Sunday Salutations and Our Clever Canine
A recap of our experience at our first Houston World Series of Dog Shows, running our Newfie in Obedience and Rally.
This week has been exciting, thrilling, and complex with a roller coaster of life events that I am still trying to process. On top of that we had our second, third, fourth and fifth time in the ring for a Dog Competition. (Did I lose count?) So, we are tired. Even Tod, our trusty sidekick and photographer, is dog tired. However, before we all go collapse in a puppy heap, here is an overview of the wacky week of dog life.
I write this at the end of the day as my newly titled companion lays nearby snoring. He is tired and I hope, like me, happy.
Question(s) of the Week
What is your favorite type of dog sport? Is you don’t have one favorite, what is your favorite human or animal sport?
Wednesday
We got Crokell his first official award (Canine Good Citizen or CGC) and his first official title, Novice Trick Dog. He passed both tests, and the paperwork is submitted. Yay! In a completely alien environment! With no treats! So he did amazing.
The CGC went pretty smoothly. We arrived before the evaluator and had time to acclimate a little to NRG Arena, which is huge, echoing, and loud even when only a quarter or less filled with a sea of people and dogs. Once the evaluator arrived, we ran through the CGC items really fast. The slowest part was the two-minute “supervised” separation. Which was hard… on me. Crokell was fine.
Then we did Novice Trick Dog. Since we had passed the CGC, we got to do just 5 tricks instead of 10. We ended up doing: Balance Beam, Fetch It, Hand Signal, High Five and Touch It.
Once the paperwork is processed Crokell’s “official” name will be Rio Nova’s Fast and Furious, CGC, TKN. (TKN is Trick Dog Novice.)
If you follow the blog you might recognized both of these as I did a post on each of them over the last year - Canine Good Citizen and Novice Trick dog.
Thursday
Today was the first time we did Beginner Novice Obedience and the second time we did Novice Rally. Spoiler: we got qualifying runs in both, which means they count towards titles. Yay!
First we had Beginner Novice Obedience, which is a bit different from Novice Rally. Despite being basically for noobs like me, it has a lot more rules and specifications than Novice Rally. But Beginner Novice Obedience allows a chance to get your feet wet in the obedience arena, without having to do one of the pre-scripted performances. Beginner Novice Obedience uses rally signs, so it is similar but the trainer is more limited. You can’t give additional signals or commands, or do the constant talking to the dog that you can in rally to keep attention.
I am hoping to title Crokell in this, and to then maybe go the preferred route for Obedience, which means no group stays. This is more for me than for Crokell, because I get nervous which can make him nervous. We are working up to it.
Our Beginner Novice Obedience Judge (Marleen C. Burford) was incredible. If I ever grow up to be a judge I want to be like her! She walked me and the other first-timer through what to expect and went over all the point deductions after we finished. She told me to take a picture of the score sheet so I understood why I was marked down. Without that, is often difficult to figure out what you did wrong in order to correct it.
The Rally Novice course was a really complicated course - it was a literal sea of orange cones everywhere you looked. There were actually a bunch of people in the same category with us, which was a first for me. That meant I had a longer wait before I could go. It also meant more distractions, which made it … interesting. But despite having two performances in one day and being really curious about what was going on, Crokell persevered and won another green Qualifying Run Ribbon. (For the record, the dogs always get the credit and the trainers always get any blame!)
Friday
Today, was an amazing day for us. Crokell and I as a team hit a number of milestones. First, we signed up and did his AKC Temperament Test (ATT), which was amusing. He passed both of his evaluations with flying colors. The first one he got a perfect score, because he wasn’t scared or really “interested” in any of the distractions. The second was was a little harder, because he had started to wake up and two of the distractions they used were item he considers toys.
Credit goes to Tod’s brother in helping to teach Crokell to walk on furniture.
After that we walked around for a while, and then I brushed Crokell while waiting for Novice Rally to start. This course wasn’t as complex as yesterday’s, and we were able to get another green Qualifying Run Ribbon and complete Crokell’s first Rally title (RN). Nope, he isn’t a registered nurse — but Rally Novice. I also figured out why our scores, while qualifying, are on the lower end. When I see us mess up, I use the “redo” option which automatically reduces the points - more than just letting the error stand. I need to just give him the sit, down, or stay command again, unless we completely ruin the sign. Live and learn!
We went and moved Crokell up to Rally Intermediate for Sunday, which was an adventure in and of itself. I am feel like I am a Traveller RPG character with a negative modifier to all Admin tasks when dealing with the AKC. Still, there was a wonderful, helpful person at the superintendents desk that walked me through the form(s). (She also showed me a different form that is sometimes used, in case I run into it someday.)
