Let's Pretend!

As I learn more and more about doing competitive obedience, I discover more and more the usefulness of something called a correction match.

At work the other day someone asked what I was doing on the weekend, and I said I was taking Sadie to a correction match.

- A what?

- A correction match. It's a sort of, um, well, it's a pretend obedience trial. The difference is that you can help your dog if she makes a mistake.

It's hard to explain obedience activities to people who are really only asking to be polite, and whose eyes begin to glaze over the instant you start using terms like "q" and "nq". So as I tried to distill the essence of the correction match into a simple phrase, this is what came out.

As I have discovered, the correction match can be a very powerful training tool for any dog and handler team. You have the full experience of the trial: you travel to a hall, which may be completely new to you and your dog. This was the case on Sunday. We went to a nice facility called The Poodle Farm in Vanessa, Ontario.

Just as at a real show, you set up your crate, you check in and find out where you are scheduled in the running order, you warm up your dog, you put yourself in the ring with a person who may be a complete stranger, who has a clipboard and who runs you through your paces as though it were an actual trial. In classes that require stays, you can test the strength of your dog's stays, and if you choose to, you can stay in the ring to help your dog, or you can come back intermittently to reward your dog. You see the strength of your competition, you watch other handlers and pick up tips you can use in your training. You commiserate with the teams that are having a bad day.

Sadie does not yet have what I would call a great deal of ring experience, so she still finds things overwhelming and stressful when we go out to new places. I am trying to take her out as much as possible to expose her to new people and new places, and correction matches are a safe and positive way to help her grow in confidence and develop her trial skills.

Unlike in a real trial, if she makes a mistake, I can correct her, re-do the exercise, break off the exercise and start over, encourage her when she is doing really well, and communicate in ways that are not allowed in an actual trial. So, for example, when we were doing our heeling pattern and instead of following me through an about turn (this is a u-turn to the right to send you back in the direction you just came from) - where was I, yes, so, instead of actually doing the "heeling" bit of the exercise, when I turned into the u-turn, Sadie decided that it looked like much more fun to jump the fabric-draped gating that we were just coming up to, to see what might be on the other side, and took down most of the line of gating in the process. Much tail wagging and spriteliness on the far side of the gating - look what I just did, mom!

Had this been a real trial, my mortification would have been extreme. Since it was a match, we were able to laugh it off, put the gating back up, and I was able to immediately re-do the exercise and make sure that she stayed with me, and reward her for doing it right.

I do have some jitters even at matches, so this is good too. Because I can talk to her, and encourage and help her, the whole experience is positive for us both. One of the things I try to do mentally at a trial is to hold on to the feeling of enjoyment I have when I work with my dog in a non-trial environment, and the feeling of calm, and to remember it as precisely as possible so that the next trial I go to, I can bring it back to mind and try to put myself in that positive, happy frame of mind.

I think that when I go to our next trials, I am going to try to convince myself that it is in fact no different or more important than a match. I need to stop investing so much emotion into the trial situation, because I keep sabotaging myself with my nerves.

A fellow match attendee mentioned yesterday that it's natural for us competitive types to enjoy the pretty ribbons and try to get them and that it is a good feeling to earn them. But the ultimate goal of doing dog sports is to spend time with our dogs and have fun with them. At the end of the show, you go home with the dog you love, ribbons or not.

Other certainties of dog shows - there is always another show next weekend, and you never, ever know what the dogs will do. Every dog and handler team has their day, and every superstar has unpredictable days. If you put in the effort, you and your dog will accomplish the things you want, while having a good time. The same person also told me "it's funny how the harder you work at something, the luckier you get".

A bonus to yesterday was the glorious weather. It was a beautiful early autumn day. Full sun, moderate temperatures, no humidity. The drive to Vanessa was filled with trees just beginning to turn colour, fields of pumpkins ready to harvest, corn as high as an elephant's eye.

On our way back home, we passed through Ayr and visited Riverside Park. Sadie jumped up into my lap and we watched the world go by for a bit.

Sadie Got Her American CD

This weekend we ventured to Sadie's homeland, the United States, for our very first foray into AKC obedience. The show was the Western Lakes Training Club trials, in Buffalo, NY.

My friend Christine came with me and was so great all weekend helping out with things and most importantly taping all our runs, so that Paul could watch when we got home. We also were able to see friends who live in Buffalo and who we have not been able to connect with for several years. We had 2 evenings of good dinners and catching up. It was an excellent bonus to the weekend.

