Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

Note to self: If you do “Save Draft” and not “Publish,” then no one gets to see what you write. Not that it would always be a bad thing, but, yeah.

I was deciding whether to post Freya’s Saturday class video and commentary, or write a little more about Sunday’s trial. But for some reason I am thinking about Jake, mostly because APDT Rally Obedience encourages disabled dogs and handlers to participate and goes as far as allowing certain exercise modifications so that they may do so safely and successfully. I think this is absolutely wonderful.

Jake has been gone for over seven years now, but he was one of my heart dogs so he is never far from my thoughts. He was an amputee due to accident, which is what took my post in this direction. Only a few of you who visit me here probably remember him in real life, but you can read what I wrote about him about a year ago.

Although the APDT and rally obedience were both in existence during Jake’s lifetime, I didn’t know much about either one until later. After he had recovered fully from the amputation surgery, my challenge was to keep this active dog busy and happy, or at least out of trouble. Since Schutzhund competition involves a 1-meter jump and an A-frame, it was not something we could easily return to. So I just started to look around for things we could do, and titles we could achieve.

All AKC titles were then, and still are now, off the table for disabled dogs. The Canine Good Citizen test was a possibility. In 1998, the CGC guidelines which encouraged participation for disabled handlers were already in existence. The guidelines that now exist, welcoming disabled dogs to participate, did not exist at that time. There were more than a few clubs that chose to defer to the AKC show rules which referred to disqualification of dogs who appeared lame. It took way more phone calls and emails than I ever imagined to get a club to allow Jake to test. And then he failed his first attempt. He did pass on a later attempt, even though at heart he was more outlaw than good citizen.

I don’t even have to look up the names of the people who helped me in my quest: Mary Burch from the AKC, and Tammy Dean from Glenbard All Breed Obedience Club. I like to think we are all part of the reason that the CGC evaluator guidelines now specifically state:

Dogs with disabilities such as the loss of a leg, deafness, or blindness in one eye are welcome in the Canine Good Citizen Test. Dogs must perform all of the 10 items to pass the test, however, handlers may use hand signals, gestures, or other cues to which the dog has been trained to respond.

Anyway. He also got a doctor’s note to be allowed to take ATTS’s Temperament Test, which he passed with flying colors despite his outlaw leanings. I was not even their volunteer webmaster yet at the time.

Back then, UKC specifically allowed disabled dogs to participate in obedience competitions. I went so far as to register him with UKC, but since their CD, unlike the AKC CD, involved a jump, I decided not to put him through it. For the rest of his life, we got out to club and as much obedience and protection training as he could handle.

Titles aren’t important… yet, they are. I would have so loved to do Rally with him. He was truly my best working partner and we would have had a lot of fun with it. Miss you, Jakey. I hope you are proud of me and Freya.

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 25 of 31)

Freya finished her UKC Rally Obedience 1 title back in November, but I never did finish discussing our performance at those two trials. I should still do that before I’ve blocked a less-than-stellar performance from my memory.

But enough about the missing play-by-play. I forgot something really important: visual proof that we got the title!

Here’s the official certificate:

Here’s our bit of the New Titleholders section of UKC’s website:

I will get to the details of the trials, but probably not until later this week. Axel’s heading back to the shows tomorrow, so we all need to spend some quality time together tonight!

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 3 of 31)

Back in July, Freya got the first of three legs needed for her UKC Rally Obedience 1 title. Today we earned the remaining two legs at For Your Canine’s trials. The lovely Freya is now:

URO1 Sciroco’s Freya vom Viersen CGC, TT!

Here she is, resting up after the stress of trialing with her clueless handler, and flashing some demon eyes at that clueless handler sticking her Q ribbons in her face.

We’ll have our official new title photograph to show off soon, and hopefully a few action shots as well.

It was not particularly pretty. Our score in Trial #1 was 87 (out of a possible 100 points) and 80 in Trial #2. Nowhere near good enough for placements, and most of the point deductions are on me, not Freya. But it was good enough to qualify (70 points is a passing score) and today, that is good enough for me.

I’ll go into more detail when I have a bit more energy. Hopefully that will be tomorrow!

(NaBloPoMo | November ’09: 15 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 260 of 274)

“Saturday Freya” just doesn’t work like “Friday Freya” so we’ll have to come up with a better name for Freya’s obedience class posts. The newly forming Rally Obedience classes are probably going to be on Wednesday evenings, so maybe we can have “Freya’s Midweek Mischief” instead.

We often have potential students visiting our class to observe. This is a great idea and I think everyone who is considering a dog obedience class should do this. It’s very frustrating being faced with six to eight weeks in a class with an instructor whose methods you are uncomfortable with, and an hour out of your life to observe a class before signing up is well worth the time. Our visitors today included a young family of four with two elementary school age daughters. Mom was very impressed with Freya, and I appreciated that she took the time to tell us. Freya was on her best behavior today and she really was working nicely. In the interest of truth, I did mention that Freya is almost six and that her younger, wilder days were not quite as impressive.

