Raising a Riot

This was the second week of Riot's beginning field training class. 

He was supposed to take this class last year, but he got sick after the first class and we had to drop. In this case, it probably worked out for the best because I think both of us are a lot more ready for the class this year.

We started out on water yesterday and the first retrieve was of a Doken. We have a doken at home, but I've never managed to get much interest in it from either dog. We had one to familiarize the dogs with before we went up to the line. Riot really wanted nothing to do with it and I had to result to force fetching him to get him to hold it. Which he did quite nicely and even with lots of praise, he was not happy to be holding it. 

Since we had limited success with the introduction (re-introduction), I was worried what would happen on water. Riot does seem to be having some confidence issues when it comes to distance on water. He did launch himself right in on the first throw (which was the doken from a winger).  And swam nearly all the way out but got distracted by a bug, snapped at the bug and then came back. 

He doesn't respond really well to "hey, hey, hey" and once his focus is lost, it's really hard to get him to go back (both in water and on land). 

We did a couple of shorter throws with him with the dokens and we went out and got them and brought them back each time. He even brought them out of the water, but his hold did fall through after that. 

We then tried the bumper from the other station, which again was too far out. He was very hesitant leaving the shore on that throw and wouldn't commit. A couple of shorter throws and we got him out to the bumpers. He does seem a lot more easily spooked on water than on land. His hold still wasn't as solid as I'd like with the bumpers, but I did get the bumpers before they hit the ground.

Up next was land. We worked on line manners some and he's doing pretty well. The first throw was very reminiscent of last week. He ran a little further toward the bumper before getting distracted and starting to sniff, I had to walk most of the way out to the bumper before he went oh hey this is what I'm supposed to do. He dropped it about half way back and I was having none of it. Even though Roger was telling me not to worry about it. I was putting that bumper back in his mouth and he was going to walk the rest of the way back to the line holding it -- which he did quite nicely. 

Roger then did a really short throw with him and he went out, retrieved it, and brought it back to heel position very nicely. Finally!

We then did a throw that entered a bit of cover up a fairly steep hill, and Riot when right out, found it after a tiny search and brought it back holding all the way.

We got to repeat the marks a little while later and he did so much better on them. The first one he dropped almost right in front of me, and I was going to put it in his mouth and Roger stopped me and said to back up a few more steps and make him pick it up. Which he did and returned to me with it. The last mark was nearly picture perfect with his hold and return to heel :)

Finally Riot got to be used as a demo dog as a dog that had a pretty good hold already. He did really well letting Roger work with him even with his tail going a mile a minute. I think we were moments away from a complete wiggly mess, but he got through it and he held it except for one drop when no one was paying any attention to him, but it was just what was needed as part of the demo session. 

Besides the usual getting a ton of tips to help us improve, Karen said two things that left me on cloud 9 tonight:

We'd be able to qualify in the ring -- our score wouldn't be great, but we could get in the 180s. I told her I wanted to wait until we could get in the 190s and she said that was a good idea because he certainly is capable of it.

Tuesday was week 4 of our obedience class. Riot continues to improve every week. I love that Karen always has tips for us on how to improve and as we improve the tips get more and more refined so we've never felt overwhelmed with everything we've needed to know, but we keep tweaking and refining as we get better.

The highlight of the class was probably how well he did his figure 8. It was very nice and he paid very good attention to me. Our stand is getting more and more solid without only one slight foot movement.

This morning RIot and I headed out to Purecellville for a Hounds on the Town class. Today's class was a short hike to practice heeling followed by some time off leash (or on long lines) for swimming.

I didn't let Riot off leash before we went on the hike. There were some dogs that were already swimming on roaming around off leash when we got there. The whole scene was very exciting and stimulating for Riot. We practiced sit-stays and down-stays while waiting for the hike to start. Admittedly with all of the distractions, this was very hard for Riot. He did really well other that needing a few reminders of which position he was supposed to be in. He was approached by 5 or 6 dogs and did very well letting them sniff him. One did growl at him and Riot just kind of looked at him like "what's your problem?"