The trials were held in what was orginally an airplane hangar and is now a large indoor soccer field with astroturf on the floor. I had never walked on astroturf and it was quite soft and spongy and you could hear it squelching a bit as you walked. I think it would be a good surface for the dogs working in Open and Utility as it would be much nicer to land on after a jump.

As usual I did not have the control over my nerves that I would have liked. This is something I continue to work on as I compete. I know that I have no business indulging any nervousness on my part because that may impede Sadie's performance as she picks up on my different attitude. However we both held things together and she was able to qualify in 3 straight Novice trials to earn her CD (Companion Dog) title, and in the 2 Rally trials offered she placed first, earning 2 of the 3 necessary legs for her Rally Novice title. Unfortunately there were only 2 Rally trials offered, so we will need to find another AKC Rally trial to finish the RN title another time.

The weather was beautiful, moderate and no humidity. The club was very hospitable and the show was very well organized and run. The venue was gigantic and there were 4 large rings, 3 for obedience, and 1 for Rally.

In AKC trials, the ribbons are differently coloured depending on where you place in the results. We were very fortunate to place in all 5 trials, and so the 2 blue ribbons were first place for Rally, the 2 red ones were 2nd place for obedience, and the yellow was a 3rd for obedience. We also got a really lovely orange and blue ribbon provided by the club for the completion of a title.
There were also prizes - toys for placements and really cool poop bags and dispensers for first place. I have to admit I have never before seen hot pink poop bags with little hearts on them or purple polka-dotted poop bags. I may need to archive them to preserve their glorious coolness to share with future generations.

It's always a bit surprising how tired you and your dog become by the end of a show, and even more so after 2 days. The mental stimulation and tension take their toll, and the excitement of working in the ring uses up a lot of energy!

Right across the road from our hotel was a campus of the State University of New York, with a huge field in front of it. Many of us took our dogs over there for a romp after a day of showing.

Here Sadie is letting off steam after a hard day at the show.

She enjoyed all the toys and is thinking about maybe sharing them with Elliott.

Thanks to the Western Lakes Training Club for a great weekend of showing. I think we will be back next year. Maybe by then Elliott's leg will have healed enough that he can be back to obedience work, and he can try for his American CD too!

If you would like to see Sadie's final run in Novice, I've put up a video on YouTube. This is not her best work. The heeling lacks the attention I'd like to see, however, it was day 2, we were both tired, and there are fascinating sights and smells in a new obedience ring! You can watch at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuR_Au3jJPE
This run earned 2nd place and a score of 190.5.

Sadie's First HIT

Last year I started taking classes at a school in Georgetown called Campaign Dog Academy. Each year for the past several years they have held an obedience challenge day for staff and students. When I started going to Campaign, I really enjoyed looking at all the photo collages and promotional posters on the walls that showed the students' accomplishments over the years. The school is obviously very proud of its students and all the work that goes into competing in dog sports.

The Campaign Challenge posters were especially nice, and showed the winners in each obedience category as well as an overall winner. I thought it was great that Deb Desjardine, the owner, would go to the trouble to put on such a big day for her staff and students, and to honour the memory of her dad, Ron Peterson.

I was excited this year to be able to enter the Challenge. With Elliott out of commission due to his knee surgery, I entered Sadie for the day. Challenge Day was Sunday, June 28.

New this year to the Challenge, the overall winner was going to come from the highest combined score across the Agility, Rally, and Obedience competition. Well, I've never done Agility, so I knew there wasn't a chance we would win, but I thought it would be good fun anyway. Sadie and Elliott have both had basic courses a few years ago when they were younger but I've never run a course or done anything outside of a class that was held indoors. Fortunately there was a class available in the Challenge for dogs with no Agility titles, a pre-novice level, so I entered that and worried about what a fool I was going to look huffing around an agility course but knowing that Sadie would enjoy herself. I entered the Rally Excellent class since she has her RE title, and I was able to enter her in Novice Obedience since she has no CDX legs and has never trialed in Open.

Our scores were all kept secret during the day, but placements were announced as the classes finished. No placement in Agility, but I felt she did a good job; she cleanly did about 12 jumps and 3 tunnels and had a great party and man was she FAST. I think this is where her strengths will lie in time to come. And the smile on her face was a joy to behold. Bonus - I did not fall down in the Agility course!

