Spin's First Unofficial Obedience Show
The local Great Dane association, Lounais-Suomen Dogit, organised an unofficial obedience show at Kupittaa, in Turku. There were two competitions both for the Novice class dogs with the treats allowed between the exercises in the first competition. We participated in both.
The first competition where I did seize the opportunity to reward Spin after each exercise. The first exercise, the Greeting, was exactly as difficult as I had dreaded. With the new rules, the dog is not allowed to jump or greet the judge overwhelmingly enthusiastically. Spin did. Fortunately his stay was better albeit not perfect. He was quite nervous all the time.
Spin's heelwork was okayish but we do have a problem with keeping the contact. More work needed there. On the bright side, I was generally quite happy with his position. As for myself, the judge did not like my movement. I should be more energetic!
Laying down from heeling went well, too. I had been afraid that he might just stop to stand. But he did not! Superb! Unfortunately, he did lay down when he was just supposed to stop to stand still. Thus, more work is needed to reduce the uncertainty in these exercises.
The rest of the exercises, both recalling and jumping, were quite nice and the judge liked them, too. In particular, we made the first correct jump of the day. Hurray!
With the overall impression worth 10 points our total for the day was 174 points. That's the first prize! Bril!
The second competition (no rewarding with treats but a true simulation of a real competition) went better but Spin was considerably more tired. He really had serious difficulties to concentrate. Nonetheless, greeting, staying and heelwork went about as well as before. This time the Recall was better and he did stop to stand from heeling so we received more points from those exercises.
His jump was terrible, slow and unenergetic. It seemed to me as if he was half asleep and too tired to stand after jumping. Thanks to the judge's leniency, we did get nine points from jumping and the overall impression was ten again. Thus, 193.5 points in total and our second first prize for the day. Moreover, we were placed second with only half a point less than the winner.
Overall, I am quite happy. While our performance was not perfect and we both made a number of mistakes today was, nonetheless, a very important experience for both of us and there was absolutely nothing to be ashamed off. Completely the contrary.
Go Spin! Go me! Go us!