so ive been delaying, i know. its been awhile since i posted.

havent been doing a lot of intensive training with the dogs - i know i should be working rahs scent articles since his breakdown at training, but i havent - instead im going for the "ignore it and it will fix itself" hope/prayer. in fact, im not even sure if i posted about last training in the blog! utility went well except for articles - we did go outs with a toy and he did perfect turns off the toy. wow!

im very pleased - rah is eligible for a front and finish award of excellence - obedience- gold for his ASCA scores! so he will be sporting FFX-OG at the end of his name now, for the award :) im so proud of him!!!!



i showed them this past weekend in CDSP - attempting to finish Rah's CD-H and i decided to enter berlin in Nov B as well just for the hell of it. that morning i was so sick, regretting entering her. she hasnt done half the exercises in Nov B i was so full of woe!!!

Nov B in CDSP has: heel on leash, fig8 off leash, moving stand for exam, recall over a jump, and an honor down.

berlin was last in the class, so she honored first. did well.
rah went in first - heeling was perfect!!! such a dream. moving stand was amazing - no verbals needed - stock still. fig 8 i had a crooked halt on the last one (1/2 point off). on the recall he came in so fast he jumped up and kicked me before he came in to front (so i lost a point on that) for a total of 198.5!!!!!!

THEN HE GOT UP ON THE HONOR DOWN.

first, we were HIT so far - the last dog in the class ended up with a 199 and ended up beating us (if rah hadnt kicked me on the front we would have been HIT) but the damned dog had to get up on his honor down? its like 40 seconds of his life? WHAT THE HECK?

then we got to berlin - she set up beautifully, heeling was nice. got a small lag on the about turn but not enough to be hit for it. the fig8 was where we lost the most points - she'd never done one off leash (BAD MOM) - inner post wasn't bad, but on the outer post she lagged and she had to catch up for the halt, and i used an extra command to keep her up with me on both outer posts.

her moving stand was nice - she popped out to the side, but she stayed standing (didnt sit when i halted) and i just moved into heel before i left her, and she did a perfect SFE (not bad for a baby dog!). recall over the jump was great - for a 186.5 - add in the 6 points i lost her for extra commands and we were looking at a pretty respectable score!!!

now the pressure was on for rah, since i needed this leg (since his ad already has his title in it! jinxing myself)... he was a lot more crowdy and forgey, but we ended up qualifying with a 197, which was only good enough for 4th place, but we got high scoring rescue dog and he got his CD-H!

berlin had a similar performance - fig8 was a little better, but during the heel free there is someone walking in the ring as a distraction and this time it distracted her a bit and i gave her a second command for the sit - so again, we had a 187.6, 6 points off for double commands - a nice score for the baby dog! the judge was talking to me afterwards and when i told her how old she was, she was damn impressed - said i was smart to take those points and give her a good ring experience and get her to do her job rather than have her be wrong.

she definitely needs work on transitions - since she was off lead and i wasnt dragging her, once she sniffed the wall and twice she scratched in the ring. but she set up nicely each time (WOOHOO) and she was really great. she is the type of dog that can handle a lot more hands on, unlike rah who i have to keep calm and settled down.

so thats our update. i have to go get dressed, we have a private lesson for the two of them today, and then tomorrow is open training at hunterdonk that im taking them both in. i also need to hit up th eliquor store and the foodstore today. i at least need to get off the couch :)