Rally Setback

So last time I posted it was about our upcoming debut in Advanced Rally. I know I am a bit late posting the update on how it went, but I have been dragging my feet on it because it is definitely not something to brag about. Our training in preparation for being off leash in a Rally course had gone so well. I wasn't super confident, but I had high hopes.
We entered the ring and handed our leash off. The very first sign was figure 8 with toys and treats as a distraction. Cooper has a very good "leave it" so I wasn't worried about the distraction. For some reason he gets excited when we do weaves,serpentines,and figure 8's around cones. He had been lagging a bit off leash during our training, so I had planned on extra encouragement to keep him up beside me. Well, I think it was the combination of the figure 8 and all the clapping I did and he went nuts after we went around our first cone. He was all excited and thought it was time to play and do zoomies. I was able to settle him down enough to redo the station. This time I didn't encourage him as much and we made it through. The next station I made a mistake on because I was so flustered from trying to settle him down. When I went to redo it I got him really confused and he was just lost. We ended up not finishing that station and just went on to the next one. The next station went well...but he was still very excited and not very in tune with me. I ended up completely losing his attention on the next station as he decided to wander over to the edge of the ring and check out what was going on next to us. I ended up excusing us from the ring because I was really frustrated and the harder I tried the worse it got.

I decided that it all went wrong from the beginning when I over encouraged him by clapping and got him too psyched up. He gets very excited when I clap, but seems fine if I just pat my leg. I guess we were just not ready for off leash yet.

We are entered both days in advanced Rally in a show the end of April in Waterloo IA. I took a small break from all the training, and this week we are getting back into the swing to get ready for Waterloo.
I hope that our next Advanced Rally trial goes much better.

Advanced Rally debut

Cooper and I have our first Advanced Rally trial this Saturday. We have been practicing hard on our off leash work. He does seem a bit stressed off leash, but I am hoping that he can get past that while we are in the ring. Wish us luck!

Itty Bitty Baby Cooper

I came across these pictures of Cooper from before I ever even met him. I didn't have them when I originally started this blog so I thought with his 2nd birthday coming up I would share them now. So cute!