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  1. #11
    Real Retriever fidgetyknees's Avatar
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    Zola was in puppy agility at 3 months (no jumping and contacts obviously) and started competing at 15 months, and she was totally ready at that age, but it is not that common that they are ready that young. If your dog has good focus and works well even in new places without getting distracted you know they may be ready. I did have the advantage of running another dog in agility before her so Zola would come to all the trials, I would do heal work and used the practice jump when nobody else needed it. We also trained at 3 differentry places during her first year .... so that helped a lot as she knew how to work anywhere, plus we would take our equipment and train at different neighborhood fields. I would recommend maybe volunteering at a few trials, bring your dog and crate along, work with your dog inbetween volunteering and see how they deal with the environment .... if they are horribley distracted keep volunteering and coming to trials until they improve.

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  3. #12
    Senior Dog Tanya's Avatar
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    oh good point, to take classes or practice in different places so they get used to it from the get go!

  4. #13
    Senior Dog Maxx&Emma's Avatar
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    Good luck tonight, Tanya and Penny!! I can't wait to hear how you do!
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  5. #14
    Senior Dog windycanyon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tanya View Post
    aww the dogs really don't care for the most part. practice for them can be as fun if not more. I haven't done much competiting but as long as you are polite and respectful it's all good. Humans make as many errors as dogs and that's ok! Been tehre, done that. Find a fun trial, much less pressure and it will help your confidence. I do work on being prepared but at the end of the day I generally just throw myself in there. Rocky has his novice Rally title in CARO and two legs to his novice in CKC (we never finished that up), we just sorta went in after the training.

    Depending how things go tonight I MAY throw myself to the rally-o trial wtih Penny, the biggest "turn off" right now is it means leaving early haha. I don't expect much and given the envrionment - she may even freeze (in which case we may excuse ourselves). But that stuff happens. I was joking that if she can see the dock from the rally-o ring there is no way she'll move anywhere but towards the pool haha (but they have said you can't see the dock from the ring).
    Very true about the dogs not generally caring if they are practicing or competing. It's the handler who has to get over themselves for their dogs' sakes. I know, it sounds daunting, but at some point you have got to sit back and really watch others around you at the trials. With the possible exception of your best friends or instructor, others are rarely watching that closely! I always loved one of the judges (known for some killer courses at Excellent esp) who would say "I'm not laughing AT you, I'm laughing WITH you!".

    As soon as you can begin to learn to laugh at yourself (and maybe at your dog if they have a blonde moment...), you will learn to enjoy the trials a lot more. Oh, except for those darned early wake ups. That never improves, trust me. It's pretty exciting to me to see SH and JH tests now starting as late as 9am and even 10am in one case.... I hope they continue that for next year when I plan to have more entries!

    Good luck in your rally o match tonite. I have one on Sat that should be fun... I've not done anything w/ Kanzi except a warm up course the other night before her obed class. This will be the first time I do Excellent since typically I quit at Advanced due to too many ring conflicts between obed and rally, so I hope I remember all the signs from this winter's class! Will also run the baby thru a Nov course, but not expecting a lot as she's teething terribly (lost the last canine yesterday) and sleeping a lot, but it's going to be a new venue, so we'll at least get that exposure.

    BTW, Envy's (Kanzi's crazy mom) first Rally trial was in a park w/ a big beautiful river right there.... She was only ~9 mos old and started screaming as soon as she saw water. Fortunately we got there early and were able to swim a bit -- it was also very hot that day. When we finally got into the ring, the first leg of the course was facing the river and I could just feel her digging in. I completely changed my demeanor and made the whole Rally course a lot more fun than normal, drawing out my commands and really using my voice. One tight leash was all we had (on that leg toward the river!), and when we finished, the man (looked like one of my old retired farmers!) who was timing got up and came over to me afterwards and said "that was the most fun run I have ever watched, Congratulations!". From that day on, that is how I try to work w/ my youngsters in the Rally ring because it was true, we did have more fun. I have learned to have more fun than most in the obed ring as well, and in most cases, I think the judges have more fun when everyone is smiling and maybe even laughing a bit.
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    IntCH WindyCanyon's Northern Spy CDX RA JH OA OAJ CC (14.5 yrs)
    IntCH WindyCanyon's Ruby Pink BN CD RA CC (4.5 yrs)
    IntCH WindyCanyon's Kanzi BN CDX RE JH (5 yrs)
    IntCH WindyCanyon ItsOnlyMoneyHoneycrisp BN RN CC (16mos)
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  6. #15
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    The best thing I found for ring nerves was to compete in Utility ... aka FUTILITY. With Scully, who was my first dog (not just competition dog, first dog ever) I was really lucky - she turned out to be an awesome working dog despite an inexperienced, bumbling handler. She sailed through Novice and Open with no bad shows, but Utility was a different story. We NQ’d the first 11 trials we entered .... turns out that if I screw up the handling and we NQ, guess what? The world doesn’t end. As a friend likes to say “there’s always another dog show”. I think prior to that, I was so afraid of failing that I would get really worked up and anxious .... once I learned it wasn’t life or death and failure wasn’t the end of the world it got a lot better.