The hike was fairly short as it was already quite hot. I made Riot walk at a heel on the flat sections of the hike, but on the hills I let him have more freedom and just walk on a loose leash. He did really well. This was probably more of a challenge than he was ready for with so many dogs as distractions, but he did well.

The heeling I made him do was not the formal obedience heeling, but just walking by my side (as would be acceptable for field or just normal walking). I've been distinguishing the difference by my arm position. Arms down at my sides is casual heeling, arm in front of me is obedience heeling. He did have him heel about 20-30 feet formally which he switched to very nicely. The walk was too long and too hot to ask him for that the entire way. 

After we got back from the hike, the dogs hit the pond. Riot enjoyed swimming and even retrieved a couple of bumpers before a border collie took his bumper away while he was showing another dog how to jump in. We never did get our bumper back :( 

There were approx. 40 dogs around and Riot went and visited nearly all of them. He was very polite and well mannered and it was nice seeing him interacting with dogs in such a casual environment. There was one border collie that he just couldn't get enough of. She was a younger girl and I'm not sure if she was spayed or not. 

I finally had to go and get him to leave this poor girl alone. I put him on a sit-stay while her owner was putting her into another yard that was fenced off. I released him right as the gate was being closed and he made a beeline and got there right as someone was opening it snuck in. That was the only time all day he did not listen to me. I went in after him and made him down before he got a walk of shame out of the yard. Other than that one incident, he listened to me incredibly well despite all the distractions. I was able to call him to me whenever/wherever and even put him on stays with all the chaos. 

He's so funny. There was a shepherd that was barking at everything and he just stopped and looked at him with the quizzical look on his face like "why are you doing that?" 

I still have a few things to catch up on, but we'll skip over that now to get to this week.

Riot had obedience on Tuesday night and he's constantly improving. His attention is getting much better and he's getting better at every exercise. I'm picking up a ton of tips for working on things, so we're learning a lot. 

This week, Karen decided to work backwards and had us do stays first. Typically when we work stays it's the end of class and a lot of the dogs are more tired. We also did stays down where there was more agility action so that made them even harder. Riot did well through he stays even if he was craning his neck as much as possible to see the dogs running agility in the next ring. He sat through the dog next to him getting up and having to be put back, and downed through it too. There was a little sniffing, during the down, but he's getting much better about that too. 

I had him on a down while waiting our turn for another exercise later in the class and another dog came over and sniffed him and he didn't get up or act like he was going to play with her. Which is a huge step for him too.

He's getting much better about his stand for exam. I just need to learn not to lean into him upon returning. Karen said he's even got drive for the stand. Which he does pop up almost instantly -- much like his down. 

Most of the heeling work was done towards the end of class this week and I typically start to lose his attention towards the end of class. He works really well for about 40-45 minutes and then I think he's ready to be done. But even though his heeling wasn't as good as I've seen, he did watch me throughout the exercises. 

I had asked him at the end of class if he was getting tired and one of the other handlers asked me if he ever got tired. I said yeah, that he was actually a really easy dog to live with and had a great off switch. I think that really surprised her because he is a lot of dog and a bundle of energy in class :)

Wednesday night we crashed an agility class and Riot ran really well. He knocked a couple of bars on the first run and seemed to jump kind of funny on the last jump -- which was not that far from a barrier so that might have had something to do with it. We re-ran the sequence and ran it perfectly. The second sequence had a two really difficult weave entrances and he hit both of them. He actually he all of his weave entrances all night. Not bad for a dog that's been off from agility for nearly a month :)

This weekend we're finally making it out to a field training session. I'm looking forward to seeing how our work in the backyard over the last couple of months translates into the field. 

I'm a big behind, but Riot and I attended a foundation sends and recalls seminar with Mary Ellen Barry at the beginning of May. 

