Coming up Daisies - part 1

So, here's a sure fire way of getting yourself out of a funk caused by missing your foster dog: sign up one of your own dogs for their first ever Rally Obedience trial, which also happens to be YOUR first ever dog sport trial in anything.

For additional distraction, it helps if you haven't been to a Rally-O class - or any class, for that matter - since Spring 2009.

Yeah, so here we were, almost two years later, & I decided it was time to do a trial with Daisy. Rally-O trials here are few & far between (though that's about to get better, I hear!). There was one right in the middle of that 2009 class - I thought we weren't ready & decided to wait for the Fall one. That one got cancelled due to a leaky roof at the event site. Then I planned to do the Spring 2010 trial but right around that time, Bear was very sick & as there are only so many hours in my life I can devote to DOG & as he grabbed all of them, I skipped that one.

(Here is the first of a series of recent photos which are only related to this post in that they feature Daisy.)

When I signed up for the December trial, I didn't even know Bear was going to be adopted but life was settling down, and even though I'd have to vote December as the month in which I'm least likely to be able to take a day to goof off with dogs - I thought, what the heck. And signed up, pretty much at the last minute.

And then thought - hmmmm. Maybe we should brush up on a few things?

So I re-read my copy of Click Your Way to Rally Obedience (which I see has been revised but I only have the old one), and printed out a few pages from the CARO site.

We prepared for about a week. For four evenings, when everyone was getting ready for bed, I'd grab Daisy & go downstairs with her & work her for about five-ten minutes each time. I remembered that during class we struggled with 'crooked sits' so we worked on sitting with a wall on her left, which prevented her butt from winging out. Some fronts, finish right & left & that's it. Darwin & Bear were inevitably protesting at the door at the top of the stairs & I'd cut things short.

(There are no pictures of this. Be glad because you'd be looking at a sleepy woman in ratty old pajamas in a basement decorated in c. 1960's orange & dark wood.)

Instead, I offer you this:

Many evenings, I skipped it altogether, leaving it for 'tomorrow'. I'm good at leaving things for 'tomorrow'.

On the day before the trial, I set up plastic garden pots in my driveway & for about half an hour worked on the figure 8's and spirals. Things were not going that great as Daisy decided this was clearly some shaping exercise & she tried to nose the pots, paw the pots, then tried standing with her front paws inside the pots. Heeling past & around the pots was not very much fun apparently.

(There are no pictures of this either. Too bad because she was kind of cute when she tried to get in the flower pot. I was probably not so cute as I was gritting my teeth & thinking "gee, maybe I should have started refresher training earlier???")

My expectations by this time were much more focused on dealing with her reactivity. The goal was to get into a new place, with new dogs, barking dogs, excited dogs, & keep her focused and relaxed. I was planning on doing a CU type set-up, some t-touch massage, and I was ready to pack it up and leave if at any time it looked like things were getting to be too much. The actual trial - well, whatever. It's secondary to actually just being there & being able to function.

The running joke was that Daisy was going to try to win by eating the competition & I kept reminding her that you win in Rally-O by gaining points and that eating the other dogs would not help at all.

I can eat the competition?

.....to be continued.