Rally Fun Match!

Cooper and I participated in a Rally Fun Match on Tuesday. We had a great time! It was held outdoors, which isn't very common in this part of the states. I thought this would be a great opportunity to see how he would perform in an outdoor competition. We were entered in Advanced Rally. He did awesome! I couldn't believe how undistracted he was out there. Here is the kicker...we get to our last sign and he wanders way out to the side of me and sniffs around a bit...I call him back and he comes over and does the sit part of the exercise...then I hear the judge go "ohhh nooo"...there he was siting just and inch or two off the ground POOPING! Right in the ring! So we were disqualified:(
I guess I should have tried harder to potty him before. I'm usually not that concerned because we are normally in doors and he would never had done that if we were indoors. Lesson learned! At least it happened at a fun match and not at a real trial.
I asked the judge for our score sheet and she went over it with me. She said we did great! We would have had a 94! I know that if he wouldn't have pooped, we would have done that last sign without a problem. It was a sit-stand-walk around dog, and he is solid at that one.
So now I am left wondering if he did so well due to the extra training we have been doing, or if he was less stressed and distracted out doors? It was crazy good, he didn't hesitate or wander or sniff at all, he was just right there doing his thing the whole time. Now I wish we had an outdoor show to enter :)

Cooper turns 2!

Happy 2nd Birthday Cooper!

Cooper qualified in Rally Advanced!

This time we did much better in our Rally Avanced trial. We didnt get a high score, but we did qualify! Woohoo! I was very inpressed with how we did considering all we had going against us. The trail was held at the fairgrounds in Waterloo IA. It was in a big non heated or air conditioned metal building. Good thing it was cool that day :) We started off with a thunderstorm and heavy rain right away in the morning. Good thing Cooper is not afraid of thunder! I did have a heck of a time getting him to go potty in the rain though..lol. The building was very busy with 4 conformation rings, an obedience ring, and the rally ring all together in one open space. The grooming area was also right across from the Rally ring. The building was very noisy. Cooper was pretty distracted once we got in the ring, but he stayed with me and responded to my commands. He did kinda wander from me a few times, but I was able to get him back to heel position. The most difficult station for us was the 90 degree left pivot. Because he was so distracted he ended up too far in front of me on his sit to be able to pivot correctly. We tried 2x and the same thing happeded where he would end up turning around and facing me. I know we lost 10 points right there for not completeing the station properly. Its a bummer because he does this so well in training. He often does the backwards jump to get himself into place and its so fun to watch. Other than that I am guessing we lost points for hesitation and not heeling all the time. I would have liked a higher score, but all things considered I am happy that we did as well as we did. We ended up with a score of 82. Cooper's brother Falkor was there too and did awesome by scoring a 94! This was his first try at advanced. It was so fun to watch him perform and see how he stays so connected with his mom (Jen). I think Cooper and I need to go way back to the beginning of our training and work in some attention exercises :).