Hawkeye trials

Showed Phoenix in Graduate Novice last weekend. It was a weekend of fun, frustration, good friends, achievement, disappointment and the realization that I need to put more energy into this dog if I am going to get the level of work from him I want. In other words, it was a typical obedience trial.

Saturday, our ring work was not terribly inspired. Heeling was laggy and everything else was a ho-hum affair. Phoenix invented a new exercise, the "Recall Retrieve with Stop and Drop." No points for creativity there, just a big, fat NQ. Honestly, if you TRIED to teach some of the stuff dogs come up with in the ring, you couldn't do it. I would have blamed the heat and humidity except the building we showed in was about 56 degrees and I think there was a wind chill from the ceiling fans. Darn, can't use that as an excuse.

I worked Phoenix at the match Saturday night, playing lots of running and chase games and felt good about where we were. Plus his group exercises with the Open dogs were great and I'm more confident we'll be ready for Open by late summer.

Sunday's judging was a marathon affair due to our judge being "shared" between breed and obedience assignments, both of which brought in much higher numbers than anticipated. Then she had to put her Open B assignment on hold before it was finished to go and judge the hound group! Needless to say, obedience judging continued long after Best In Show. To make a long story short, it was after 5 p.m. before Phoenix and I made it into the ring, the first time in more than 30 years of showing that I'd ever gone in the ring that late. Aside from the judge, stewards and a few folks who were still loading up their stuff, we had the building to ourselves.

His attitude was much better and he powered through the heeling like the dog I thought I'd trained. Horray! (Truly an improvement or lack of any other distractions?) My left hand mysteriously returned to my waistline. I swear I cannot remember where I want to carry that arm! Phoenix's head position is slipping — not that I'm into dogs who heel with their heads totally vertical but he is dropping his lower and lower and with that, comes a lack of eye contact. Sigh. Another problem to fix. Gee, what would I do with all my time if I had a perfect dog?

Aside from whacking the last board of the broad jump with a hind paw (I swear, we are under some kind of broad jump curse), he worked a 196.5 to win the class for his second GN leg. Do I have to say we were the only entry? No? Good.

We're off obedience trials for eight weeks now and boy, do we have a lot of work to do. Actually, no trials at all until a four-day agility blast the end of July. Time to train!