On to Rally, she gave me beautiful effort there including a flawless backwards heel. I was proud when she placed first in her class and got a lovely prize.

In the Novice class she did more good work. As always, heeling is our bete noir in the Obedience ring, but very nice nonetheless. Won that class, and got another prize.

Paul helped out as a ring steward for the rest of the afternoon, and I watched the Brace competition and some of the Open and Utility competition. I always enjoy watching and learning from the experience of these talented handler and dog teams.

Then at the end of the day Deb announced the overall category winners.

Agility - I knew she wasn't in the running because she hadn't won her class.

Rally, I hoped.... maybe.... but no.

Obedience, I knew others had done better out of the Utility and Open classes.

Then, the final announcement of the overall Challenge Winner of the day. Highest cumulative score over the 3 levels of competition, the first ever Campaign Challenge Versatility champion. I think I heard my jaw hit the floor when "Mary & Sadie" was called.

My little Sadie got her first High in Trial out of several classes of competition, across three dog sports, in a very special venue. It was an honour to compete with so many richly talented teams, and it was very special to be the top team of the day at the 2009 Campaign Challenge. We got more wonderful prizes thanks to the generosity of Campaign. Especially gratifying will be to see my Sadie adorning the next collage poster that goes up on the wall at Campaign.

WAY TO GO, SADIE!!!!!

Sunday Rally at Poodle Club

Today I had Sadie out to CKC Rally trials in Etobicoke, held by the Poodle Club of Canada. We were trying
for our first RAE (Rally Advanced Excellent) legs. To qualify for the
RAE title, you must pass both the Advanced and the Excellent class at
the same trial, and you must do that ten times. In other words, you
must get 20 qualifying scores to earn the title.

In our first class today, the Advanced B class, Sadie was handicapped
by the ring nerves of her handler who made some errors, however she
still qualified in a fairly large group, but did not place. In the
second class, Excellent B, I was much more relaxed, Sadie was much
more focused, and she earned her first ever perfect score and placed
third. That's a thing that's a bit frustrating about Rally - you could
get a perfect score all the time and still not place if there are
other dogs with 100s who are faster. So I was thrilled to get a third
place.

On to the next trial and a second perfect score in one day! Sadie
took the Advanced class with that and a lovely fast time to edge out
the other dogs. She was working on a third perfect score, but sadly
got hung up on the backward heeling exercise and we had to redo it,
losing points in the meantime. She still got a nice q of 94 which was
good enough for 2nd place in that Excellent class.

So all told, 4 Qs, 2 perfect scores, 3 placements, and 2 RAE legs.
What a great day for me and my girl. Here she is with all her bling.
She likes her new ball the best of her prizes.

It's Official! Number 4 ESS in Canada!

I could not be more proud to announce that Elliott is the number 4 English Springer Spaniel in Obedience in Canada for 2008!
Elliott has become a beautiful friend, teammate and companion. He is happy-go-lucky, a delight to train, personable and sweet-natured. I am still in disbelief that we have achieved so much in the ring in such a short time as complete beginners to the sport. Thank you, Elliott, for making this dream of mine come true. Here's to all the great years ahead, my boy. The best is yet to come!

Sadie has 8 titles!

Companion Dog Intermediate (C.D.I.)

(a) The CKC will permit the use of the letters
C.D.I., signifying Companion Dog Intermediate,
to be used in connection with and after the
name of each dog, which has met the requirements
for that title as hereinafter provided.

1) Honouring
2) Heel Free and the Figure 8
3) Stand for Examination (off leash)
4) Recall Holding Dumbbell
5) Drop from Heel
6) Broad Jump
(excerpted from the CKC Obedience Trial Rules publication)

This class is conducted off leash and is a great bridge between the Novice and Open classes. The dog needs to be controlled off leash without taking the collar or touching the dog. Sadie still finds competitive venues very distracting and interesting, but kept her concentration together long enough to pass her trial on Friday and complete her CDI title. I am very proud of this lovely dog who is gradually developing into a fine working dog and who maintains her sweet demeanor and sense of humour at all times. A nicer girl I could not ask for.

Friends

Recently we got some good news which as yet is unofficial and so I'm not going to post it here. I will definitely post when it is official. In the meantime I'll share this lovely card and flowers with you that a dear friend thought to give me to mark this unofficial good news. If nothing else, it might make you think of springtime.

