Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

Rottweilers. Computers. Cameras. World Domination. Not necessarily in that order.

Rottweilers.
Computers. Cameras.
World Domination.
Not necessarily in that order.

One, yes, ONE championship point!

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This was not one of the more successful rally obedience trial weekends for Freya and me. But even though it was disastrous in many ways, we did not completely fail. While we did NQ twice, we also Q’d twice albeit with some very lackluster scores, and earned two legs toward the ten we need for the APDT Level 1 RL1X title.

Oh, and ONE point toward the ARCH Rally Champion title. I will absolutely have to remember to get a screenshot including our ONE lonely point once the scores are posted online for this trial.

Most of what went wrong for us can be attributed to training issues, and if you recall, being overscheduled and thus underprepared. I have only myself to blame for not making some time to practice on what was a totally new thing for us, artificial soccer turf, something that was a much bigger problem for us than I had expected. I also know I don’t put as much time into training for heavy distractions as I should, and that is on the priority to-do list as well.

However, I do think that the heavy distractions we faced at this trial were out of the ordinary: ongoing light construction and setup, erecting a swimming pool, and agility lessons and practice going on in the same room with only a tall mesh fence separating it from the rally trial. Kudos to those of you who successfully train your dogs to work through stuff like this. Although it is obviously what we should work toward, it is a little beyond what Freya and I can handle consistently at this point.

As a small business owner myself, I can understand why the facility owner may not have wanted to cancel scheduled classes, especially in the current economic climate. As a competitor, I wish I had a more accurate picture beforehand of what the trial site would be like. Again, I am not saying that I should not have trained harder. What I am saying is that in general, I would like to have enough information to make a good decision about whether a particular trial venue is right for us.

Winter is just ending in northern Illinois, so I would choose to avoid outdoor trials until we have some opportunity to train on grass again. I can choose obedience- and rally-only trials, rather than trials held in conjunction with large all-breed shows. I can choose venues that run a single ring rather than several rings concurrently. And at this point in our training, I would have chosen to skip a trial held with agility lessons, or an agility trial, going on in the same building… that is, had I known about it.

That’s enough whine to go with our string cheese (best training treat ever, loved by dogs and people alike). On to the next trial weekend, which will be our last for about a month. We’ll take a break, and now that we’ve identified some more definite issues, we can get back to training.

(NaBloPoMo | March ’10: 21 of 31)

Shameless self-promotion, spring 2010 version

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My original plan for advertising in the first 2010 issue of The Total Rottweiler Magazine was to celebrate the titles that Axel finished in January, particularly his AKC Championship.

Well.

Since my new AKC Champion is like one of those children who, while nice-looking in person, always has a goofy expression, closed eyes, head turned to the side, or what have you when it comes to photographs, I did not have the variety of shots, nor a decent head shot, for a nice elegant new champion ad.

So here is what is running instead. Behold the beauty… and the goofiness… that is Freya and Axel.

click image for full-sized PDF version

We also took the opportunity to promote Axel’s niece, Chassis (Precious Gems European Cut). I predict a successful career ahead for this young lady!

click image for full-sized PDF version

(NaBloPoMo | March ’10: 20 of 31)

Life goes on

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Two of our dearly departed dogs have been at the back of my mind all week. They were full siblings from two different litters, and two dates this week are significant.

Yesterday, March 18, would have been Heidi’s “sweet 16.” For the most part, it is unusual for a Rottweiler to get very far into the ‘teen years, but we lost Heidi slightly before her time at age nine years, nine months. She was my “heart” dog and even though she has been gone for over six years now, I still think of her often, especially when training my others. My husband had many dogs throughout his life, but Heidi was my very first dog. She was my “experimental” dog and I probably made my worst training missteps with her. She bounced back from it all, and we finally found her calling as a therapy dog well into her middle years. She was extremely people-friendly, almost to a fault. Or at least I thought it was a fault because she even liked jagoffs that I hated. But it made her the perfect candidate for therapy work. Her career was not long, but we both enjoyed visiting mentally and physically challenged young adults at some of Little City’s group homes. It was perhaps the most rewarding thing I have ever done, with or without a dog.

