PSDC Rally Novice

We were successful in Rally Novice at the Puget Sound Dalmatian Club's regional specialty.  Gimme qualified with 79 points for first place - I cost her 15 points.  She deserves a better handler.

I got Gimme out for several walks to snoop and sniff. When we got closer to ring time, I set up a chair and rug near the tree line, farthest from the ring and off the pee paths. Gimme settled a little bit, but not completely.

I hadn't thought through needing to walk the course, so I asked Nadine to come and sit with her. She loves Nadine, because she always gets to "find her stuff" (tracking) and I thought she might be okay with it. Not! Gimme was so stressed by me leaving her, even though I was in sight just 100' away, stressed enough she couldn't eat the cheese Nadine offered. Before next year, I'll have Nadine practice holding Gimme while I'm at varying distances, so it'll be more familiar to her. We can do this in conjunction with our tracking practices.

I had Gimme in harness for all of this, so any pulling she did wouldn't result in tightness against her collar. When I returned from the walk-through I gave her a huge glob of peanut butter while I got her undressed for the ring, because it's is calming for her. I carried a small handful of treats with me to reward heeling on the way to the ring. Gimme was focused and ready to work. Unfortunately, as we were standing at the ring entrance ready to go in, two dogs 20' away got into one of those loud yelling fights. This really blew any concentration she had and it took a lot of encouragement to get her working with me again.

PSDC Rally Novice video - Gimme had no real attention for the first sign, Call-Front-Finish-Left-Forward, so I had to lure her with my hand. She does well with the Offset-Serpentine-Left. She did well enough on the 270º-Right-Turn, though a bit wide because she thought it might be a nice time to visit the judge. Gimme did a good job on the Call-Front-1-2-and-3-Steps-Backward-Forward, but I messed up my footwork on the 2-steps-back costing us 3-5 points. I realized my mistake but it was too late to fix it and a restart would have cost as many or more points, and probably frustrated Gimme. She rounded the corner on the Left-Turn because she's smart enough to know the ring gates in front of us meant we had to turn, eh. Next was a Fast-Pace, which I later learned we got IP'd for a ten point loss. The judge said he didn't think it was "fast enough". I don't understand his objection since both Gimme and I broke into a trot and the sign description says "The dog and handler must speed up noticeably". I don't agree with his assessment, but I'm okay with it; I'd be more concerned if the lost points had cost us a Q. This was followed by Normal-Pace where we both dropped to a walk again. The next turn was a Halt-Left-Turn-Forward. Gimme did this well, especially since we've never trained it. The Straight-Figure-8-Weave-Twice went well, this is where Gimme really started to focus on me - she did better and better as we worked. Our next station was Halt-Down-Walk-Around. Gimme was slow to sit, but dropped like a stone for the down and stayed very still for the walk around. There was a nice stretch of heeling before we came to the Call-Front-Return-To-Heel. Gimme did well with this, especially since it was only the second time in her life to do it. I should have taken a couple extra steps to set this up, since it left us very little space for the next station Loop-Left, which was followed by a Loop-Right. We'd actually never done either of these, which are just basic heeling, but a little awkward to wrap my mind around. Next was a 360º-Left-Circle; easy peasy on the way to the Finish sign. I just saw where the sign description for the left-circle describes it as a "tight 360º turn", mine was not tight - I think I confused it with the 270º turn.

I am really pleased with Gimme's efforts. It was hard work for her, very distracting and stressful, but as I mentioned, she got better and better just during the time in the ring.

I had forgotten how noisy conformation shows are. Nadine picked her video spot so she could talk to SarahAnne and ask her to make a special effort to keep her dogs and grandkids quiet while Gimme was in the ring. I do have to say everyone was really was helpful and cooperative about moving dogs and keeping their distance. I'm not sure I would have gotten so much cooperation at an all-breed trial. Everyone here knows me and Gimme, and all her accomplishments, and it was clear they wanted to help us have a fair chance to succeed.

So one more leg to get the title, probably about this time next year. I'll be working on a few more things between now and then. I'll decide next year whether we'll continue to Rally Intermediate. I'm sure we could do it, but I'm not sure I want to bother if she isn't more comfortable in a busy show environment.