I had a moment of panic first thing in the morning since Riot was one of the greener dogs at the seminar and most of the other working spots were filled with very motivated border collies. But Riot did really well holding his own. We learned so much and Riot as always provided the comic relief.

We were working on a lateral motion rear cross and the jump was positioned so that he was jumping toward the seminar participants. E-Z was hanging out with the crowd, so initially when Riot jumped funny over the jump paying no attention to where I was going, we assumed he was looking at E-Z. So Mary Ellen sat down in front of E-Z and we tried it again. His jumping was even more odd the second time -- he was springing over the jump rather than jumping and he was wiggling his body really funny in mid-air. Apparently the look on his face while he was doing this was quite comedic too. The look of puzzlement on Mary Ellen's face was pretty priceless too. Apparently Riot was hamming it up for the audience, because we turned the jump 90° and he proceeded to perform the exercise perfectly. 

One of our exercises later in the day was practicing recalls over the jump. I could see Riot's brain thinking hard through every repetition, so we stopped a few times while we were practicing and did some spins and some hand touches and just some goofing off. He did really well on all his repetitions and I didn't want him to burn out, so we were having a good time. 

This weekend we were at the Shetland Sheepdog of Greater Baltimore Agility Trial. We had never been to the facility before and the surface was a bit older and bit slicker than the indoor turn we've seen in the past. The course on both Saturday and Sunday were quite technical and challenging especially for a young green dog -- not that excellent courses shouldn't be technical and challenging. All four courses were nice to run, if not a bit tricky.

I was not thrilled with his contact performance this weekend, so I'll have to add board work to the list of things we'll work on this summer. His weave pole entrances were all really nice this weekend. And he paid very good attention to me while waiting his turn up until the dog before him was running. I didn't get any barking out of him this weekend, which I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Saturday started with Exc A Std. I had a hard time running on this course. I felt like there was lead in my shoes. I knew it was risky to do the rear cross between 4 and 5 will a young dog and ideally I would have liked to have fronted, but really I was just trying to make it though the course. So I'm not too upset about the off course. His a-frame performance shows I need to work on independent behavior with him a lot more. I was initially planning on front crossing after the double, which I started and then didn't complete, but he read the rear cross beautifully. I pulled him too far off the jump two jumps later and caused the refusal and that was just me over-handling the baby dog. I'm very proud of him for coming with me, but smacking myself for that.

The Exc A JWW course that afternoon was a really nice course. Riot came out of the tunnel (the second obstacle) on fire and there was a long line, but after my lack of running this morning, I took off booking it down the line to not fall too far behind. I'm not sure if my booking it, Riot's speed, or if he slipped on the surface, but he knocked the bar on 5 or 6. This was the first time he knocked a bar in a trial. I don't have it on video and no one I know saw the run, so I still don't know why it happened. The rest of the course ran really nicely. If only he had kept the bar up.

Sunday, Riot ran really well. It was even more hot and humid than the day before -- well into the 90s when we ran JWW in the afternoon. I crated them out of the car today which I think helped as there was an occasionally breeze and it was a lot less chaotic than the space inside had been the day before. 

Our Exc A Std run was pretty nice. He didn't hold his dog walk contact, but we got through all the tricky parts. I was a bit worried about the entrance to the weave poles since more experienced dogs were having issues with it, so I booked it from the chute so I could get up there in time. I was so thrilled with him for nailing that entrance that I told him what a good boy he was and that caused him to come out of the poles. <smacking forehead> The rest of the run was clean but he did seem to lose speed on the second half of the course. I'm not sure if that was heat related or what.

This weekend at the PVGRC agility trial, Riot completed both his OA and OAJ titles!

Saturday

First thing Saturday morning was Open JWW (not on video). The course was nice and flowy. We had a refusal early on on a jump and I'm not sure what happened. I don't know if I pulled him off of it or he wasn't paying attention to it, but I managed to pull him back around and we finished the course without any other incidents. He even nailed his weave entry. Riot Q'd with a 95 and 3rd place. This was his third leg and completed his OAJ title.

