Preparing for Trial Notes

I figured out finally that it was not last year I was trialling, but the year before. So it has actually been two years since either Bri or I have been in the ring. There are a lot of training and handling things that have been coming back to me, but I had forgotten. These have been my own way of doing things and experiences when preparing:

1. Do not step off before you say heel when practicing or in a trial. This is something that I have been way guilty of, and I am sure that I suffered handler points off for.
2.  Also point #1 holds true for when you say stay, say it first them walk away.
3.  When training for the stay commands, vary the length before you give the command so that your dogs do not start to anticipate. I change the time before I walk away, while I stand there, and when I come back and stand next to them. Otherwise, you will find that your dog starts to anticipate when you are likely to move.
4.  I do front and finish totally separate when practicing. They are just two positions, and I don't want the dog to bypass position one. I find the easiest way to do this is to practice them at different practice sessions, and not as anything close to one movement. Before I got into competition, I always trained come as one move to the finish instead of a front and finish, and that all had to be retrained later on.
5. The week and days before the trial, try not to focus or panic over any one thing.   I try to do the routine over and over again, and if something isn't quite right---I go over it quietly and don't make a huge fuss over it or do too many reps on it.   I have found that doing the latter is a great way to confuse the dog and pretty much guarantee something unexpected will happen.   For instance, the first year her fronts were not straight.  So the days before the trial, we did a whole lot of reps on fronts.   So in the ring, I got front everything, including auto sits.  Whoops!!   I am sure if I thought hard enough, I could come up with some other examples on how this screws up the preparation.  

The other thing that I learned is, nothing is every going to go perfectly.   I had arranged for Bri's owner to come with us on her days.   If you have two dogs in the same class, you need someone to handle the second dog in the long stays.   So I had prepared a weekend that we both thought Bri's owner would be free.  Turns out, they forgot about a wedding on that day.   Luckily, I have some friends that are going to stand in.   I am going to do some prep work, but I don't know how either Bri or Magoo would react to having someone different handling them.   It may not be a big deal in the stays, or it could confuse them greatly.   Even if I practice with other people now, the real test of how it will go is going to be the trial.

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