This past weekend, we were in Medina for an obedience trial and Dazzle earned the CD (Companion Dog) title. Four trials were offered (2 each day) and we entered them all.
Trial 1- Dazzle had a beautiful run for the on lead heeling pattern, Figure 8 heeling, stand for exam, of-leash heeling and recall (I think that was everything :-) Then we went in with the other dogs in his class (Novice) and did the off-leash group exercises (1 minute sit stay and 3 minute down stay) with the owners across the ring. While on the sit stay, Dazzle started to sniff the floor around him and then sank into a down literally FOUR seconds before the judge called "return to your dogs". I couldn't believe it! That meant the entire run was non-qualifying! Four freakin' seconds!! Then I found out we would have gotten High in Trial with the highest score of ALL the obedience dogs of all the different levels in that trial!! AAAGGGGHH! I've never gotten a HIT award, but really would have liked to have it! Oh well. I still loved his run and was very happy with how well he did.
Trial 2- After waiting around for the other competitors to finish (Novice was the last class of the day), Dazzle was bored and tired and cranky and his run was not nearly as pretty and focused and crisp as his morning run. But he didn't try to take it out on his leash and he did stay with me and did as I asked and he remained in the sit on the stay :-) We qualified with a 185 and took first place (others were having trouble too, so we had the highest of the lower scores :-) A dog in a different class scored higher and got the HIT award.
Trial 3 and 4 on Sunday Dazzle was really "on" both shows and had wonderful runs! He had a few crooked sits we need to work on, but scored a 194.5 and a 194 taking a third place in trial 3 and a 2nd place in trial 4.
Over all I was VERY happy with how he did and I'm glad that is out of the way so now I can concentrate on teaching him the fun stuff for the next level (directed jumping, dumbbell retrieves, scent work, etc.)
