Lots of run throughs!

A huge fundraiser was held at my obedience training club today which meant runthroughs! Unfortunately it was held for a sad event, a fellow club member lost her house, 3 dogs, and her cat to a fire :( But there was a HUGE turnout from the community with dog crates stacked everywhere you looked it seemed bigger than any actual obedience trial I've been to. Luckily I got there pretty early and Lance did 3 runs in just over an hour!

I entered Lance in rally obedience first and was more than pleased at his performance. I used zero treats during the run but still had perfect attention! Besides a few crooked sits, and not his best "back up 3 steps in heel" Lance did the best he has ever done. I am looking forward to next weekend and his first rally show of the season.

Shortly after finishing rally, we headed over the agility side and ran Lance on the novice course. I skipped the weaves and heavily managed his contacts, but Lance did superb. He read my handling with no problem and even did the full teeter for the first time there. He stopped and rocked back a little early than I would have liked on the teeter, but I was still pleased. Our only screwup was on the dogwalk where he bailed off when I did a little sidestep. It actually took us 3 trys to do the dogwalk since try number two he didn't even get on at all. After I finished the course I had some time left so I went back to the dogwalk and Lance ran up it before I could even direct him there. I also decided to do one of the advanced sequences that invovled a rear cross just to see how Lance would do. He ended up doing that sequence just fine, although I don't think it was due to Lance reading my handling. Lance actually shot towards the correct jump before my handling fully told him, so either he read me a lot better then I think he can or he just had a lucky guess :)

Next up was a run through on the obedience side again and I had Lance entered in open. They did a break for the group stays before it was his individual turn, so I decided to do his stays first. Unforunately, Lance stood up on the 3min out of sight sit stay. Right at the 2 min mark Lance stood, waited a bit, then walked forward and paused. Before I wound my long way back, I saw the judge tell Lance to sit, which he did, but then stood right away again. She grabbed his collar as I entered the ring and then put Lance back in the line. I think it was just too much for Lance. Not much time had passed since he had ran in agility and he was still panting, plus all the people and dogs everywhere was just too much. So I'm disapointed and will have to work on proofing it a little more, but aren't too worried. For the long down, I stayed in the ring the whole 5 minutes just to play it safe.

Shortly after the group stay, Lance had his turn in the ring again. Like in rally, Lance had perfect attention on the off leash heel and did the best figure 8 he's ever done in a trial/run through. I did give Lance a treat after some of the exercises to reward him as well as having him do some tricks. My proofing for weird throws on the high jump payed off as he managed to retrieve perfectly over the jump today on a not so perfect throw! I am also pleased to say that Lance's broad jump went well. In practice I throw a treat after he jumps 99% of the time so that he goes far enough out and doesn't cut the corner towards me (a big fault) so I wasn't quite sure how he would do without the thrown treat. During the fun match earlier this year Lance went back and stepped on the boards since he thought no treat thrown could only mean that he should do something else with the jump :) But today Lance jumped fine and came in nicely for his front if you take that he sat so close he actually stood on my feet :P

So Yay Lance! It seems like every run through I do Lance gets better and better. Hopefully his performances will hold true for a real trial.