First Obedience Comp - 29/03/09

In order of completion:

Novice - Jemma
Jem worked really well, tried really hard and only lost 8.5 marks, one of which was for me and my lead (which I was jiggling about without knowing it!!), her recall and retreive were good. She had slightly crooked presents and finishes and lost come for chomping on the dumbell. Her turns were much better too. Everything she lost marks for were things we know we need to work on, which is always a good sign. The other handy thing is that she works exactly the same in the ring as she does at home!

Beginners Stays - Both
Well ... Elliot was a naughty boy in the sit and got up (he had only been out the car 10mins and as it was his first comp and the first time he had seen so many dogs he was just his usual excited self!!) and took a wonder to say hello to some other dogs before the judge could get over and get him. Jemma then dropped at about 55seconds (missed by the steward though because they were retrieving elliot!! They both did their down though :)

Novice stay - Jemma
She dropped after 12seconds in the sit stay but did her down.

Beginners - Jemma
She only lost 7 this time. I felt her heelwork was sloppy but actually she wasn't too bad, she got confused on teh retireve because i threw the dumbell a long way so she got lost half way and started coming back to me, but when I told her to go again she did! Her recall present was very crooked so I tried to correct it thus loosing us 1.5 marks, oops!! I think her main problems are that she is used to getting a reward after each exercise, that she is not used to doing the heelwork twice and consequently worries about why she has to do it again thinking she did it wrong first time, and that she was tired ater doing so much bless her.

Beginners - Elliot
I was really worried about doing this with him as he was so excited about everything else that was going on and wasn't really very focused at all but i decided I would go for it and just see what happened. I was a LOT more excited than I normally am (according to my good friend that dragged me to the comp!!:P) and this worked wonders for him, he kept really well focused apart for one point when he went miles in front of me so I stopped and got him back and then he did some lovely heelwork after that. His recall was excellent, his present and finish were both realyl straight! :) I then took a big plunge and did the heel free, he did this just as well as his heel on lead, if not better bless him. Finally the retrieve was really good too despite me again throwing it a long way, it is just his present that needs work, he still doesn't like coming back too close.

So overall there were some REALLY good points, but there was also some not so good points, and one very disappointing bit. But I now know exactly what needs working on so we can take it from there :)