An Excellent Weekend

This weekend Paul stayed home to look after Elliott and Sadie and I
attended the KW Kennel Club trials. This was Sadie's first outing in
Rally Excellent and she made us all proud, passing all 3 trials and
getting her title just like that, with nice scores and two
placements! She is now Darkover Come Dance With Me, CGN, PCD, CD,
RNCL, RN, RA, RE! What a good girl.

SIGH.....

Great scores we have blown. Most recently, yesterday, Mr. Boo was entered in the Open class at the Golden Retriever Club of Greater Toronto obedience trials. He worked beautifully in both trials. Heeling was gorgeous, we got 38.5 out of 40 in both trials. He worked beautifully until we got to our sit-stay exercise. Then he decided to lay down. In each trial we *could* have come away with a lovely score of 196.5. Sigh. If there are any obedience gurus reading this who have ideas for more proofing of the stays, I would love to hear from you. Otherwise I work stays until I'm blue in the face. One tip I got yesterday was to work a 4 minute stay just before meals. I am also working stays and rewarding back to the armband so that his focus is not out in front. I worked with another handler yesterday to set him up so I could get in a correction and then jackpotted when he held. THIS IS DRIVING ME CRAZY. Ok, I feel a bit better now.

Portrait Session

When Sadie or Elliott get a new title, I like to get a picture done so that in future years I can look back to see a time when I didn't have grey hair, and to remind myself what it was like when I was first competing and getting titles. I hope that these will be really nice mementoes to have when these wonderful dogs have passed on and new ones come along to train me.

Today we took a drive over to Bingeman's where the Elora Gorge Kennel Club show (traditionally the last of the year) is usually held, and where our favourite photographers were today. I packed up the freshly groomed dogs, the box o' bling, and got myself somewhat put together. The bonus part of getting pictures taken after the fact is that there is no bleary-eyed, rat-bag-hair effect that usually is present on the third day of a long weekend of showing. As a result, I usually like the way these sorts of pictures turn out, since I don't end up looking like - well, like someone who's been showing dogs for three days and not sleeping or eating properly.

We got some great pictures taken today. First of all, I wanted to mark Sadie earning her Rally Advanced (RA) title. Here is the shot we chose for a print:

Then, we wanted a picture for Elliott's RAE, especially since he is the first English Springer Spaniel to earn the Rally Advanced Excellent title from the CKC. Here is my handsome boy, draped in bling:

Taking pictures with dogs is always an adventure, and today was no exception, as we also "ended up" with these two pictures, which I think I like almost as much as the portraits.

Elliott's Opinion: Do you think four thousand pictures is not enough, really? Because I do.

Sadie's Opinion: Oh, I am sooooooo done with this, mother!

Obedience Class

Today Elliott attended an obedience workshop in Georgetown. Here is a
shot of the group of dogs doing sit stays. Elliott is the one in the
middle in the lawn chair.

RA is not just the sun god

Here we view the Princess Sadie in a typical attitude of repose.
Surprising to know that she is in fact capable of moving at high speeds!

I was very proud when she kept her act together enough to finish her
RA (Rally Advanced) title in July. She even placed 4th in one of the
trials. So as you see, you can be a RA and be a little princess!

Goodies for Good Dogs

Elliott and Sadie also benefitted from the generosity of the ESSCC at the SD&G show. We got some great goodie bags just for being there, and Elliott got a small goodie bag for each qualifying score in Rally. Here is Elliott showing off his stuff. Sadie is supervising from the background.

Sadie is a Titleholder Too!

At the English Springer Spaniel Club of Canada National Specialty show, they had an event which I had never participated in before. It's something called a Parade of Titleholders, which you can enter with your dog if they hold any type of titles. I put Sadie and Elliott in this so that we could get some fancy ribbons and run around the conformation ring (also a first for us).

The ribbon they get is really neat; it's huge, and has the dog's name and titles printed on it.

Here is Sadie with her lovely ribbon listing her 6 obedience titles.

Bling from SD&G

Elliott earned qualifying scores in his Rally trials and for each one got a lovely blue rosette from the ESSCC. The beautiful big green ribbon is from the Parade of Titleholders and has his name and all his titles inscribed on it. Very good bling from our first time at the ESSCC National specialty!

Elliott Earns His RAE Title!

