By the beginning of 2011, I had put the following titles on dogs: 3 CDs, 3 RNs, 2 RAs, 1 RE, and 1 RAE leg. You could say that, with respect to obedience, I started 2011 slightly less green than grass, I’d say, maybe a shade of lime green.
I was more than ready to break through the Novice barrier and get my first Open title on a dog. Alder, the standard poodle boy, was the dog who was going to get that first CDX leg for me. During 2010, I had showed Alder the poodle boy in Open 8 times with no Qs, but after much training in the winter of 2010-2011, I was optimistic that my epileptic, mildly dysplastic, fuzz-brained poodle would come through for me in 2011.
Well, we cracked, but didn’t quite break the Open barrier. By the end of 2011, Alder had 2 Open legs. Counting the 8 NQs we had in 2010, we’ve shown in Open 22 times. (With Maple, the orange tornado of a golden retriever, I picked up a BN, RA, and CD in 2011, demonstrating that I can still rack up the low-level titles.)
No doubt, any more experienced dog trainer would knowingly nod their head and say with Yoda-like wisdom, “She showed that dog before he was ready.”
So true.
And yet… I could have trained another year or two and most likely would still not have learned the many lessons I learned from actually showing. For instance, I learned:
1) That I have less-than-perfect eyesight, especially out of my right eye. Actually, I’ve always known that. What I learned showing is that, standing across the ring from my dog, watching for the drop signal from the judge, it can be very hard to see the judge’s motion, especially against a background of moving spectators or dappled shade or if the judge is standing well to the right of the dog. In training, my imaginary judge was always easy to see. During a trial when the tunnel vision of stress was overlaid on my normally poor vision, I would leave my dog, turn around on the opposite end of ring…and enter a state of near panic at realizing the judge’s outline was indistinct. Fearful of missing the Drop signal, I would squint intently at the judge, taking my eyes totally off Alder. Squinting is always accompanied by frowning. Try to squint and look relaxed and smiling at the same time. Then try squinting and frowning at your dog when he’s coming in for a Drop on Recall and see how he reacts.
2) That if Alder went around the high jump on the return on Saturday, he would always go around the high jump on the return on Sunday.
3) That if Alder missed the Drop signal on Saturday, he would miss the Drop signal on Sunday.
4) That if Alder went down on the Sit on Saturday, he would go down on the Sit on Sunday
5) That I am an extremely slow learner because it took me 22 trials to realize that if Alder went around the jump, missed the Drop signal, or went down on the Sit on Saturday, I should have pulled him from the Sunday trial and avoided reinforcing an error I would then have to work doubly hard to fix.
6) That blowing an Open Q when your dog goes down on the Sit as the judge calls the handlers back into the ring is painful.
7) That blowing an Open Q for the fourth time because your dog has gone down on the Sit is painful.
8) That blowing what would have been the 3rd Open Q on the last Saturday show of the year because your dog went down on the Sit is excruciatingly painful, especially because a) you were sure you had fixed that problem and b) although there is still one chance left at a Q on Sunday, by then, you know that, if Alder doesn’t Q on Saturday, he won’t Q on Sunday. (And he didn’t.)
9) That if you hold the dumbbell by a bell without curling your fingers over the bell, the dumbbell is more likely to go where you want it. A fellow competitor gave me that tip after I hit the ceiling with the dumbbell at a trial.
10) That your first ever Q in Open, after 14 NQs, is sweeter than sweet.
I learned so many other lessons last year, some at trials, some during training. I think the most surprising lesson from Alder is how much he loves to PLAY during training. Train him without mixing in a big dose of play and he turns into a slug. Maple, my fireball of a golden, taught me a few things, too, but those lessons are for some other post.
Here we are, Maple, me, and Alder the poodle boy, at the end of the day at the last show of the year in October 2011.
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