A Teeny OTCH Point

Lance was entered in obedience today.  Indoors and much cooler out than the outdoor trial he was at a few weeks ago where he went on strike.

Open B

Lance did pretty good!  Since he's failed to down on the drop on recall for 3 of the last 5 shows I decided to give a signal instead of a verbal.  Plan worked nicely!  We had a big delay before the retrieve over the high as I set up and had to comment that the jumps were a little high.  Apparently the steward heard the 16in when I checked in and said 8/16 so the jumps were set to 16/32.  Had to say it several times before the judge changed them, but Lance handled the delay nicely and did some tricks for me.  Heeling was nice except for the last about turn at the open gate.  Just like the last show Lance got distracted looking at the crowd so we get hit with a wide and a lag.  Only hit on one front but 2 finishes. 

Going in for the stays Lance wouldn't look at me again.  Never a good sign when he does that :(  And yup, Lance went down on the sit as soon as the we were all out of sight.  Sadly our score would have been tied for 2nd place.  Clearly our stay issues are not fixed.  No clue how to proceed.

Utility B

Lance was ON!  Awesome go outs, kept eye contact with me on the glove turn (although pivot still sucked) and had really nice fronts and finishes for most exercises.  Signals he lagged on the fast time, had  a poor halt, and another lag on a about turn.  But no issues on the down again!

Before the awards I was jolted out of conversation as our number was called!  Totally not prepared, I rushed in the ring and didn't even know what direction to face.  Lance could have used some warming up!  He actually did really well but lagged a tiny bit on the fast time again.  So we lost the run off, but Lance got 3rd place and 1 tiny OTCH point!  

Vito came and played in the warm up ring during the Friday night ring time and during the show today.  Friday he needed 2 restarts before he was fully committed to not looking around on set up and giving me full drive on our heeling steps.  But then he had fun in the ring and did a great job.  Didn't want to jump up for hand touches while moving but would do so happily if standing still.

Today at the real show he was worse.  I think I did 5 attempts to get into the ring with him but aborted each one before even stepping foot inside.  Vito seemed kinda sassy as he would yell at me as I aborted and got nicely into our waiting position, but just would not explode out of it with the attitude I want.  I tried a few short down stays in between to see if allowing him to relax and look around would help.  But Vito didn't actually seem to want to look around at all and looked like he wanted to engage with me- he just didn't want to work.  So I took him back to his crate for a few minutes.  Session #2 he was still not giving me the drive I wanted going into the ring but it was better so I took it.  Once in the ring he did a nice job, but still not wanting to do a jumping hand touch while heeling.  Baby steps of progress.