So we (Riley and I) ventured south this weekend to try out rally at the Hamilton club. Never been there before but the facility was nice and people seemed nice too. Left the little man at home cause he'd just be bored all day and I think Riley likes the alone time. Anyways, so this is the first time we've done rally since, oh let's say November. Bless their hearts, why do I make my dogs do these things? I put them in situations they aren't used to then expect them to focus? Geesh, what kind of dog owner am I? :)

Anyways, moving on. . .so Riley pulled off Double Q #6 for her RAE so I'm thrilled with that. Rally is not nearly as fun to her as agility. . .Susan says Riley thinks it's too slow for her, she likes to go fast, which I had kind of figured out myself but it's nice to have confirmation. The show always starts with excellent, which is usually our sticking point. I know part of the reason is that I'm more tense about Excellent so that goes directly to Riley and also another part is she's usually a little keyed up from the car ride, new facility, new smells, etc. Excellent started with all the signs we don't particularly care for. The moving down was the first one. That actually went pretty well and once she was down, she stayed down which is a huge improvement. Before she'd always pop up once I started moving to her left. The back up three steps, though she was practicing it well before we went in, she got pretty crooked on when in the actual ring. There was something about the back corners that she didn't like. . .at all. I could see her tense up about them when we got close. Apparently, she thinks there was some bad mojo going on back there. Didn't help that someone tried to open the back door right as we were walking by. And she had a great honor this time too. There was this novice golden retriever that kept trying to stir stuff up with other dogs so he went off during the honor. Riley's ears were flicking around like crazy but she stayed right where she was. I tried to use some of the advice from Lynn Reagan-Hull about creating a relaxed posture and it seems to help both me and her. Score wasn't spectacular but what should I expect since I haven't practiced with her. Deb of Deb's Dog Blog graciously offered to tape our runs. I'd never had the ability to review our runs before and it put some stuff in to prespective. It really didn't look as bad the second time as it felt the first time. Let's see if I can post the link here.

Advanced was a little better but still not as happy as I would have liked her to have been. I've figured out that she likes the sit pivot right sit sign but not the one to the left. It wasn't till yesterday that I figured out that I gave the wrong command for sit-pivot left. . .no wonder she didn't know what the heck I was talking about. We had a sit-stand-walk around that she nailed. She has always tracked me a little with her head when I go for the walk around but she stayed right there this time, which is huge to me. She took a moment to scratch (stress) before a swing. She actually moved fast for the fast sign in Advanced but not so much in Excellent. Here's the link to the video of this one. Let's see how our success hold up this weekend when we do a three day rally trial.

Well he finally did it! ;)
Rhys is now officially Dawn's Stir 'N Up Trouble RN! He gets to put some letters behind his name now. I'm pretty darn proud of him. . .he earned his first title the day after he turned 9 months old. Though it may have not always been pretty, as he is still very much a puppy in the ring, he successfully completed all three legs. . .and in fact, really 5 legs but that's another story for another day, of which I'd rather not discuss cause it's mostly my fault. He was a little distracted in the ring on Saturday and stopped to check out the judge twice but that's alright. When he was paying attention to me, his heeling was really really nice. It's those moments when his brain finds something better to do than focus on me that he drifts a little but that's basically what every team battles against, right?
Riley earned her 5th RAE leg that day too. Boy, the judge was generous when she had us pass excellent. I should have known better to do what I did but what's past is past. We had gotten up early and drove down 2 1/2 hours that morning and then Riley was the second dog to go in so we didnt' have any real warm up time and she was super pumped up that morning. I knew that when she wasn't gonna sit at the start line, I was in for it. She wouldn't stay on any of her stays. Boy, we made it through. . .barely, with a 77. Advanced was like an entirely different dog. She was wonderful and I was very very pleased with her attention. She got a 96 that go around. We did some practice stays between the two classes and she knew she couldn't get away with it a second time so they were much better. Not only that, her morning jitters were out of her by then. I read an article recently from westie obedience guru Lynn Reagan-Hull about stays so I'm gonna have to try her advice. I couldn't believe that she has broken her honor like 3 times now (not this day-but the last three times) so we're gonna have to work on it. I think she might be stressing a little but not sure over what. It sucks cause excellent always has to go first these days. . .I like excellent first in agility to get it out of the way but not in rally. I think it would build her confidence (and mine too) to do advanced first and then tackle the stays in excellent. Oh well. . .we make do with what we get.
Either way, a successful day and we got to see Cheri and Hadley again (Rhys' cousin), who's grown like a pound and an inch since we saw her two weeks ago. Also got to pick up some raw food at this cool store right next to the dog place. Visit Metzger's Country Store if you happen to be in the Simpsonville, KY area. ;)