On Thursday, May 30th, Nadine and I met at Auburn Cinema. When I arrived, Nadine had an article-shape set up. Normally we call it an article-circle, but this wasn't remotely a circle or any other recognizable shape. When I got there she was running Ember on it. Then she ran Sugar and followed by Gimme and me. We both laid tracks for each other and then Cricket got to do the article-shape.Gimme was pretty deep into her false pregnancy, so it took her a little bit to get her brain in gear for the article-shape. Once she did, then she was on fire for it. It was an excellent warm up for her, and then she went back to the van and Lenny-baby.
Gimme then ran the short track Nadine laid for her, aged just 30 minutes. She did a very nice job with the sharp 315° turn. The only real challenge was the last leg (after the open 45° turn). A very large truck drove over the track and then sat running with its rear end (and exhaust) about 20 feet from the track. Gimme kept wanting to turn right (avoiding truck exhaust?) toward where the first article had been. She did finally decide to follow the last leg, crossing behind the truck, and was quickly rewarded with the final article.Later in the afternoon we did a drop-in for Veda's Rally-Obedience class. I have Gimme entered in rally-novice at PSDC's regional specialty the first weekend in July. If we Q there it'll be a new title for her.
I wasn't sure how Gimme would do given her mental state, but thought it was worth a try. I made a place for us, outside the ring (everyone else sits with their dogs around the sides, inside the ring). I brought her in to give her treats and let her look around and get used to the setting. When I thought she was getting stressed, I returned her to the van. For the rest of the time, I brought her in as the dog before us was doing it's run-through, then returned her to the van after our run-through.
The first run-through wasn't very good; cheese just wasn't enough to hold her interest/focus. For the second and third run-throughs I used her peanut butter go toob, which worked very well. The start would have put us in close proximity to a dog on the sideline, with our back to him, so I just angled in to start at the second station, a serpentine. The first leg was right next to where two dogs were sitting, so Veda walked along between us and them. Once I decided to use the go toob (keeping it at nose level), then she didn't pay any attention to them. For the second and third legs she was able to work with the go toob in my hand, but not off her nose. At the end of the third leg we were headed toward another dog, so the go toob was there for her. The third time I abbreviated the third leg doing the last station back 10 feet from the corner and then angled into the center of the ring doing the other stations.
I'm not fooling myself that she learned anything, though I was pleased that she tried so hard. This was mostly just for me to get my head back into Rally-O. At the sit-down-stand station, Gimme kept trying to turn it into an "otto". So, at the end of her last run-through I explained to everyone what she was trying to do and then let her demonstrate both "otto" and "izzy". Naturally they were all suitably impressed.
I hope to get in a couple more drop-ins before the trial.
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