Rainy School Dog Show

This was the first kennel club dog show I've been to in the rain. It actually didn't rain that much. Mostly it drizzled or misted. In the morning it did rain some. Tom is not into wet grass. All the dogs show participants camped out in the kennel room. I had thought we might have to stay outside and brought all sorts of waterproof gear which I ended up not needing. I think it works well to stay in the kennel room. All the crates are in there, it's a bit tight I stayed inside for most of the morning classes. I actually got some work done which is the first show I've been able to do school work in. I put Tom in his crate once during the morning and he completely flipped out scratching at the door and biting at it trying to get out. I think he thought I was going to leave him there. So I mostly had him stay under the table or in his crate, door open, and fed him treats for keeping quiet. He was working for me in our little corner of the kennel room but when I took him outside he did not want to do anything except look around at everything. Plus, he doesn't like wet grass and the wet sapped some of his energy.

I couldn't get him to do the easy button outside so I brought him in and shaped easy button in our corner and then moved closer to the door using a combination of asking for tricks and using "go sniff" as a reward. I'd ask for eye contact, walk into him if he didn't give it, then "go sniff." I'd have preferred to shape the eye contact but didn't have enough time. After that I got bouts of attention.

Our first competition was Simon Says. Tom was not interested in treats but willing enough to do the few exercises. Thankfully half of Simon Says is me doing stuff and him maintaining a position which was good because he was not in the mood to jump through hoops. Pelletier was creative in her commands since she didn't use "handler sit/lie on grass." We did a lot of walking around the dog and going through sit, down, stand. It started SS (Simon Says) Sit, Stand (half the people were elimenated), SS space yourselves out, SS dogs down, SS handlers walk around dogs, SS stop, SS dogs sit, SS handlers leave dog, SS hop on one foot, Stop, SS Stop, SS get your dogs to stand from 6 feet away, SS return to dogs, SS dogs sit, SS walk around dogs, SS get dogs to stand while walking around dogs. We got up to the last level and took third because we were a bit sloppy on the last one. Stand is not Tom's strongest command. For the leave dogs sitting, stand dogs from a distance I called Tom and then told him to stay which worked reasonably well. I'm sure there were a few more commands without Simon Says. This is the first year I placed in Simon Says. I think it's a really great exercise. How well does your dog understand various commands? The last few years I flunked out because I was paying too much attention to Tom and not enough to whether there was a SS in front of something.

Tricks, the judges were looking at execution over creativity of the trick. I had Tom fetch a toy and then hit the easy button. He did it but was quite slow. The second time he didn't hit it hard enough for the button to go off. Probably should have used "back up" instead but whatever I did he wouldn't have had much pizazz. Oh well. We didn't place. First went to an Aussie who caught a treat off his/her nose. I think a dog who rolled over with a lot of energy got second. Shelby, who I met later, placed having her dog walk towards targetting her hand right paw, left paw, right paw, left paw. It looked good.

The best part of the obstacle course was that I met Shelby, a freshman waiting in line, with her Lab, Sam. She teaches tricks and has taught her dog to go over obstacles. When we were talking about dogs she mentioned a trainer who had her CPDT and referred to the chute as a closed tunnel. I was standing there thinking, this is definitely a dog person. She's taking the Noseworks course at Masterpeace with a friend's dog and volunteers at a place that does some basic manners classes and has some agility equipment, just got her AKC junior handler number. Very cool! There are surprisingly few dog people at the Aggie who enjoy teaching tricks and take dog classes outside of school. Not at all like the horse people; a large number of Aggians ride outside of school and show.
She just friended me on Facebook. Yay!
So for the obstacle course itself: The Aggie has updated their obstacles which is nice. No more sheet on the end of a barrel chute but a proper one. Of course it was wet and got tangled up but still a big improvement. I was also pleased that they didn't put out any contact equipment other than the table. The rain would have made them quite slippery! And they have tunnel stakes. So, go Aggie! Tom did every obstacle perfectly, he finally had some energy. But he ran over to visit Sam, twice. Oh, Tom. This behavior sounds very familiar! Oh, there was no ring of bones either, after all that time I spent practicing.

I think I might bring Opal to one of the dog shows next year. I can do all the showmanship classes with her and use her "blow bubbles" trick. Probably can't do Simon Says or obstacle but that's okay.

As far as the video camera goes, I did borrow it but need to buy a little DVD memory disk thing for it work.