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 :).

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!

Cooper with his new title ribbon