We checked out the Farm Dog section, but they were closed down for the day. We will do it next year. I sort of figure I need to leave some of fun side stuff to whittle away at every year. After that we met up with a few other Newfie people as we wandered around, then we went home and flopped. Crokell didn’t even want to go for his evening walk because we walked so much. Still it was a very good day.
Saturday
As I heard that Saturday was the busiest day, I only scheduled one event - Beginner Novice Obedience. I am glad I did because it gave us time to come home and go the store for grocery shopping.
Plus, I am trying to figure out if Crokell handles having multiple events or one event better. I'm working on fine tuning how much before a competition I need to try to “wake him up”. It is a little amusing, everyone else is warming up their dogs but I have to be careful about doing more than a few tricks or “playing” with him. Otherwise, he almost sleepwalks through the competition. So, this morning I worked on our recall and front. (When you call a dog in obedience, the dog is suppose to come really close and then sit right in front of you.) It helped.
On the recall section, we only lost one point. We didn’t lose any points on stay, even though I tripped over the leash as I was leaving. The judge was super impressed with Crokell on that one… I think he was just mostly asleep. Overall, we lost the most points on the heeling and the figure 8 because I have not trained Crokell to do “automatic” sits when I stop. This is in part because in rally, when I stop I don’t always want Crokell to sit. I will have to figure out a happy medium because in obedience you cannot verbally or physically signal for the sit.
Since, I knew I only had one event and it was an earlier event, we finished and went home and ran errands. Tomorrow is the last day. We are hoping to finish the third and final leg of Crokell’s Beginner Novice Obedience and get his first leg in Rally Intermediate. Fingers crossed.
Sunday
Today was the last day of the Houston World Series of Dog Shows. I am sad it is over. I really enjoyed the experience and learned a lot. On the last day, Crokell, and I got his Beginner Novice (BN) Title. I am really happy that we managed it and very surprised as Crokell had decided that automatic sits or sitting in general were not his thing. Still, he handled everything else like a champ. His stays were amazing, and his recall was also good, if a little off center. We got beat out both days by Marisa and her amazing puppy Nando. It is funny when you have a dog 10 times bigger than the dog that beat you out.
We did our first run on Rally Intermediate. It was a blast. Crokell did everything I asked, just… slow. Very slow. I think if we ran the video in double speed, it would have been closer to everyone else’s runs. Still, I am oddly proud of the 95 score. Precision over speed, I guess.
Wrap-Up
It was a wonderful experience. I learned a lot. Crokell got used to all the noise and movement and best of all, I got to make more friends. Dog people, especially dog sport people, are wonderful! I felt like everyone was cheering for each other. I know Tod and I were. So, while it was competitive, it was friendly competitive. I also ran over to watch the Newfoundland Confirmation at the end and got some pointers for grooming Crokell. Hopefully, I will learn how to manage his coat better so he doesn’t look quite so much like a mop-head. Although Tod informed me Crokell shall always have a mohawk that part of him is not allowed to be “cleaned” up.
What a week! Here is the Cthulhu-oid octopus fetch from earlier in the week.
I am tired. Dog tired at that. I think Crokell is as well. We have much more to learn and even more to work on, but that will be next week. I don’t think there is another competition until sometime in October.
If you have any questions about any of the events we did, feel free to drop a comment and ask. If we don’t know, we can likely find someone that does.
What this has to do with our writing?
In our stories we almost always have pets. Often these pets are dogs, and it is good to have an idea of how both well mannered and poorly mannered dogs will behave. Also, it is interesting to see how small changes in the environment can effect the outcomes, attention or even resilience of the trainers and dogs. Often, we don’t think about it but we have taught our dogs hundreds of little signals just by living with us. Dog competitions are a pressure cooker and can show you the faults in your training. Or odd little signals you have taught your canine companion. You would be surprised how many there are. A tilt of a head, a raise of a eyebrow, a flick of a finger, can be a full command sequencing to an observant dog with a consistent owner.
Happy Sunday everyone. We have even more life events coming up next week, some pretty big announcements. So stay tuned if you want to see more dog pictures!
Anna and Tod
Rio Nova Fast and Furious “Crokell” BN RN TKN ATT CGC
Chaos Critters Tip of the week
Don’t use mascara as lipstick.
Good evening from a very tired dog!
He rocks that hat.
I love the obstacle courses. And free-style dance.