Lance AKC Obedience Trial

Lance had his return to AKC obedience after a 4 month break and the earning of his UDX title.

Saturday
Utility was first and Lance turned it on.  A little sloppy and hesitant with the first exercise, gloves, but then he had one of his best utility runs of his life.  Really working his fronts and finishes, some of his best heeling, and his best go outs.

Sadly, while Lance stood properly on the signals he waited until I got across the ring and then sat.  Didn't look stressed to me, just eager for the next part.

In Open Lance showed a different picture.  Heeling was first and he was lacking a bit in the drive I love.  Back to a wide about turn and a lag on the fast.  One more lag on the first outside post of the figure 8, but also compounded by some sneezing.  Fronts and finishes on the other exercises were hit and miss.

Then the stays.  Lance's big streak of held sits had been broken earlier this year when he went down on 2 of the last 5 trials.  It's been a 4 month hiatus since he last showed so I was hoping that our continued work had "fixed" our problem.  Well unfortunately that didn't seem to be the case.  Lance lied down pretty much as soon as the whole group was out of sight.

Sunday
Utility was first again and he had another nice run.  Not quite as good as Saturday's run in a few areas.  First go out he started to turn early, second go out he did a hover butt on the sit.  Fronts and finishes were hit and miss.  But he did all the exercises without much of a hitch and we qualified!  Even managed to snag 3rd place and get another tiny OTCH point.

Open was a huge improvement over Saturday.  Heeling started a little lackluster on that first exercise but he perked up as we went.  Working his fronts and finishes again!  Unfortunately he nicked both the high jump and the broad jump :(

After he went down on Saturday I debated about doing the group stays with Lance again or not.  Ultimately I decided to do them.  No amount of training is going to fix the fact that Lance knows well the difference between trials and practice- no reward for doing the sit will happen in the ring and nothing happens if he lies down.
Thankfully Lance held his sit!!!  People watching said he looked fine on the sit and then on the long down had his chin resting frequently.  So puzzling.
There was a 3 way run off for 3-5th place and Lance managed to get 4th, but no points. (And UDX leg #11!  But a UDX2 title isn't really a goal of mine).