Obedience and Rally O training

Here FG Instead of the whole URL, just put the random letters and number in the youtube quotes.

Kastle is really cool, that's all I have to say .

Hello, I practice obedience FCI.
My Dog's name, is Lyra, she is 20 months. And these are our videos.
[YOUTUBE]MPLzt1iDFrg[/YOUTUBE]
[YOUTUBE]IhRhBBKR8tM[/YOUTUBE]

Marsh continues to be closer to a UD than a CD. The only thing he isn't started on is scent articles... oh and heeling.

Today we started go outs, specifically the cuing before the send. He still wants to go on "where?" but we had a break through of realizing he's supposed to look somewhere out there and that my hand over his head is confirmation of his line.

Retrieve is great, I've really cleaned up his delivery by asking for a hand touch. Unfortunately, he has too much value for heel position and zero front to speak of whatsoever. I can still qualify if I just... never have my dog front, right? Seriously considering just auto finishing my dog 100% of the time.

Still goes down on the sit. I need to devote a day specifically to this, by the time I remember he's been working for half an hour. I'm pretty sure he goes down because he lacks the core strength, so I don't want to practice when he's already tired.

I finally had dog savvy help for the stand for exam. All my previous helpers don't know what they're doing so they walk like robots and freak Marsh out. He's moving a front foot towards the judge, but I'm pleased with his progress.

3 runs at rally tonight... the first one was such absolute perfection... then the instructor threw a figure 8 w/distractions in the second course and Squash became completely and utterly fascinated by one of the toys. Like, he'd seem to forget about it but then do things like wayyyy across the room at a different station sit pointing backwards "at heel" so he could stare longingly at it. On the last sign in the middle of a finish he up and took off running for it. HE DOESN'T EVEN LIKE TOYS THAT MUCH.

Guess what we're going to be working on. Snrk.

We finally went back to rally class after taking a couple of weeks off so that I can stay with Bubbles as she recovered (it takes about 40 mins to get there and it's an hour class that always runs over, so it's a lot of time). Kimma was freaked at first since it was a new session and there were new dogs there, but she still did great on course. We just need to work on constant focus (I'm now rewarding randomly whenever she gives eye contact while heeling or is in a good heel position), and the figure 8 with distractions (sassafras, don't worry - Kimma does not even like toys and she was ALL ABOUT the tennis ball on top of a frisbee our instructor put out last night - she kept staring at it whenever possible and as we passed by even went in for a mini-sniff LOL). Then of course I just need to keep learning new signs/making sure I know what I'm doing hahaha.

I'm actually really excited because our instructor said that we can alternate weeks between novice obedience and rally since they are on different days (though we will be doing a bit in open, too, as we can't make it to novice right on time from where I work). She actually wants me to come in and teach a shaped retrieve and some CU type stuff to some students in her novice class I'm super pumped, as I really want to work for Kimma's CD/CDX soon, and she has lots of good stuff down already. I just need outside perspective and more proofing.

We have our first rally class tonight!

Does anyone here use music while training and do you find it helps?

I don't normally train with music, but now that you mention it I think it sounds like a good idea.



So I actually purchased a dumbbell, and now I have no idea what to do with it.

lol I don't either but I have started considering it. We have several people who rent the ring at work and use music. One of my trainers used to use a metronome but she never told us about it, I just saw her doing it a few times alone renting the ring.

I love music, i go from dead to, bring it on with one good song. We usually play it when we're in a building. Outside we generally don't have it set up outside where I usually train. If I had my own indoor and outdoor, i'd have more money into audio than training equipment

What do you enjoy listening to? Like, what helps you pump up?

I put earphones in and listen to heavy metal and 80s rock while doing obedience. It is awesome. Keeps me.focused and more pumped to work with my dog.

oh man, just about anything I guess. Except country, there are very few country songs I really like and none of them are new

Classical I love, but only on occassion.

Otherwise we listen to a bit of everything from Dave Matthews type stuff, to 70's 80's metal, Dokken, Dio, Iron Maiden, Metallica, etc and classic rock type stuff. Not much from current pop hits at all.

I can listen to the metal and rock on a regular basis, the rest lose it's effect if played all the time.

So Tess had her first try at Open obedience this past weekend, and in my opinion, training is overrated.

See this? This is a dog who has never practiced out-of-sight group stays:





We actually trained for the individual exercises. Particularly the drop on recall. So, she failed the drop on recall.

:rofl1: Well of course that is how it always goes!

I randomly entered an APBT (er..Cynosport now?) rally trial last weekend. We got first in the first class.


In the second I NQ'd (the course was more challenging, but he did everything perfect!). I should have read the rules a little more carefully because I gave him a treat in between exercises. Stupid of me...he doesn't even need it, but I don't want him to get ring smart. She also thought I was luring him because he was looking at me while heeling? Meh.

Rally is odd to me. Maybe I wasn't watching too closely but I was surprised at the dogs that placed above others. Some barely completed some of the exercises in the upper levels like stand and walk around..two dogs really never stood still. They put food in bowls to do figure 8's and a few dogs ate the food, they still qualified. Shrug. I'll probably enter some more trials though...

Soo...I'm considering doing some formal obedience trials with Romeo, because why the hell not .

It's been a while since I really went over the obedience exercises, and the competition levels... errr, what happened to there just being Novice, Open, and Utility? I was aware they started doing Beginner Novice, but now there is pre-novice, graduate novice, and so on. Geesh.

lol, I know, but all that new stuff is completely optional. You can still just do Novice, Open, Utility if that's what suits you.

We're gearing up to try our hand at real obedience in January, and I'm freaking out. Our trainer says we're ready, and we'll (hopefully, lol) have two legs of her rally excellent title done, but I'm still terrified.

Elsie knows all the exercises and is great, but I don't know all the rules yet.

I know I'm going to blow it.

Can you do the classes simultaneously? Like enter beginner novice, pre novice, and novice in the same trial?

You can do it! You will do great .

She will be awesome, and so will you.