There were no private lessons scheduled for the hour after class, so we set up a simple Rally course for those who were interested in the upcoming Rally class. There are three of us who are planning and training for November trials, so the opportunity to do run-throughs and “spot” each other’s runs was great. Freya and I are hoping to earn the remaining two legs for UKC RO1 the weekend of November 14-15. Sue and Onslow, and Cathy and Jazzie and Lefty are planning for an APDT trial the following week. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend their trial since we will be leaving for vacation a couple of days earlier.

I hope I don’t confuse myself with the differences between the rules of the various organizations! As you know, I’m also practicing AKC Rally at home with Axel since he will be entered in Rally Novice whenever he is at a show where it is offered and does not conflict with the show ring times. Fortunately the similarities are greater than the differences so hopefully everything will be fine.

(NaBloPoMo | October ’09: 10 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 232 of 274)

I gave you the short version on Saturday. Now here’s more of the story of our first attempt at rally obedience, and a happy photo with UKC judge Patti Burgess (thanks to Tracy and Sharon for the photo):

This UKC Rally Obedience trial was held by Flying Paws Dog Training Club at Northwest Obedience Club‘s training hall in Cary, IL. This was an air-conditioned building with one amply-sized room set up as a crating area, and another with the trial ring.

I was running late, but my wonderful friends saved space for Freya in the crating area. There was a pretty large RO1 entry, so I still got there just in time to do the course walk-through before judging started. A printed copy of the course was also given to each competitor (which I understand is not always the case).

Freya was shown a few times in German-style conformation, and she also has her Canine Good Citizen and ATTS TT certifications. Obedience training has been a life-long activity for all of our dogs. But this was Freya’s first time at any performance-type trial, and my first time back in a trial ring in around 10 years.

It’s bad form to publicly post a course layout without prior permission, which I totally spaced on asking for, so obviously I won’t be posting it. But I will comment on a few things about our run:

• Remember I mentioned that two of the exercises at the novice level in UKC Rally did not exist in AKC Rally, which is the version we had started training for? It is a good thing we made a point of training them, because both were included in the course!
• After all of these years, I still don’t know my right from my left! I took us into “Spiral Right, Dog Outside” the wrong way. I actually was thinking “right” but to the right of the cones, which of course, put Freya on the inside. Fortunately, I realized my error after a few steps, asked to re-try and got it right. One repeat of an exercise means you can still qualify. Two repeats means you do not qualify.
• Our other point deductions were also totally my fault, not Freya’s. They were all for having a tight leash. Freya was not totally with me on the first few stations, so I tightened up on the leash. If I had loosened up on the leash once she was back with me, or better yet, given her additional hand signals, more verbal encouragement or an additional command, we would have retained a few more points. Given my extreme nervous state, I am still happy to have ended up qualifying and placing with 91 points.
• Most of the obedience training that I’ve done with Freya and past dogs has been for Schutzhund or traditional obedience rather than rally, and that both helped and hurt us. Freya already has a fairly good Stand thanks to the show ring and traditional obedience classes, so we were ready for the Halt Stand that was our fifth station on this course. But in the more traditional venues, you cannot use additional commands or signals other than the initial command. It definitely hurt us that I didn’t use those additional commands and signals. It has actually been difficult for me to get accustomed to being able to talk and move more, and I need to work on giving us every possible advantage. If we do compete in traditional obedience down the road, I’ll worry about phasing out the additional chatter then.
• I had an extremely bad moment a few days before the trial when Freya would not do a finish to my left when given the command and signal that she’s supposedly known for at least a year. I taught her a new signal which used massive body English and both hands, and is surely illegal in any venue outside of rally obedience. Thankfully, it worked, because the only finish on the course was a left finish. Now that the trial is over, she once again understands the original command. Go figure.

And of course, a big factor was the moral support and advice from Sharon, Tracy, and Melanie. Thanks, you all kept my head from exploding!

I am making plans for a trial weekend in mid-November (there are not that many UKC trials in this area). There is another trial in October, but I haven’t found out yet if it is part of a breed (non-Rottweiler) specialty or if is is an all-breed event. I don’t know how far we will be able to go, but I do know that at a minimum, I want to finish this RO1 with Freya. I’ll keep you all informed on the journey.

(NaBloPoMo | July ’09: 27 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 184 of 274)

Freya now has the first leg of her UKC Rally Obedience 1 title! She had a score of 91 (out of a possible 100 points) which was also good enough for third place in a very small Novice A group. I will freely admit that pretty much all of the points deducted were because of my screw-ups, not hers. I did tell you that I was the stupid half of our team, didn’t I?

Thanks to Sharon, Tracy, and Melanie, who all supplied moral support and good advice (unfortunately my paralyzed brain didn’t retain much of the advice) which really helped get me through my first trip back into any performance competition venue in almost 10 years!

More details tomorrow or Monday, and hopefully another photo, too.

(NaBloPoMo | July ’09: 25 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 182 of 274)