That afternoon was Open STD and Riot Q'd with another 3rd place. Riot's a-frame contact was not very good and his teeter wasn't great, but he had a nice dog walk contact. I'm still holding contacts longer than I would normally with him as we have plenty of time to spare and I want to reenforce good habits. I made a bad assumption and didn't support the dog walk after the tunnel the way I should have. Riot got a refusal there, but otherwise had a very nice run.

Sunday - Riot's Excellent Debut

First up was Riot's first time in Exc A STD. Riot's contacts looked great this run. I did release him quickly off the teeter to the table, but he held both his dog walk and a-frame today beautifully. We had a bit of a bobble in the middle of the course with Riot taking an off course jump before the tire -- something none of us saw as possibility (and I don't think any other dog took it either), but Riot was absolutely determined to take it. I called him back around and then I have no idea what happened on the weave polls. He completely blew by them for some odd reason, initially I wasn't going to fix them, then I decided I was going to go back and fix them, but even on the fix he didn't stay in which was very odd. On video he looks like he's say "come on there are better things to do." I have no idea what that was about, and I don't know why I was so lax about his not weaving. I don't think my wishy-washy-ness (nice word, huh) helped the situation any and I'm not sure if that's why he didn't complete the weaves the second time. The rest of the course was really nice and I'm especially happy with how he read the closing sequence of jumps. Riot's first attempt at Exc A STD ended in an NQ, but it certainly did have "moments of brilliance."

Our final run of the weekend was our first Exc A JWW run. Riot was a little distracted and pokey for this run, but still managed to run clean, Q, and come in 3rd place! I'm not really sure what the pokiness/sniffing was about, he was nice and drive-y for the first 3 obstacles, but then had his nose down after jump 4 and after jump 6. The rear on the flat into the weaves worked out nicely and he nailed his weave entrance (no sign of any of the weave issues we faced in the morning). I did pull him out really early for this run. I think they weren't even half way down the first page of 20" dogs when I brought him up to the ring and he was the 7th dog or so on the 3rd page of 20s. In addition, they weren't even moving that fast even though the course was a fairly fast course. I was also really nervous for some reason running this course, so he could have picked up on that too.

Riot got to attend a mini session with Paulena Hope tonight. He was on fire tonight -- probably the most drive-y I've seen him. We did four courses over the two hours and he really did well on all of them.

This is the first time Riot had seen the viaduct and he didn't miss a beat.

Our first course started out with a big loop that started with the tunnel to a couple of jumps, then the viaduct, and then the weave poles. He did miss that weave pole entrance but that was the only one he missed all night. He had so much speed built up from the loop, I was pretty sure we'd miss that entrance. 

The courses weren't easy and for being the youngest dog in the session, I think he did really well. Paulena really liked him. She was very impressed with his speed and drive. 

I did get two barks from him on the second course. One as he was entering the weaves and another as we were leaving the dog walk. He was quiet on the remainder of the courses, but I find the barking fascinating. I've never had a dog that has barked on course. 

Riot and I had a wild ride this morning. It was the PVGRC speciality and I had him entered in Rally Advanced A and Wildcard Novice. Nothing counting towards any titles because I knew being outside on grass was going to be enough pressure for us. 

I knew going in the grass was going to be a challenge, but I didn't realize exactly how big of a challenge it was going to be! 

Riot warmed up pretty nicely. He had a few minutes of excellent attention and the rest was not great, but adequate. He was really doing a great job even with all the distractions around and being on grass. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I completely lost his attention about 30-45 seconds before the judge called our number. We got to the entrance to the gate and I was continually having to pull his nose off the ground. The judge warned me that when we got into the ring I couldn't do that or she'd take points off. I didn't realize they could take points off before you actually started, so I guess that's good to know. 