I am very proud to say that Elliott successfully completed his Rally Advanced Excellent title this weekend at the Stormont Dundas & Glengarry dog show in Long Sault. He found competing outdoors very difficult but managed to hold things together enough to qualify in the 4 rounds to get his last 2 RAE legs. To the best of my knowledge he is the first English Springer Spaniel in Canada to earn the RAE and I am very proud of him. This is Elliott's tenth obedience title and his third this year after his CDX and RE. For the rest of the year he will concentrate on practicing his Open skills and this fall we will start training for Utility. I am very proud of Elliott and all the hard work he has done this year!

You Want Me To Do What?

At the end of May, Sadie and Elliott competed at Rally trials in Powassan, Ontario.

Sadie, being the social butterfly she is, finds the meet and greet aspect of going to dog shows more entertaining and satisfying than actually going into the ring to compete.Upon arrival at a hotel, Sadie loves to start her visit with ceremonial leaping from bed to bed. This is an essential component of any dog show visit.
When reminded that she is at the dog show to compete, and hopefully get a title, this is the typical reaction:

HUH?

Sadie went into the trials that weekend already having 1 leg towards her Rally Advanced title. She only needed to pass twice in order to finish her title. In the 3 trials she competed in, she managed to pass only once. The trials were outdoors and so very challenging for her as she fought to ignore all the distractions!

Like,

GOATS

and GEESE!

Her big brother Elliott got 3 RAE legs and his first perfect score in CKC Rally, coming first in one of the trials. Sadie, I think, was busying partying with the goats at that point.....

Diva's Titles

In spite of being the consummate Diva, Sadie has earned two new obedience titles so far this year. Here is her picture to commemorate earning her RN (Rally Novice) and CD (Companion Dog) titles.

She performed wonderfully in Rally, earning her title in her first 3 Rally trials.

She also earned her CD in one weekend at the age of 2 years and 9 days old, with one placement. In this respect she is way ahead of Elliott - he got his CD in grand style with placements, but we had many nq's before we had success. She had already been entered in a second weekend of Rally and Novice trials as we worked on her titles, because I didn't know how well she would do. So what happened was that she got to do another weekend of Novice as a bonus, if you will. She again qualified 3 for 3 in the Novice class and that weekend managed to get 3 High in Class placements. She also placed in 4 of her Rally Novice trials, hence the lovely bling on the left of the picture. She is now the proud possessor of 5 obedience titles at just a little over 2 years of age. I am really proud of her accomplishments, and I know she will go very far, especially if we can adjust her attitude!

Sadie has earned one leg of the 3 needed towards her Rally Advanced (RA) title in the one trial she has been in so far. With any kind of luck, she will have her RA title by this time next week. Fingers crossed!!! The trials are outdoors so it should be.....interesting.

Rally On

One of the dog sports that we enjoy most is Rally Obedience. Rally combines traditional obedience exercises with a fast-paced, enthusiastic environment. Judges create a course that is unique each time. That keeps it very interesting for the handler as you don't just go in and do the same old, same old each time - you have to think! The goal is for the teams to run the course briskly and happily - no harsh corrections are allowed. It's like a little obedience party that you and your dog have been invited to. The link above is to the Canadian Association of Rally Obedience. They are one organization in Canada that offers Rally competition. The Canadian Kennel Club also offers Rally-O, but they didn't start until 2007. Sadie and Elliott both have Rally Novice titles from CARO and Elliott is going to start working on his Advanced CARO title later this month.

Meet Elliott

Meet Elliott, also known as Society's Lone Gunman, PCD, CD, CDI, CDX, CGN, RNMCL, RN, RA, RE. That's quite the mouthful, but all it really means is that he and I have been enjoying a fun and productive obedience career. Elliott was born in October 2004. He came to live with us in March of 2005, and I started training him immediately. We took many classes and made progress, to the point of obtaining our Pre-Novice (PCD) title in July of 2006. It was late in 2006 when a friend recommended me to a new school, Elite Dog Training. We started training there and Cheryl, the owner, spent a great deal of time helping me get Elliott ready for more work in the obedience ring. Elliott and I have become a great team since then and have had a lot of success in the ring. In 2007 Elliott earned 6 obedience titles, and so far in 2008 he earned his Rally Excellent title in one weekend and his CDX in 4 trials over his first 2 weekends in Open. He is the first English Springer Spaniel in Canada to earn the RE title. What a great boy he is. All those brains and handsome too. The picture above marks his CDX and RE titles. The picture below shows how tough life is at home.