the play by play

long story short: NQ :)

the long story itself:

wake up at 4 am, get gas and coffee and im on the road by 5 am... got there faster than predicted and ended up there at 6:30. building opened at 7 and they wouldnt even let me in to use the bathroom early, so i almost peed myself.

was too afraid to do any go out practice because there was only one ring, and the judge was there - and the ring didnt have stanchions anywhere except the go out side. so i had nothing to send him to, even if no one had been there. go outs were to the big door that opens up - so the stanchion was there, but it was up against a wall of 42 (yes i counted) round metal plates on the large door that would open up the warehouse.

rah was last in the class - only one dog qualified. set him up and started signals - his heeling was beautiful. easily predicted pattern, i had the fast into the left turn halt, so i could be prepared for it and he nailed it. left turn into stand your dog. stood him, took a breath to pause. gave him the wait signal, dropped my arm and took a breath, made sure i was NOT taking off too soon. walked away and only focused on counting - i had already worked out that it would be 15 steps by walking the ring - i was on step 14 and rah comes breezing past me - he bolted. FAIL! but the heeling was BEAUTIFUL - actually very good position lovely left turns. judge said he was a LOVELY heeler.

moved onto articles. i always start with metal - did them towards go out, next to the high jump. nailed the first article. sent him for the second one and he is searching and working the pile and he picks --- the leather article right next to the right one. judge even says she doesn't understand what happened as he was close. but he had perfect attention on me while i was scenting and after she took the article and this time he didn't try to leave me to follow his article out :) great pivots too - but drops his head the minute we turn to look at his articles. OH AND HE JUMPED ON ME after i took the metal article. damned dog was like "oh, this is the right one GIVE ME COOKIE!"

hold him back a sec to let them pick up the articles, move to gloves. its glove 2, should be easy, right? we're there for awhile waiting for them to pick up the articles, im reminding him to keep his eye on me. she says glove 2, i pivot him (back pivot, since i didnt want him to see glove one, his favorite) - and it was perfect - i made sure not to stare at him but he FELT like he was in the right position, i dropped my arm and sent him... and the!@#!@# ran to glove three. brings it back, blah blah blah. judge commented that the pivot was PERFECT so it makes me think that rah was lined up for 2... his head was up for the pivot part so he shouldnt have seen 3, but i am fairly certain he picked his own glove. well, i mean, clearly he did.

moving stand - idiot nails it. others did 20-30 foot moving stands!!!!! i double checked rules to make sure it was 10-12 feet and counted that it was 5 steps (2.5 mats) - im not going further than i need to with this dog! tell him to freeze, walk away and he locks up. doesn't even FLINCH when she comes in, doesn't move a muscle, eyes on me. she even pauses after she finishes (longest pause on earth) and says "FINISH!" and i call him in - he nails the finish. YAY WE PASSED SOMETHING.

go outs... i set him up, tell him ball- and he's scanning, can't find his mark. i pull his head back up, drop him down for the mark, and he can't find it again - now he's confused. cannot find his ball. he starts to mark the jumps, looks outside the ring at a dog, i bring his head back up, she asks if we are ready, i say no (hey, we're already NQ'd, im going to try to do this right) drop him again to mark the ball and i think he's got it and then he takes off... for the bar jump. takes the jump on the way out, heads out to go out area and runs back in. we try it again, i think he has the mark, and this time the idiot goes and takes the OTHER jump...

at this point she's laughing at him and calling him a loose cannon - he's flying all over the place. almost took out the steward going after the leash, tried to pick his articles back up.

speaking to another owner with a dobe coming out in utility A that i train with - we came up with the following proposals:

1) dobermans should be able to obtain UD's by qualifying in ONE exercise in the utility class three times.

2 a UDX should be attainable by a doberman by qualifying in open 10 times, but the entire utility class once on any one of those given days (alternatively, 10 times in open and on those 10 tries, qualify one of the utility exercises for a total of each exercise needs to be qualified at least once).

3) doberman owners should be allowed to have handicapped license plates because of our dogs.