Monday musings

Vacation is over. (Sigh)

I’m back at work. (Groan)

Memories of nationals are still glowing (um, dripping?) happily in my brain. In spite of the weather it was really a great time.

I got to thinking about the rotten weather for obedience on Saturday. I’m sure each trainer had her own reasons for deciding to slog through the muck or not. I chose not for Phoenix. It was a really hard decision to make at the time — I wanted to show so badly and it was Nationals! — but I don’t regret it.

We had been training like crazy all spring to get into the Open ring and I took off for St. Louis with visions of a CDX leg dancing in my brain. Reality smacked me up side the head about 30 minutes before our class started and I reluctantly admitted that this experience was probably not going to be beneficial for either of us. I went to the check-in table and marked us absent.

I really admired the trainers who showed confidently and whose dogs did well (“well” being relative, the day’s high score was a 192 awarded to a Novice dog). Seriously, how many of us go outdoors and train in the pouring rain? And it wasn’t just a brief shower. It had been raining steadily for three days before obedience judging ever started.

So the rings never stood a chance. If the grass had been merely wet, I would have shown without hesitation but the combination of standing water and pouring rain put an end to any notion of a positive Open run for Nix and me.

It’s not that I have to have perfect ring conditions to show or will only show if I feel sure we can qualify at any particular site. But I do have standards. Just as there are certain judges I choose not to show to, there are certain sites and conditions I choose not to show under. (Saturday’s trial was a shining example of why there aren’t many outdoor obedience trials in the Midwest!)

Every time I go in the ring with my dog, I want it to be a positive, comfortable experience and I’ll control the environment as much as I possibly can to ensure this happens by choosing judges, show sites, etc. that I like. I didn’t see how asking Phoenix to lie in standing water while rain fell on his head could be a positive experience, especially since stays have been such a big sticky issue for us. Oh sure, he might have done it but it certainly would not have endeared the exercise to his heart and I certainly did not want to un-do all the work I’d put into proofing those stays or — heaven forbid — create an even bigger problem.

We did show in Versatility in the rain, largely because there were no sits and downs to contend with. Phoenix didn’t seem to mind being wet but was clearly distracted by the rainfall. He kept looking at me like, “Mom, we don’t DO this.” Well, he was right about that. It was a bit extreme for a relatively green dog but he did give it the ol’ maligator try and things went passably up to the directed jumping, which didn’t happen, unless you count multiple loops over the bar jump.

So here’s the bottom line: sometimes you come out ahead by not showing at a trial. That’s so hard, especially when you’ve already entered and your friends are there and doggone it, you just want to show your dog! I don’t make it a practice of entering and not showing, can’t afford it for one thing! But sometimes you have to suck it up and make a decision that’s right for your dog’s needs, not yours.

You could argue that the point of having a “trained” dog is that it will perform under any condition and you would be right. In fact, if we were to repeat this scenario in a year, yes, I would consider asking Phoenix to do his stays in the rain and mud. But not this year.

The journey continues.