Thursday afternoon, after the parkour class I teach, we did our first rally drop-in class. As it turned out we were the only ones to show up and Veda let us do the course from the Rally Novice class. I'm sure she wanted to assess our skill level.
I wasn't sure how Gimme would do. After all, we'd already worked RallyFrEe three times in the morning and other than those sessions Gimme had been in the car nine hours, plus it was a really hot 93ยบ, which she's not used to. It helped not having another dog to contend with, other than Veda's dog in a crate.
Gimme was really awesome. She did a lovely job on the novice course, twice. The first time I gave her reinforcement for every station. The second time she got three rewards for the whole course, at places I messed up. She was really enthusiastic and did a lovely job. I have to say I've never seen her work so well at Pawsabilities. Most of the daycare dogs were already gone, so it was quieter and less distracting for her.
She finally noticed Veda's dog toward the end of the second novice course. She seemed pretty certain she needed to do something about him. We did some "whazzat" then and again in our last course. I don't know if he's reactive, but he's certainly protective of his crate.
After we did the novice course twice, Veda changed up the course, adding new signs from higher levels. She managed to trip me up with every one. Either I read it wrong or I read it right and performed it wrong, so there was a lot for her to instruct me on. The cool thing was how well Gimme responded when I got my part right. One sign is a halt-sit pivot-left-forward. Veda helped me practice my footwork and then I did it with Gimme. She came up out of her sit, simultaneously swinging her heiney right to maintain heel. It was really quite beautiful and I was impressed with how Gimme did it, as was Veda. She has really sophisticated rear foot awareness, which helps a lot.
During her last run-through Gimme had an episode of reverse sneezing - her first. She had another prolonged episode later in the evening. Then I read on the weather site there was an extreme pollen alert - whatever it is, it's hard for her and she does some soft whining during/after. Poor baby.
Gimme was losing focus halfway through the third run-through and this is when she became most concerned with Veda's dog, so we stopped and played "whazzat" again. It took her awhile to let go and come back to work. However, when she did get back to work, she did nicely. Given how much she'd already done this day, I was very happy with her efforts.
I am still really surprised she did so well with this. I've always thought she wasn't as enthusiastic about RFE because of how choppy the courses are. This was even more choppy (10' or less between stations) and yet she was really enthusiastic, but focused and accurate. The last station before Finish was Slow Pace and I was doing an exaggerated slow. Gimme thought it was just a hoot, and was staying with me, but bouncing in place to do so. Veda and I both laughed at her special interpretation of how to do heel at a snail's pace.
I don't' know if it really was the lack of noise/distractions or something else. Maybe there is a difference in my attitude or some other unknown. It'll be interesting to see how this works out over time. With Gimme's attitude and ability during this first class, it's clear she could be really good at Rally-O if the trials weren't so darn hard for her. Maybe I need to see if there are any video venues for it - J'Anna might be interested in it too for Glory.
Anyway, it's certainly exciting.
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