Lance UD-C
Lance was also entered in the trial this Saturday. He did one round of CDSP utility and another of APDT Rally level 3. And then he scared the crap out of me.
Obedience
Due to his still healing hot spot I had him wear a harness in the obedience ring:
Signals- No moving after left on the stand!
Articles- Didn't seem to know what he was doign when sent, but then spotted the pile and quickly worked it. Dropped it twice coming back to me, near my feet.
Directed Jumping- 1st go out he went to the tape mark and then didn't sit. 2nd one he again went to the tape but did sit.
Gloves- this judge liked the glove VERY close together (about 7ft!) but Lance did both sends without an issue.
Stand- no moving again!
And that was our 3rd leg to get our UD-C title!
Rally:
I thought Lance was moving weird in the harness so I put on a really thin and lightweight collar that hung low enough to not hit his hot spot when off leash.
Articles- Didn't seem to know what he was doign when sent, but then spotted the pile and quickly worked it. Dropped it twice coming back to me, near my feet.
Directed Jumping- 1st go out he went to the tape mark and then didn't sit. 2nd one he again went to the tape but did sit.
Gloves- this judge liked the glove VERY close together (about 7ft!) but Lance did both sends without an issue.
Stand- no moving again!
And that was our 3rd leg to get our UD-C title!
Rally:
I thought Lance was moving weird in the harness so I put on a really thin and lightweight collar that hung low enough to not hit his hot spot when off leash.
I thought he did a nice job, especially after the first sign when I caught him off guard on the 270 left because he broke eye contact with me. We had to redo the send to jump since Lance didn't go out to it the first time, and on the recall over jump he again needed a 2nd cue to come. There were two backing up exercises in a row, first in heel, then in front; so Lance got to yell at me about that.
Scariness
When getting ready to leave the trial I suddenly noticed that I had a FAT corgi. Lance's belly was extended big time. I then remembered that before going into the rally ring Lance was really wanting water badly and was acting a bit weird, but I shook it off to not having enough time to do a warm up. After we came out of the ring I offered him water and he wanted to drink a ton but I cut him off. Then I must not have zipped up the crate far enough as a few minutes later I noticed Lance poking out and licking the now empty water dish. So when I took Lance out 20min after the disappearing water trick he was a giant. Luckily there were two nice vet techs there who examined Lance and didn't think it looked like bloat since his stomach was squishy and he didn't have any other signs. A call to my vet also suggested waiting since corgis are not known for bloating and he wasn't showing the typical signs anyway. I took Lance home and had to block off access to our water fountain as he was still wanting more water. While his stomach remained huge all night, Lance didn't vomit, didn't have diarrhea, wasn't restless (other than wanting water), and had a soft belly. In the morning he seemed much better but his belly was still slightly extended.
I have no idea what the corgi did. It also makes me think that he might not have been feeling well during both of his runs. He certainly was showing signs right before rally although I don't think he was bloated yet.
Congratulations on the title! I'd have been freaked out by that. I hope he's feeling better.
congratulations! I'm impressed by Lance's attention to you, you two sure have a beautiful bond :)
My Wolfie blew up like that... took me a while to figure out he'd gotten into a bag of dog food and eaten 9 pounds of it in one sitting. I didn't suspect the dog food initially because it was on a high shelf and did not appear to have been disturbed. But eventually I figured out how he got up there and noticed the top of the bag was pushed down instead of rolled up.
Hope he's feeling better now! Congrats on the new title!
Thaht was so amazing to watch! Lance is just awesome - congrutulations! And I just LOVE the way he runs - like a bouncing toy - ha! ha!
Hey - I was really surprised to see - did you feed him treats in the ring? I didn't realise you were allowed to do that during a competition? (Gosh, if I had known we could reward like that, I would have definitely have been more inclined to give competition a go with Honey!) I always thought it was no food or praise in the Obedience ring...although I don't know how different things would be here anyway, since we don't seem to have the same CDX and UDX titles...
Glad to hear that Lance recovered from his "scare" - I wonder what it was?
Hsin-Yi
Still no idea if Lance got into something that day!
Hsin-Yi, this particular trial was a CDSP obedience trial and APDT rally trial. They are both small organizations that are slowly gaining in popularity because of it's extremely welcoming trials and ability to treat in between exercises in obedience as well as praise during exercises. The rally org allows treating at certain signs. Both are a great way to bring out a new dog, a dog working through issues, or just to surprise an experienced dog! Unfortunately there is only one club offering these trials in my area so only 2 trials a year.
thanks Laura - it's a real shame that more organisations don't hold trials like that. I think they would get so many more participants and membership – and encourage so many more people to give training a try! Most average pet owners just really cannot do much with their dogs unless they can reward them more frequently with treats/praise then is what allowed in "normal" obedience. Or even people like me who CAN get our dogs to do it but then you end up with Honey who looks miserable and does everything really reluctantly and slowly and obviously doesn't really want to be there – versus the huge difference when she can be rewarded a bit more often and can "see" what she's working for! I just hate seeing her like that which is why I refuse now to do competitions where I can't reward her in the way she needs.
Hsin-Yi