And Tuesday was the fourth anniversary of the sad day that Oscar went to join his siblings at the Rainbow Bridge. Through our tears, we said that it was because he didn’t want to miss Heidi’s birthday there, and smiled at the thought of the “twins” being together again. We always called them the “twins” even though they were not twins at all. They were full siblings, one from a planned litter and one from an “oops” litter from the same parents. Oscar was the very last one of our original four-member Rottweiler wrecking crew to leave us at age eleven years, five months. He was a big dog, at the top end of the standard for male Rottweilers, so I never felt really comfortable doing much training and competing with him. He always felt that his job was just to watch over me. The others always wanted to be doing something, even when they got a bit older. Oscar was happy just to hang out with me.

I miss them both to this day, and always will.

(NaBloPoMo | March ’10: 19 of 31)

Overscheduled

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With the Total Rottweiler Magazine deadline a week or so tighter than expected this quarter, I’m a little overscheduled for the next few days. And I don’t like it one bit.

Since there are not that many APDT trials close by, I’ll almost always enter a trial that is less than two hours away. Unfortunately, the trial this weekend means three straight trial weekends right in the thick of getting the magazine finished.

To add to the fun, despite the beautiful weather we’ve had all week, it’s supposed to snow this weekend.

We weren’t able to get to class, so Freya is a bit under-prepared. Not a crisis yet but it may be for next week’s trial because jumping and backwards heeling are still not pretty.

I’m sure we’ll get through it. The magazine will make it to the printer and Freya and I will get through March’s trials. We will NOT be doing any trials in April!

(NaBloPoMo | March ’10: 18 of 31)

Just a few more Freya title thoughts

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After Freya failed to V-rate as an adult in German-style conformation shows, and also failed CERF with punctate cataracts in both eyes, I knew we would not be breeding her, and I didn’t think we’d be doing any further competition with her, either.

Obedience training has been a lifelong activity for all of our dogs to keep them alert and active in mind and body, and to keep them from destroying all of our stuff. (That part works great, give it a try! All of our dogs have had great house manners, even the ones with other glaring faults.) So when my friend Sharon suggested that we might want to try competing in rally obedience, it did seem like something we could do and maybe even enjoy. I say maybe, because I’m not much of a competitor; I probably get ring nerves worse than anyone alive. I have never actually puked on my own dog out of nerves, but there have been days that my stomach has had so many butterflies, I’m sure it was close. And I have tripped over my own dog, who was going in the correct direction while I was about to head off in the wrong one.

Rally obedience is more relaxed than traditional obedience. You can talk to your dog and give help throughout, rather than having to give just one command and hope the dog is listening. Because of this, we did have a fighting chance at success.

I figured I’d try to title Freya at the first level in one venue. That’s all done on-leash, with many exercises she’s practiced since puppyhood. I figured that trialing her off-leash would be totally out of the question, as I could never predict for sure when she’d get that wild look in her eyes and run off to have more fun than she would have following me around a rally course.

I am not sure what happened along the way to change that. We have now completed first level titles in two venues and a second level title in one. That second level title was done off-leash, something I did not think we’d be able to do. Now, we have a very real possibility of being able to complete first and second level titles in three venues, and third level titles in at least two of those venues.

I don’t know if we will go on to traditional obedience. I know we won’t go on to Schutzhund… although we might try a BH if I can get her past her dislike of bicycles and other wheeled human-propelled objects. We’ve already gone further than I ever expected to.

Is Freya rising to the occasion? Or am I?

There’s only one thing that I wish we’d done differently. Freya’s breeder Donna passed away early last summer, a couple of months before Freya’s first trial. I wish we’d started sooner, so Donna could have shared in celebrating at least our first title. She would have been even more proud of Freya than Dan and I are ourselves.

I have to remind myself more often: Life’s too short. Don’t wait.

(NaBloPoMo | March ’10: 15 of 31)