We got to the start line somehow and he sat with me with probably some of the best attention I've had from him at the start line. He was actually doing a very nice job watching me. 

The judge told us we could start, and I said heel and proceeded to walk forward. Riot sat there and looked at me. I said "heel" he continued to look at me. I said "heel" and he finally got up. I don't know if I had told him to "stay" or "wait" at the start line while I was taking off the leash or what happened. Usually I don't use any sort of word that means stay with a sit or down command since it's redundant for him (his sit and down mean stay until I release or give you another command) and it does tend to confuse him when I give him a stay and then another command -- he give you this look like, it that a trick?

He caught up to me (nose mostely on the ground) and somehow we got the sit at the first obstacle, which was a sit to a fast. Well the fast turned into a yee-haw lets run around the ring smelling everything. The judge yelled "block the gates." I got him back around the normal sign, did a really messy left turn and then had a beautiful call front, finish left, halt. The next two signs he mostly kind of stayed with me, nose on the ground though, and then he had the jump, which he ran ahead of me, nose on the ground after. The next two obstacles were pretty much a mess.

And then we got excused. 

Ugh. She said she didn't think Riot was ready for this. I knew it was going to be a challenge for us, but never in a million years did I think we'd get excused. 

Of course as soon as we leave the ring, he goes lunging for the closest dog to go visit. I gave him a good tug on the leash, and a pretty serious "no." Which got me pulled aside and warned that I could get written up and reported for that on show grounds. Whoops. So I guess no correcting for inappropriate behavior at shows. 

I put him back in his crate and sat there for a while while he pulled himself together. He was being such a goof in his crate. Once he settled, I opened the door and we sat there calmly watching to other dogs pass. He was doing pretty good, but was trembling every once in a while. I'm not sure if it was excitement, nervousness, or if he was possibly a little cold. We sat there for a while with me debating whether or not we'd stick around for wildcard novice. 

I was really torn, because I wanted to see how he'd do. I did consider opting out of the off leash healing part and just doing the rest, but ultimately, I decided I was going to be too paranoid after his performance in rally and that I didn't want him in the ring again if I couldn't correct him for the nose on the ground or the lack of attention. 

I had so many people come up to me and say he sure was entertaining to watch and he was named quite appropriately. And I really can't be mad at him. A little frustrated, yes -- especially after seeing so much improvement in our obedience class over the last 6 weeks. 

Riot has really made great strides in this session. He's gotten a lot better at paying attention to me during class. His heeling is getting so much better. He still had a great recall and his front is getting better at the end. We've gotten so many tips on how to improve things and he even let someone examine him on stand for exam.

For our final class we had two short courses. One was 11 obstacles and the other was 10.

The first course was a little tricky, it was tight and Riot was a little high and was jumping long. I ran him at 24 inches since there were no other 20 inch dogs in class -- Since we introduced him to 26" jumps, I've been jumping him in class based on what he'll see at a trial the following weekend. Since we're doing obedience this weekend, I hesitated on what to do with him in class. He is a bit slower at 24/26 than he is at 20 and this is something I need to be aware of. I was further ahead of him that I expected a couple of times, one of which nearly resulted in a collision :-S

So the first course, the first time I pushed up too far on the rear cross and he swung wide missing the next jump. Hanging back more resulted in a much tighter turn. I really did have enough time to front, but we do need additional work on rear crosses. It was a really touch weave entrance that included a surface change and we never did get a solid entrance at the speeds he was going. He was very focused on course.

The second course had a tire at 90° to the next jump. I led out laterally until I was close to even with jump number two, took one step forward and said tire and took off running. This course was essentially a big loop and I used "Ri" once to make sure he was turning over one jump and a go to get him to drive ahead to take the triple. Other than that I did not speak to him on course. He nailed the sequence and he understood what was expected of him on the lead out perfectly -- we did a lot of practice with lateral lead-outs as a pup, but before class tonight, I probably would have been hesitant. 

We only did one day of agility this weekend and Riot had a really good day qualifying in all three of his runs!

