Nationals and Obedience

Haku’s first run in Utility this morning went about how I assumed it would. Well, maybe it was a bit worse. On our glove retrieve he didn’t even go to correct side of the ring, much less get the correct glove. And it was the ‘easiest’ glove for him, #1. And he auto-finished almost everything, forging and bumping like crazy, decimating the article piles, go-outs into the corners … yeah, it wasn’t pretty. But it was happy, and I’ll admit I assumed he was going to be nutty and didn’t have my serious obedience face on. And the judge was chatty, so we’re chatting about how fast Haku was and other such light conversation during the run, so I’m sure that also made it seem much less ‘official’.

So we went straight from the Utility ring to the practice ring, where he was like, “Oooh, obedience, oh yeah, I know how to do this.” Dork. Open went much better, really happy with his heeling and his dumbbell pickups, well, happy with everything except for one finish on the judge’s command. A-hem. So, yes, we can do obedience sometimes! And there was lots of cookies and playing and snuggling and special Haku time.

Just love that dog, he will never be a precise dog, it’s not in his nature, but that enthusiasm is unmatched. He really does need the constant practice and going to matches if I want him to be able to reliably perform in competition. That’s just who he is, he’s never the type of dog to really ‘have it’, everything is a moving target with Haku. You can tell what we have worked on recently though, for the most part. And what we haven’t. Except go-outs, which we do EVERY SINGLE TIME we practice. And he still is like, “What?” Let it be said, he may have had terrible go-outs in terms of going into the corner, but he didn’t stop short and he got the correct jump even from WAY on the other side of the ring. THAT portion he technically qualified on! So, hey.

Back tomorrow for another try, I’m assuming we’ll be a little less ridiculous in Utility, but I’m not holding my breath for qualifying. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll actually focus and practice for his next trial, whenever that might be. Actually, I think the obedience trial where they’re having two trials in one day is coming up, I might try that – see if he actually settles in after LOTS of obedience in one day. You never know unless you try.

Still, our goal isn’t to qualify, but to have something we’re actively working on and doing together – and obedience is still our best option, even if I do find it not very interesting to work on at this point. One option Joan was talking about was doing the online Fenzi Team Titles, which I pretty much dismissed when they came out as they use a bunch of props and things that I don’t use in my training, and he does, THEORETICALLY, already know how to do all the obedience exercises. But it would give us something concrete to focus and work on …

I do think I’ll bring Navarre tomorrow and give him a try in the practice ring, see what he does. He’s not anywhere near being able to trial, but he needs exposure. And I do think if I can get him to enjoy competing in obedience he’ll be SO MUCH EASIER than Haku. Navarre actually LEARNS things, and retains them. It’s novel. But he’ll probably just think obedience competitions are stupid and it will all be moot anyway. Training obedience is one thing, competing is another – obedience competitions are definitely not fun.

In the meantime, I’ve given Bright the all clear with her leg as far as I can see. We did some agility on Thursday and she looked good, and a nice long hike on Friday – no issues or signs of lameness at all. So, knock on wood, she’s back in action. I had been considering the possibility of taking Bright to AKC nationals in Reno next year. Which would first and foremost involve actually qualifying for it. But we had trialed a lot more this year than we normally do as Navarre was a baby and it’s way more fun to trial with a baby. Of course, our idea of ‘a lot more’ is still not much considering our average is about 4-6 AKC trials a year. And Bright’s qualifying average has NOT been high, what with her whole ‘making it up as she goes along’ philosophy she had been rocking most of the year.

Still, Mary is going and it’s not that far to drive and AKC nationals is probably the best event for little Brightness, really. I would like to take her to one big event at some point, and this is just convenient, being on this side of country. Still, the qualifications for AKC nationals are RIDICULOUS, 7 double Qs and 550 points. So I pulled Bright’s qualifications for this year, which ends Dec 1st. She has 5 double Qs and 350 points. It was the points that surprised me, I figured she may not have a lot of double Qs, but points we’d be okay with – still need 200! What with essentially skipping the trial last weekend, that leaves us 2 more local trials to qualify. One of the trials is down in Eugene, which is reasonable and I could actually do a Friday for that one. So 5 trial days to get 2 double Qs and 200 points – it’s theoretically doable, but the issues we have are usually stupid things.

I leave it up to fate, I’ll enter the trials, we’ll see what happens – if she qualifies, I’ll think about taking her, if she doesn’t, I’m okay with that too. It’s doubtful we’ll ever get close to qualifying for nationals again, but you never know. And I don’t know if I would call us ‘close’. As close as we’ll ever be with the excessive requirements they have these days.  It would be nice to have a ‘Special Bright Vacation’ though, leave the other dogs here and just hang out with my girl.