is needed in order to succeed at those advanced levels, then you will be passing on even more mediocre training suggestions to your clients. Then they do not know how to improve their partnership with their dog, or even that it can be done.

That performance shows not such a great partnership between those dogs and me. They did have fun, and they enjoyed being out there with us. Now the smart thing one might think for a trainer to do is bury this, and only mention the accomplishments by simply pretending this day never happened. However, I like to show the journey it takes to do this. So many people are intimidated to do obedience, they worry about what others will think, the mistakes they will make, or can my dog do it. Obedience is really not that intimidating, and if things go wrong you fix them for next time. For a trainer, it is important to branch out form just doing your dogs to doing many types and breeds of dogs. This is what I am doing for free right now with dogs that I do have access to. I will take the lumps when I do bad, and move on by experimenting with the ways that I do things. Not many people have three perfect trials in a row from beginning to end. While that would be wonderful, know that about four other people that followed me had things happen like the dog going for the gate (on the other side of the ring) during a recall after a pretty solid performance otherwise. So you try to practice in situations later that give you time to fix the problem. It can also be a one time only problem, one never knows. Finally, the human part of the equation cannot get better without being committed to taking their lumps when mistakes happen for the better good of creating a strong partnership between dog and owner. If I just threw up my hands and said "wow that was so embarrassing, obedience is so stupid and not natural", then I would not be growing the way that I think I should. The reason I like the obedience as it always was is it really creates a strong bond with your dog that allows you to move onto the more exciting aspects of training (retrieve, selection, tracking).

So if a client can do this 60%, then they can at least have an increased partnership with their dog even if they choose not to compete. However, if you don't polish up your skills in these areas, you are not experiencing exactly how this works, and therefore a client cannot experience exactly how this works.

I do not have the kind of grace that other dog owners have out there on the ring. My body position has improved leaps and bounds though (as sad as that is LOL). I was never a good dancer, and I got easily confused during aerobics. So experiencing how body position works so much better with my improvements (that are not stellar) really hits home as to how these details make it clearer to the dog, and therefore they can follow your lead much better. I still have a lot of work to do, and I am putting my nose to the grindstone so that I can hopefully accomplish Magoo's three legs in May, and Bri's last leg that is left towards her Companion Dog title.

If I can be okay with embarrassing myself publically, anyone can be okay with it.   I hope that the May tapes of the progress can inspire people how much fun this is.   And I hope my willingless to show warts as well as accomplishments can show that the world does not end if you have a bad day.  I have always had stage fright, but have managed to muddle my way through corporate presentations and now dog trials.  I have only gotten five legs (three with Jackie CD and two with Bri) in my career as a professional dog trainer.  I also know that in order to advance to Open, I have to start getting scores in the high one nineties in Novice, and I am not there yet.   I can qualify right now, but have not ironed out the kinks in my body work and in the training program to get to the optimum performance that I want.   How will I get there?   Try and try again AND practice practice practice!!

So the go forward training plan is largely this:

· Magoo Plan 1: Find as many distracting packed with dogs’ events (craft shows, charity walks, matches,) to continue to accustom Mr. Magoo to the fact that checking out other dogs is not allowed. This just means making it ho hum for him. We usually use Petco and the beach, but he is pretty acclimated to those areas, so he just needs more strange and distracting areas.

· Magoo Plan 2: Doing attention training to keep his focus if another dog is at the fence line again.

· Magoo Plan 3: Straighten out the auto sits which includes being very focused on my body language while training, and how that is going to manifest itself in the ring. I have a feeling that when I am practicing, I am probably turning my shoulder instead of staying straight. I may also be cueing them (which I can't do in the ring, to sit where I want).

· Magoo Plan 4: Work on front and finish. We worked on this quite a bit, but again I think in the distracting setting is the key. It's hard to find off leash places where one is allowed to do some off leash training (under distractions) like this. First though, I need to make sure the position stands up in the non-distracting setting of my home, and I am not throwing out cues by mistake. I really need to be sure I am moving exactly as I will in the ring, while I am practicing.

· Magoo Plan 5: Devote every other day to practicing whole routine, and videoing it for progress. Want to see this done in different areas.

· Bri Plan 1: Basically work with her consistently between now and May 20th, especially in distracting situations.

· Bri Plan 2: Be more exacting on Bri's heel position.

· Bri Plan 3: Practice more running heels with Bri in situations that would make her very excited.

· Bri Plan 4: Still need to work on her closeness during the figure eight outside circle. She was a bit wide at least once.

· Bri Plan 5: Similar to Magoo, auto sits need to be straightened out, with most of the emphasis on what my body is doing during practice.

· Bri Plan 6: Every other day practice total routine, video it, and change up location.

· Me Plan 1: Pay attention to body position for practice to become body position for ring!!!

· Me Plan 2: Particular attention to be paid to what my body is doing during auto sits.

· Me Plan 3: Get cue cards so assistants can order me around as if I was at a trial.

· Me Plan 4: Come up with alternative distracting areas for the dogs rather than the same old ones.

.Me Plan 5:  Get ahold of an arm band holder, so I don't find myself in the uncomfortable position of needing to fiddle with the rubber band during the trial.   Man!!


Looking forward to sharing the improvements during the May trials. I may find time to download some practices, but I have older technology so downloading, importing, and then transferring take a large amount of time.



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