    At this point, I show so often that I am pretty relaxed in the ring - I do concentrate on my handling, but if I or the dog screw up, I just laugh about it. It helps that if you show enough, you get to know all the judges pretty well - and see them with their own dogs making mistakes when they show as well .... that helps, too. I can’t speak for the other dog sports but Obedience people tend to be really friendly and supportive - no one is judging you and most people will be pretty empathetic if things don’t go so well as it’s happened to all of us.
    Annette

    Cookie (HIT HC Jamrah's Legally Blonde, UDX, OM2, BN) 6/4/2015
    Sassy (HIT Jamrah's Blonde Ambition, UDX, OM2, BN) 6/4/2015

    Chloe (HIT HC OTCH Windsong's Femme Fatale, UDX4, OM6, RE) 6/7/2009

    And remembering:

    Scully (HC Coventry's Truth Is Out There, UD, TD, RN) 4/14/1996 - 6/30/2011
    Mulder (Coventry's I Want To Believe, UD, RN, WC) 5/26/1999 - 4/22/2015

    And our foster Jolie (Windsong's Genuine Risk, CDX) 5/26/1999 - 3/16/2014

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  8. #16
    Senior Dog Tanya's Avatar
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    oh I bumble so often I just laugh, and as long as you are polite and keep your dog from getting into real trouble, most people are super happy and will just laugh and support you. It's all good

    Today was an exhausting day! Pen was great on the dock (me not so much, seriously, I cannot throw). We did two run-thrus of the rally-o and it's really really slow for Penny. she did ok considering the training we've done (or lack there of). But loosing focus. But she was really good during agility class. Her contacts can be pretty good (until our last run thru, I think because I was running FAST to keep up and beat her to the contact, she was booting it faster to beat ME and then lost her contact). So we slowed down and re-did the contacts (the trainer does two-on-two-off til release). I like it as if she stays on the contact (2o2o) then I can take a second to think, get into position and release for the next section of a course. I like that she is becoming very responsive to me during training (exept the contacts where she just wants the "target" and the trainer for treats and kisses haha but we have weaned off the trainer being there so that helps).

    I will decide tomorrow if I try her in the trial for "extra practice" in two weekends or if I just let myself sleep in.

    Early mornings and dogs sports, I'll never get used to it I have a dock diving competition this weekend and skipped the morning runs haha. The earliest we are up is 11am on the three days.

    So Penny does better at "high energy" stuff, but I think "needs" to work on the slower stuff like Rally-O to work on precision and connection and FOCUS. but I also lack in training those so we both need to work on that

  9. #17
    Senior Dog Maxx&Emma's Avatar
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    All of you are telling me the same thing Maxx's trainer keeps telling me. I guess i should just stop over thinking it and try. It definitely isn't the end of the world if we fail as long as Maxx has fun. I really think a class or seminar on handler confidence would do me some good though.
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  11. #18
    Senior Dog Tanya's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Maxx&Emma View Post
    All of you are telling me the same thing Maxx's trainer keeps telling me. I guess i should just stop over thinking it and try. It definitely isn't the end of the world if we fail as long as Maxx has fun. I really think a class or seminar on handler confidence would do me some good though.
    it should be fun for you too not just the dog Handling classes could be great

  12. #19
    Senior Dog windycanyon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Maxx&Emma View Post
    All of you are telling me the same thing Maxx's trainer keeps telling me. I guess i should just stop over thinking it and try. It definitely isn't the end of the world if we fail as long as Maxx has fun. I really think a class or seminar on handler confidence would do me some good though.
    The last obed workshop I coordinated here addressed that by popular demand.
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    The WindyCanyon Girls (taken Summer 2018)
    IntCH WindyCanyon's Northern Spy CDX RA JH OA OAJ CC (14.5 yrs)
    IntCH WindyCanyon's Ruby Pink BN CD RA CC (4.5 yrs)
    IntCH WindyCanyon's Kanzi BN CDX RE JH (5 yrs)
    IntCH WindyCanyon ItsOnlyMoneyHoneycrisp BN RN CC (16mos)
    IntCH WindyCanyon's Pippin BN RI CC (2.5 yrs)
    IntCH WindyCanyon's Envy CDX RE JH CC (10.5 yrs)
    IntCH HIT WindyCanyon's Kiku A Fuji Too CDX RE JH CC (10 yrs)







 



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