He got to run FAST for the first time (they don't offer FAST a lot around here). His first time out in Novice FAST he Q'd getting the 5th highest point total -- I've never gone for max points in FAST, just plan for enough to Q and get out. It was a really nice smooth flowing course and the send was a simple jump tunnel combination. The only contact was an a-frame and hitting the contact was fine, however, he did not have a good stop on the bottom.

After that was Open JWW where he Q'd and got 4th place. We're still having issues finding/acknowledging the weaves poles on course -- especially when the entrances to them are straight on or nearly straight on, so we had a refusal at the weaves again. His time was 32.38 and course time was 38. I'm very please with the way the first half of this course looks. He was nice and drive-y and waited very patiently for his leadout. I've watched the video a ton of times and I'm not sure what I could have done differently to get the weave entrance?

Riot was a rock-star at his first USDAA agility trial. He had 13 runs over the weekend and really did well. I was a bit worried about him having so many runs, but it didn't phase him. Me? I was pretty exhausted. I can't remember all the details of the weekend (and that would make for a very long blog post), but here are some of the highlights from the weekend.

FRIDAY

Jumpers - His jumpers run was one of the nicer ones of the morning. Most of the dogs were a little wild Friday morning and lots of bars were coming down. Riot kept all of his 26" jumps up and other than a wrong course (he was driving forward hard and I couldn't pull him off before he took the off course jump), he had a very nice run.

Gamblers. We had a really nice opening sequence. I had held his a-frame contact for a good second or two before I released him (right now nailing the contacts are more important than course speed for him). So we were further away from the gamble than I would have liked to have been when the buzzer went off. The gamble was a jump to a curved tunnel to two more jumps. Anyways, I sent him over the jump and through the tunnel and he took off. I was too far behind him when he came shooting out of the tunnel, he missed jump 3 and had taken jump 4 before I had a chance to open my mouth. I can't complain, he was fast and drive-y, and I was just not where I needed to be when he came out of that tunnel.

Snooker - I didn't look at the course map (couldn't find copies of the starters or advanced maps all weekend) and didn't have a very good plan going in. I set him up with a really bad angle to a jump and he took at at a near impossible slice resulting in his only dropped bar all weekend. 

Standard - We had a few issues getting our weave entrance and had to go back twice to get it. Even with having to pull him back for the weaves twice and holding his contacts (well the two he stopped on) for an extra second, he was 10 seconds under course time. We did something wrong and didn't Q, but I don't remember what it was at this point.

SATURDAY

Team Gamblers - Riot's first DAM team run was his first run outside on grass. The ring was defined by a single piece of rope on stakes, so no very defined for young dogs like Riot. As luck would have it, right as he was taking a line of jumps next to the ring gate, someone was walking by with their dog not 3 feet from the rope gating. Riot hopped the rope to go over to visit. I did manage to get him back into the ring and even managed to get part of the gamble and cross the final jump before the buzzer sounded. We didn't get as many point as we could have, but we didn't E either. I had so many people come up to me and say how impressed they were that he came back to me and continued working.

Team Standard - The team standard course was nice and challenging. Riot did managed to take an off course jump between obstacles 1 and 2 so unfortunately we got a dreaded E. And then on top of that, right as he was headed over jump 3, the leash runner threw his leash down right in front of where he was landing so he had to go investigate. I did manage to call him back and get him over jump 4, but he almost grabbed his leash as he was coming back to me. After that, we had a very nice remainder of the run. He even nailed his weave pole entrance (which was not all that easy) and gave me a bark as he was doing so. That's the first time he's given me a bark on course. So many people came up and commented to me about the "leash incident" and how good Riot was and how rotten my luck had been on the team events so far between the leash and the dog right outside the ring. Frankly they are both training issues and baby dog stuff that we need to work through and probably won't happen in the future as he gets more experience (and hopefully more focus).

