Rally Excellent!

July 28 -31, Bloomsburg,PA, Mt Laurel Cluster

Our first away-from-home/hotel dog show experience was a success. River now has his Rally Excellent title. And we learned many lessons that weekend, not all pertaining to the ring experience.

Had to travel Thursday evening since the walk-through was at 8:45 and it was a 2 1/2 hr drive; traveling in the wee hours would not have worked. Drove first through thunderstorms and then fog, so that was an adventure itself. Discovered that River does not stay quietly in a crate in a hotel room, so that added stress and made it a challenge to enjoy our meals out. He handled everything else well; cooperative about being exercised, enjoyed joining us on the bed, of course. He was ok in his crate at the show; we did leave him a few times there and he only protested briefly once. The vendors were outside of the buildings, so no AC for them. We let River enjoy the very strong AC in the obedienece building while we shopped, etc. Food vendor and restrooms also outside. Turned out our room had a fridge, so we hit Walmart to get snacks and lunch supplies. Packing your own is the way to go.

So, how did his rally runs go? - well, Amanda had been diligently working on the trouble spots, especially not losing his attention at the beginning and not laying down on the "sit" during honor. And had gotten him to be way more reliable on those. Still, he lost points for laying down on the sit, out of position on first exercise and sniffing those stuffed toy distractions on figure eight. However, 93 the first day was a 3rd place, 97 the last day was first place, merely qualifed second day with 77. This was the time he broke the stay and Amanda did a sign wrong (paused too long on moving down and around, so pretty picky but cost 10 pts and I think he hit the jump that day too.) He really was awesome that last day; they looked so good together and friendly judge said she wished she could have given a 100. Still we were all pretty tired and wanting to go home, so couldn't wait until she was available for a photo. The other thing we learned was that Noche didn't handle the separation well. He gave Cara a rough time searching for Amanda, refusing to settle and sleep,protesting loudly, despite all her efforts. So another lesson learned.

And there is another level of Rally title - it requires qualifying in both Advanced and Excellent at 10 shows!! We decided to pass on that. Amanda is giving a Novice obedience class a try with River and a Performance Foundation class with Noche. And hoping for a return to agility training soon!