The State of Maple Obedience: What the heck is going on in that orange head?

Maple is a dream obedience dog. In my yard.  On the lawn at a dog show, not so much.

When Maple was 10 months old, I showed her at her first Rally show. She scored a 198 and first place. It was the peak of her show career.  Today, I showed her for the first time since last October, in Rally Excellent and Advanced.  She scored a 74 in Exc and a 79 in Advanced. 

Ouch. 

This is a dog with boundless energy, quick reflexes, fabulous vision, and great intelligence.  In my yard.  At a dog show, she morphs into a dejected, dispirited creature that wants to get it over with and go back home.  (Never heard that before, eh?)

I know there are a lot of things contributing to the yawning gulf between what I see in the yard and what she does away from home.  I’ve been working to address them, but I’m not sure I’m getting anywhere.

Maple hates, and I mean really hates, riding in a vehicle.  I think I’ve slowly mostly conquered the motion sickness problem and made the van more comfortable for her. 

Figures that the only dog I’ve ever had that hated going for car rides is my best shot ever at an OTCh. The cruel irony of it all. 

Maple doesn’t like being away from home. More trips to places where she gets to retrieve bumpers (especially in water) might be helping.  Hard to tell.  At this show, I tried something new.  I arrived early and tossed marks for her in the distant grassy areas of the fairgrounds. She liked that part, but it didn’t improve her ring performance.

Then there’s my stressed out Miss Stern Frowny Face in the ring.  I've worked at presenting a more appealing picture of myself in the ring.  Someone she’d want to look at.  I think I’m succeeding, but maybe there’s a lot of history to overcome.

Over-dependence on food?  I can do an entire routine in the yard with an eager dog without food.  She knows she’ll get a reward at the end.  Or maybe she knows she’ll get a reward at the end or at random, but she knows she won’t get a reward at a show until she’s out of the ring and mom isn’t so tense and frowny anymore? 

Not enough taking it on the road between trials?  Yeah, that’s a problem.  I live several miles out of town.  During the week, the last thing I want to do when I get home is load up dogs and drive back into town.  In the winter, I can’t, because it’s dark by the time I get home and I don’t see well enough to drive at night.  On the weekends, I have a million household chores to do.   Somehow, I’ve got to find time for more training in town.

Alder is, and Camas was, pretty much the same in the ring as in training.  Alder is bipolar in the ring, sometimes all there and sometimes checked out.  He’s the same at home. I just pray for one of his “all-there” days at a show.  Camas was a fabulous naturally great heeler who had issues with surfaces she didn’t like (anything smooth looking) or was unfamiliar with (like mats), or that any dog had pooped on the last six months, or that had any suspicious looking spots or stains.  She was exactly the same way at home.   

I spent some time today licking my wounds after Maple dragged around the ring.  Enough wallowing in despair.  Time to buck up and figure out how to solve this problem. 

I had the idea of using Rally as a way to get Maple more relaxed in the ring (you know, all that jabbering and such that you can do).  I’m not so sure that was a good idea.  The hurky-jerky nature of Rally courses, combined with my having to keep part of my attention on signs may be making things worse. 

I’ve already entered Maple and Alder in the Walla Walla trial this weekend.  Alder was the reason for that entry.  (It’s outdoors on grass.  No more jumping him on thin mats on concrete.) As long as I was showing him in Open, I figured I’d show Maple in Novice and Rally on Saturday and Rally on Sunday.  What a dopey plan that was.  Oh, well.  It’ll give me a chance to try different warm-up routines.

The State of Obedience

This post has been moved to my other blog TheMovingStand.

Blow-drying a Dead Duck

Sunday, I found myself sitting on the porch with a blow-dryer in one hand and a battered, decaying, wet, extremely smelly duck in the other

How, I wondered as I lifted one wing and then the other to be sure I didn’t leave any wet spots on the duck’s flanks, does a person come to this pathetic stage of holding one’s breathe to try to eek out a few more training sessions with a duck that should have been buried long ago?

I tell ya’, the desire to get those letters next to a dogs name can drive a person to some mighty bizarre activities.  Hunt tests are done with dead birds, not bumpers, ergo, one must keep a supply of dead birds on hand.  Hunt tests are often done with dead birds kept in a bucket all day and thrown repeatedly, ergo, one’s dog must understand that smelly, dead birds are for retrieving, not rolling in.  A friend of mine suggested that I persuade George he needs an extra refrigerator in the garage for beer, and to use that refrigerator for the dead birds. 

But back to the wet duck.  Saturday, I enlisted George to throw marks for Maple.  I gave him the laundry basket of bumpers, dokkens, one defrosted (dry) mallard, and one defrosted (dry) pigeon.  Somehow, both mallard and pigeon landed in the water in the ditch.  Oddly, all the bumpers and dokkens landed on dry land.  (Actually, a couple of bumpers ended up in a tree, but we were able to get them out.)  I need to trade this husband for one that has better aim at slinging dead fowl around.  Why did I not test for that trait before I committed to this marriage?

Despite my wrapping the soggy duck and pigeon overnight in newspaper, they were still wet on Sunday.  I confess, I disposed of the pigeon.  It was already missing one wing.  I couldn’t bear to part with the duck.  So, there I was, blow-drying my duck before it went back into the freezer.

Truly, it’s not the quest for titles that gives me the incentive to handle putrid waterfowl.  It’s the sheer enthusiasm Maple has for hunt training. You can talk all that building value doggie psycho-babble with tugging and toys and food and handler interaction, but you haven’t seen motivation until you’ve seen a retriever on birds. When Maple is waiting for those marks to be thrown, she couldn’t be distracted by a canon going off. When I release her for the retrieve, she rips across the field like her orange tail is on fire.   Her enthusiasm is infectious.