Hobbies Keep You Sane...or do They?

I am a dog trainer. I've been teaching puppy classes at our local dog training club (Fox Valley Dog Training Club) for about 20 years...it's the only thing I've done almost as long as voice over! It is my happy place. I love the bond you build with your dog. I love watching the light bulb click on. It just fills my heart.

This weekend Friday (our Australian Cattledog) and I competed at two trials. First up was Rally. We've earned our way into the Excellent Class, and have to qualify 3 times to earn the title. This weekend was our title run! Now, Rally is a timed event, but you're also scored on execution. We are not a fast-working team. But that's ok, they only look at time to break a tie and determine placements (first, second, etc.). Rally is so popular, and the dogs competing at this level and above are sooo good, I don't expect to place. I just want to run clean and get a nice score.

Friday experiences Ring Stress. She can tell we're at a trial, and my little K9 empath soaks in all the stress all the entrants and dogs are feeling and she is.not.comfortable. Luckily, she loves me enough to work at it! There are times she's completely frozen in the rally ring, or sniffed too much, but not this week. In this level of Rally, you get to redo a sign if something goes wrong and we did for 2 of them and earned a score of 94! Our only points off were for the redos! It was such a great win for us!! Go Team Red!

Saturday came, and she was less thrilled. This was a straight up Obedience competition, and those entrants are often a very serious and competitive bunch. Now we've already earned the Open title, but with her history of shutting down and the fact that we're not quite ready for the next level, Utility, yet I went ahead and entered her in Open just to get ring exposure.

I carefully. selected a judge I believed her to be comfortable with. In fact it was the same judge we had shown under just the day before. I tried to do all the stuff we normally do before entering the ring, and had her most favorite treats ready for the "cookie station" at her crate when we were done.

Let's just say that from the first exercise it did not go well. Our old friend stress sniffing made an appearance, as did avoidance, and a stress relieving "back boogie". (Sigh. There is no "back boogie" in formal obedience.) So, all we got from the day was more ring exposure and another NQ (Non-Qualifying score).

Now, in practice, she is whip smart and right on. Our trainer says she's "a 190 dog all day long" (meaning that she would be scored 190 or above, with 200 being perfect.) But as much as I love obedience, it appears Friday's appreciation is much more "casual". I don't think pushing harder is the answer, which some say i should do. I think accepting where she's at emotionally will serve us much better. She's a herding dog and she does have strong thoughts and opinions. If you're really a team they should be honored.

I have a goal of earning a Utility Dog (UD) title with her, and she seems to enjoy these exercises more than others. So, I'm going to enter that class with her, but I think that if she NQ's an exercise, we'll do what's called a "fix & go". Basically you get to redo the exercise they made a mistake on, but don't finish the run. I'm hoping if we copete on friendly territory she'll feel comfortable enough to bring her A-Game. It took us 2.5 years and 21 tries to get the Open title, but I'm not in a hurry. We can work at "Friday Pace" to get the UD. Besides there's always Rally Masters!