Oh Shit I'm getting Paranoid - obedience trial

Soooo everyone calls me a worry wart but I have real concerns about the other dogs in the class with prey drive in the group classes. For anyone who doesn't know of what I speak of it's a line up of off leash dogs. First is sit your dogs and all handers at once must leave and go 40 feet away to the opposite side of the ring for one minute. Then there's a long down but instead of sitting dogs it's all dogs to down for three minutes. I am soooo freaked at the possibilities of my fluff bunnies attracting attention for that long of a time with large prey drive unsupervised dogs. 40 feet is a long sprint should anything happen. Never shown in this class before but I hope they have ring stewards close and I have already asked other people who will be attending to be ringside right behind my dogs to save them if anything should happen. I'm thinking crazy thoughts like...instead of cameras all my friends need slingshots or guns. It's gonna be a long combined 4 minutes twice for two days of my life of major stress. Oh wait, I've started already :lol: :lol: :lol:

The show sectretary is being tardy and hasn't yet posted the judging schedule which would alert me as to what type of other dogs we will ring share with. Please make them all chi's and shih tzus. Not likely but it's a good wish. I can already hear myself demanding lots of space for the dogs who look like dinner to the other dogs so my SWAT team can rescue them before anything happens to them. :!: :twisted:

My mal has a prey drive for small animals mice, chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits hasn't tried to kill the Shih Tzu yet though. Hopefully the people organizing will be smart enough to put small dogs together. Good Luck!

I am thinking I would be more than a little stressed,glad you have a good team lined up in case anything goes wrong

I'd be a nervous wreck.
I'm sure everything will be just fine though.
Hell, I run and scoop mine up if a bee gets too close to them.

Pooper, your dogs will do fine. You have to go into the ring thinking you're going to win this, and you will. My dog trainer always says before you take a test with your dog or compete, to take a Clorets, pop it in your mouth and stick it between your cheek and gum to suck on. This will mask the feeling of nervousness that you may be feeling and the dogs won't pick up on it.

BigBrownEyes29 wrote:

Pooper, your dogs will do fine. You have to go into the ring thinking you're going to win this, and you will. My dog trainer always says before you take a test with your dog or compete, to take a Clorets, pop it in your mouth and stick it between your cheek and gum to suck on. This will mask the feeling of nervousness that you may be feeling and the dogs won't pick up on it.

I love you...that's what I needed to hear. I was competely relaxed when they titled for CGN and they aced it. Nobody says "suck it up princess" as well as you do. I've been in many show rings with cats, horses and dogs in the past and you're right we always go to win and I will remember what you said. LOL...hasn't always happened though but more often than not.

Love your tip and I will definately try it. At least I will have great breath if I have to get in anyones face. I am a really good sport and I have confidence in my dogs, it's the other dogs that are freaking me out. It's a novice class and that scares me.

Still waiting for the judging schedule...I am so wondering if when I made the post before about speaking to the show secretary and she did that speech hesitation on the phone and mentioned "brave" when she asked my breed if she wasn't thinking not about the Havs as an entry but about the prey drive of the other dogs entered. That did confuse me.

Tomorrow we are taking a day off from training and maybe this week only every second day. Julio is getting bored with it and throwing me some curves, he is getting way to eager to please...I have been exending the down and sit periods to the max and today he began doing his roll over, be cute and do some tricks to break up the monotiny. I took the hint, going to the seniors home to get some love and pats and have a visit in the evening and let them be true to their breed nature and let them be clowns and have some fun.

I'm horrible with words. It wasn't supposed to come out sounding like a suck it up princess speech. It was a "Yeah, Go Pooper, you and your dogs will do awesome". Don't listen to that secretary, she may have her motives in making you think that you may not do well. You did mention that you have very well known lines. There are some out in the dog world that are most likely jealous, she may be one of them. So you can't believe 100% what she says, because you never know what her motive may be. She may have a good friend competing. I wish the dog show was closer to my home, I would love to go watch and even stand ring side near your dogs for you.

BigBrownEyes29 wrote:

I'm horrible with words. It wasn't supposed to come out sounding like a suck it up princess speech. It was a "Yeah, Go Pooper, you and your dogs will do awesome". Don't listen to that secretary, she may have her motives in making you think that you may not do well. You did mention that you have very well known lines. There are some out in the dog world that are most likely jealous, she may be one of them. So you can't believe 100% what she says, because you never know what her motive may be. She may have a good friend competing. I wish the dog show was closer to my home, I would love to go watch and even stand ring side near your dogs for you.

Gah I know you weren't saying suck it up princess, I made a bad attempt at funny gone wrong, I know what you meant and TY for the positive vibes. Finally got the judging schedule tonight. Not impressed with Sunday though as I explicidly told her I wanted to be last if possible in the schedule as I have a stable of horses to attend to but NO. First dog in is Arriba at 8:30 in the morning. Hubby is not impressed. Never said a word about lines, who knows. Crap, unlike conformation where they list the breeds competing obedience they do not. Yay though the classes are not big...Sat, Arribas 5 and Sunday 4. Julio Sat
6 and Sun 5. I think I can deal with that as long as there are no Cujos.

You will do great. Go kick some ass!

Oh shit...LOL. When I was counting the enties I miissed the " -" between the numbers like 815 - 820. Gonna be a lot bigger than I counted. Should be fun.

Sooooo...we did alright, not great but alright. Both of them were almost there for points but not quite. I messed up and wasn't much help to me team mates but I have learned from my mistakes. Had a great judge on Saturday who overheard me asking the show steward a few questions before we entered the first class and she was aware this was our first ever obedience class. It's not appropriate to speak to judges but she talked to me so that was grand. I wasn't nervous and my dogs overall did far better than I expected except for a few glitches that I have only myself to blame for.