Standard - We ran a beautiful standard course on Saturday. He nailed his weave entrance the first time and other than me saying go and assuming he'd take the last jump, he missed it and I had to pull him back around to take it. We Q'd and got third place.

Team Jumpers - Another challenging course. We did had two refusals (but no E!) and he again nailed his weave pole entry. 

Pairs - We paired with Jimmy. Riot ran the first half of the course and Jimmy ran the second. I was a little worried how the pairs run was going to go since Riot is always wanting to visit other dogs and there was going to be another dog on course. Riot ran a very nice first half of the course and I immediately put him in a down and ran the baton over to Judy so she could run with Jimmy. Riot immediately went down and stayed down while Jimmy ran his half of the course. We Q'd and landed in 3rd place (Jimmy missed his dog walk contact).

SUNDAY

Team Snooker - I came up with a simple, yet flow-y plan for Riot. Since it was a team event, my main goal was to get out of there with a decent number of points and make it through. There were 6 weave poles that were worth 4 points. So my plan was red, jump worth 3 points, red, weaves, red, weaves, and then tackle the closing sequence. (We had to attempt 3 or 4 reds.) Riot ran perfectly. He nailed his weave poles all 3 times we did them on course (one time with a bark) and we made it all the way through the closing sequence before the buzzer sounded.

Standard - Riot ran the course beautifully. I held his a-frame and dog walk contacts extra long, but released him almost immediately from his teeter. His time was just about 20 seconds under course time. He Q'd and got first place.

Pairs - Initially I wasn't planning on entering him in pairs today, but someone I knew needed a partner, so I decided to. Our team didn't qualify. Riot ran very nicely, but I did have to bring him back to fix his weaves (first time from Sat/Sun that he didn't nail them). His partner was a little wild on the course. Since they were one dog short of having enough for even pairs, they needed an accommodating dog, so I volunteered Riot. He got to run the other half of the course with another partner and did very well (only missing his weave entrance the first time again). We did help Rosie pick up a Q, so that was good. Again, he had no issues being on course with another dog running and listened very well to me.

Our last run of the weekend should have been Team Relay (which Riot's team did qualify to run in -- only a certain percentage of the teams get to run). We were well below the cut-off for Qs (I think we were ranked 33 out of 51 teams prior to the relay). Since Riot's team-mates didn't care if we ran or not, I decided I was done running for the weekend so we didn't run (instead I scribed the class).

Over all, not a bad debut for the little guy. If I had known that there was a chance we wouldn't have run in Team Relay, I may have entered Riot in another starters class on Sunday. As it was it was a lot of runs for Riot, but Riot didn't seem to mind. He was still amped up when we got home.

We actually had a very good obedience class. Our heeling is getting better -- still has a long way to go, but there was a lot less forging tonight.

In our group practices of changing of speeds, he actually stayed with me instead of racing to catch the dog in front of him. There was no real attention to me and he was a bit ahead, but it was a great improvement over weeks past. We heeled past 3 groups of distractions and while he glanced at them, he stayed with me. As soon as I released him at the end of the exercise, he made a bee-line for the last stuffed toy and picked it up. But hey, he had been released. That got a nice chuckle from the class.

We did some really nice figure 8s with "air cookies" I was having a hard time getting his attention before that, but air cookies seemed to do the trick. I also picked up my speed which helped a bunch.

Our heeling pattern left a bit to be desired. The instructor was too busy chuckling that she forget to give us the slow. She said he is so driven and it was like he was on a mission. He did a VERY nice job staying with me through the exercise and even the fast part. Put his head was focused straight ahead. He had somewhere to go. 

Our stays, he's still on high alert. During the long down I turned to the person next to me and asked if we could drug them before the exercise. Seriously if I could get him to relax just a bit, it would be awesome.

Overall, much improvement over two weeks ago. We still have a long way to go, but we're having a ton of fun.

