The adventures of SD Juno and SDIT Kaline (and their human, Colt).

29 March 2014

Rally Trial in Petaluma

Yeah, I know, there goes that New Year's Resolution. So much for once a week blogging. It's been a really bad week. If you know me, you know why, and if you don't ... well, I don't need to broadcast it to the ether.

Last weekend Juno, Kaline, Dad and I headed to Petaluma for a Rally trial. Normally, Dad is kept as far away from these things as possible because he is an enormous distraction. However, I was very low on spoons, and knew that if I didn't take him I'd probably fall asleep driving there or coming home. He's a really great dad—I made him get up at 5:00 in the morning so we would get there early. Need my good parking spot, time to set up, and time to practice.

Dad basically dropped us off and went to go have breakfast, so the first part of the trial went fairly smoothly. Juno was in Excellent and Advanced, still looking for an RAE leg, and Kaline was in Advanced for the first time. Juno was great warming up (except for focusing so hard on my face that she walked into the jump). Got her in the ring, and it was like pulling teeth. Being in the ring is just unpleasant for both of us. She was clean though, and ended up with a 93 and second place.
First through fourth place dogs won toys as well as ribbons!
Dad returned to help with wrangling as I warmed both dogs up for Advanced. This turned out not to be such a great idea, even though he made himself scarce about 45 minutes before Juno's run. Kaline went first, and although it was a little insane—he is much faster than Juno, and it makes me feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants—he was very good and got a 94. All our work off leash with the e-collar paid dividends. Even when he was not looking at me at all, a verbal cue got instant results! Super helpful.


Then I took Juno in. She was doing okay, and then halfway through the run, it was like she suddenly realized Dad had left. She lost all focus, and was scanning the crowd, looking for him. I could barely get her through to the end. She got a 70, which is the lowest score you can get while still qualifying. So she got an RAE leg but I think we shall stop there.

Kaline's 94 was good enough for second, which was really exciting. Then we had a long break, during which my wonderful father brought us lunch.

In the second trial, I only entered Kaline. He was again very good, even though we had a bit of a hiccup in our course. Earlier, the judge had let a dog run the course with the wrong jump height, and had to call them back after finishing to have them do a proper jump. Rally jumps only go up to 16", but obviously that's pretty short for a 27" Doberman. So just after Kaline did the jump (second exercise of the course), the judge had an Oh Shit moment and called us back. He was worried the jump was again too short. After a quick check with the stewards, he realized it was right, apologized, and had us restart, promising not to re-judge our first two exercises. I was a little flustered, and Kaline had lost a little focus, but he got it back fairly quickly and did really nicely! Well, except when he heard Juno whining while we were on the far side of the ring. He clearly thought that she was in distress and needed his help (even if she were, she wouldn't want help from him! haha). But he got back on track and got a 95, and another second place finish.

Pretty much unrelated news: Sue Korp, the nice lady with the Doberman bitch with All The Titles, earned her and Jessi's Obedience Grand Master title at the same trial. Very, very cool.

1 comment:

  1. It's so neat that dogs got toys as well! Of course, they look like the Most Fragile of toys, but still. A little bit of niceness for them.

    Congrats on your ribbons!

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