The show schedule had my first class listed to start at 10:15 so we arrived at 9:30 as I didn't want to be late. When we got there the first 3 classes that were huge that started at 8:30 ran til after 1 PM. Thinking we would be done by noon at latest I didn't think we would be there much past noon. I had packed but forgot my survival bag of munchies on the top of the dryer on the way out the door, also forgot to bring cash. I had a really early morning to groom and get everything packed for the pupsters, they had food and water, but when they broke for lunch there was me and hubby starving. We had 45 minutes but the man didn't want to drive to grab a bite as we would lose our parking spot in the shade if we moved so I stayed with the dogs and he sought out a concession with his $25.00... Oh My, lol, 2 burgers and a can of Pepsi = $16.00. I laughed at him as he had contemplated getting the dogs one too and he would have been short of cash if he had.

Arribas class started at 2 and it went really quite good, her on leash was picture perfect, off leash was decent although she didn't sit straight at one halt and she was a tad behind where I wanted her, her judges examination was wonderful, her sit,stay and my return to her was dead steady...judge told me we could possibly qualify. Had to wait for all the other dogs to have their individual turn before the dreaded long sit and long stay. We had not one but two Belgium Shepard's, one on each side but the owners assured me " We promise our dogs will not eat your little one", they were from the same breed club and the judge told me earlier that she would watch and if she saw any type of problem she would take charge. The one minute sit went fine BUT she refused to lay down for the long down. Flat out would not do it ???? Bah, that killed it for us. Little brat did it when I asked her after the class in a split second like she usually does it. LOL. The two Shepard's finished first and second and a Golden Retriever third...well deserved they were really good.

Julios class started off with promise, on leash very good, off leash he saw hubby and Arriba who were in eyesight but not close and did a little quick stop look see thingy before he continued on. After that he was good, judges exam good, and he was sitting when I left to walk that 40 feet away from him with confidence that things were going well UNTIL I stopped and turned around to go back for him and he was right beside me, Lol. The judge asked me to return him to the sit and it went perfect the second time but the flub had already mean't game over. It was getting really late and the class was huge so I opted not to stay for the long sit and stay as it would have been at minimum another hour, likely two. Decided to pack it in and start fresh in the morning. On the way home I started thinking about whether it would be smart to maybe blow off day two and perfect the errors we had made with more training and be more polished for the fall show or go back for the experience. I would rather get points in a top position than by the skin of my teeth with a crappy performance but my Mr. said it would be a waste not to back for the experience since it was a good chunk of cash for entry fees. Get home and as I am stepping out of the car I blow a ligament in my knee that has been bothering me for a few weeks. Still limping around and we never made it back Sunday as I can move only minimally even today.

So the fall show it is and there is much training left to do. I feel really motivated to spend time polishing, learned sooo much and I'm motivated even though not so mobile at the moment for the next show. I saw a few pro trainers mess up in the Open classes, it is humbling I know when things don't go as expected, not that I expected too much. :lol: :lol: :lol:

I am sorry you mucked up your leg that is a bummer. It sounds like you and your dogs did really well and stayed afloat amongst some tough competition. I also love coming back from a show and putting all the knew learned things into practice. i really hope you have some pictures to share. I still do not know much about showing dogs but it sounds like fun and competitive.

Over all I would say you did fine and so did the dogs

sorry about your knee though

You will be more confident in the fall show as you have now had the experience to get going again.

Pooper, I think your day was very productive, though it may not have felt like it at the time. Great exposure and experience for both the dogs and yourself. The fall show will go down a lot easier as you now have some better ideas for preparation and training.

I'm so sorry about your knee. Are you going to be able to 'rest' it a bit in order for it to heal or are you going to keep going at it full speed and damn the torpedos??

BTW........any pics for us???

Full speed and dam the torpedos of course. Had I been in charge of picture taking there would have been some better ones... too many pictures of my ass it seems. :lol: :lol: :lol:

pooperscooper wrote:

OK Mom, so how are we gonna play this???


Love the pics!! But you realize because you said ass, fleas will be here in a flash??

yorkiemom wrote:

Over all I would say you did fine and so did the dogs

sorry about your knee though

You will be more confident in the fall show as you have now had the experience to get going again.

+1 The first shows are always for the experience more than the points, and to see what areas to work more on.

Pooper, do you think Arriba maybe had a hard time with the down because she was in between the two big dogs? You mentioned she had no problems with doing downs prior. I sometimes find that little dogs in class that have to do long downs beside my dog, tend to get intimidated and not want to do a down. But the sits they are ok with.

rottnmom wrote:

OK Mom, so how are we gonna play this???


Love the pics!! But you realize because you said ass, fleas will be here in a flash??

:lol: :lol: :lol: I don't think fleas does the pet section but if he does I better show him my pussy too. My much tamer puss that's finally allowing me to touch her. That's how we are gonna play this.
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BigBrownEyes29 wrote:

yorkiemom wrote:

Over all I would say you did fine and so did the dogs

sorry about your knee though

You will be more confident in the fall show as you have now had the experience to get going again.

+1 The first shows are always for the experience more than the points, and to see what areas to work more on.

Pooper, do you think Arriba maybe had a hard time with the down because she was in between the two big dogs? You mentioned she had no problems with doing downs prior. I sometimes find that little dogs in class that have to do long downs beside my dog, tend to get intimidated and not want to do a down. But the sits they are ok with.

BBE I was really baffled when she refused to down, maybe you have a point. She's usually great at it without other dogs around she doesn't know. She just went all stiff and no way she would lay for me. I think they did pretty good also, I was pretty happy with them.