I asked what we should take next session -- whether we should repeat novice obedience or go back and take attention for obedience again. Karen said he's so high drive that going back to attention for obedience was probably beneath him and wouldn't do much for him. But I needed to work the concepts of that class into our novice class. She says he's going to be a lot of work, just cause he has so much go. But he's still young.  

Riot was on his best behavior in class tonight. He had gorgeous down stays while I walked the sequences and he was just happy to be working. 

Once I put him in a down, I rolled his back end over onto one hip and that seemed to keep his down a lot more relaxed. He wasn't nearly on edge and I didn't have to worry as much about those elbows popping up. I'll have to try this during stay practice in obedience class tomorrow and if it works, give the rolling onto a hip a command and teach that to him. 

We did all of tonight's sequences at 26" in preparation for his big USDAA debut at the Mid-Atlantic Agility Showcase this weekend. 

Our first sequence was a two jump lead out to a serpentine with a significant distance between jump one and two. Our first time through started out really nicely, but the dog working on the other side decided to come visit. I put Riot into a down as soon as he cleared the last jump in the serpentine and he stayed there until the other dog was corralled. Our second attempt started even nicer than the first as Riot read the need for collection nicely and added an extra stride before jump two. The serpentine was very nice and tight too (remember this is at 26") and the send into the tunnel was nice. I didn't cue any deceleration coming out of the tunnel so he jumped the second to last jump a lot bigger than ideal and we didn't get a tight line to the last jump. 

The second sequence allowed the opportunity to introduce Riot to the concept of layering. It took us a few times to get the timing right, but we successfully layered a jump (which is the grand scheme of things was actually a pretty hard jump to layer). Again I had problems cuing deceleration coming out of the tunnel that started the sequence that added to the confusion. Riot is really good at picking up even small cues, so I'm having to learn how to become a better handler. 

Our third sequence provided us with some challenges. We haven't worked a lot of push-throughs and this seemed to be a source of confusion with us. We really need to go back and work some one jump work.

By our last sequence things were starting to fall apart. I'm not real sure where Riot's head went, but it seemed to have left for a while. We started with a tunnel and I released him and he went to the area where the last dog left the course? Next attempt he took the tunnel and then next jump and just kept going not paying any attention to me? Next attempt we got through the sequence, but it wasn't pretty. Next attempt again was through the tunnel and straight over the jump without paying any attention to me? Then we went through the tunnel and went back and peaked over the tunnel? Finally we had a pretty decent go at the sequence with one check over the barrier to see who was leaving between the last two jumps. No one could figure out why he was acting the way he was. Not sure if he was stressed from repeating so many times or it was just the end of a long class. The two times through we had the most success with, I really riled him up before hand. 

You know it's been a wild ride when the judge hands you your leash at the end of the run and says "Yee-haw!"

Riot qualified today and came in 4th with a 93! A 13 point improvement over yesterday and all 7 points off were for heeling.

Riot warmed up really nicely today -- both outside and when I brought him in the building. His heeling was tighter, his focus was better, and he just overall seemed more eager to please. 

I brought him over to the rally ring about two and half dogs before it was his turn and it was even tighter than it was yesterday. The best I could do warming up ringside was to work on "watch" and keep an eye out for wandering dogs invading his space all while blocking someone else's view. 

Riot was very interested in the judge and I was half convinced he was going to go visit him when he came to take his leash from me. 

Overall the first half of the course was really nice. His heeling wasn't as nice as I would have liked but it was much better than yesterday. The jump was so much better than yesterday, he actually returned to heel afterwards, didn't back jump, and didn't bark.

The second half of the course was a lot more open and all movement with no stopping exercies (other than the last) and two speed changes. This was going to be more of a challenge for us regardless and then the clapping started. In the obedience ring next to us (which we were facing at the time), they were awarding placements and clapping. This was a bit much for Riot to handle as he was convinced they had to be clapping for him and ran over to see what was going on. I told him to heel and he came right back to me. But from then on out it was a battle to keep him with me as things were just way too exciting.