Alder Cassidy CDX

When I started this blog, the post announcing Alder’s CDX was the one I longed to write.  Yet, here it is, nearly a month and a half since Alder got his 3^rd leg (on his 25^th run) and I’m finally getting around to writing it when it’s old news.  Since the end of April, nearly every weekend has been taken up by some dog activity (obedience trial, obedience chair, hunt training day, dog show, hunt picnic test, obedience trial, hunt test, agility chair..)  I’ve spent nearly every evening after work trying not to fall too far behind in those pesky household tasks, training dogs, or getting ready for the next weekend. 

Now that I have a few weekends free, it’s about time I announced Alder’s CDX.  I have already received the official certificate from AKC.  I don’t have any of my college diplomas framed, but I told George I’m going to frame Alder’s CDX certificate because I’m pretty sure it cost me more than my PhD. 

Alder got his third leg on his third show of this spring.  The first two shows, he did great on the moving exercises and then NQ’d by sinking into a down and going to sleep on the long sit.  I had spent the winter retraining (I thought) the sit, using the method of tension on the leash.  I NEVER followed the sit with down.  And then, the first and second shows, he goes down on the sit.  Between the second show in Spokane and the third show in Coeur d’Alene, I had a week to come up with a fix. There is no UDX in Alder’s future, so the fix only had to work one time (assuming he did all the other exercises, which he has become fairly reliable on). 

I put a list on the refrigerator calendar: Day 1 had SD (sit/down), DS (down/sit), SD (sit/down).  Day 2 had DS, SD, DS.  And so on.  SD meant that he and Maple (might as well get her ready for her out-of-sights, too) would do a 4-minute sit followed by a 6-minute down.  DS meant a 6-minute down followed by a 4-minute sit.  I did a SD in the morning, a DS after I got home from work, and SD before bed.  The next day, I started with the DS. All three of us were heartily SICK of sits and downs by the end of the week. 

The purpose was to get Alder realize that, at home, the sit would always be followed by a down with no treat in between.  I believe that, in never having him do a down after a sit in practice, he had learned that, in practice, there was no down, but at a show, he knew I would always come back and put him in a down, therefore (he concluded) I wanted him to go down at a show.  He virtually never broke a sit in practice.  I needed to get him to go down in practice to make it clear that I didn’t want him to do that. 

It took three days of sits and downs for him to finally go down at home.  Then, I implemented the second part of my strategy: No harsh correction, but I immediately went out, restarted the exercise, and had him sit the entire 4 minutes.  In the past, on the theory that he needed to succeed to understand, if he went down, I would put him back in a sit, but only had him do a 1 or 2 minute sit. 

The next day in practice, he went down again. Again, I made him redo the sit for the entire period.  He didn’t break after again during our training at home.

I went to the Coeur d’Alene show, cautiously optimistic but I still had all the fall shows penciled in on the calendar.  When you’re on your 25^th run in Open, you’ve learned that high hopes lead to long falls of disappointment.  I chose the Coeur d’Alene site because, in the past, the obedience rings have been in a horse barn with a dirt floor. Because Alder is a marginal jumper, I preferred to avoid the thin mat on concrete situation.  At the show site, I learned that enough people had complained about the dirt floor (which was sometimes muddy) that they’d moved the ring into a building that was barely big enough and that had—you guessed it—a concrete floor.  Back to the thin mat on concrete.  Sigh. 

I was already there, so I gave it a shot.  I held my breath as Alder returned to the jump with the dumbbell.  I could see the hesitation in his step, but he took it.  We were the only team of 5 that was still qualifying at the group sits.  While we handlers were waiting outside during the sits, an albino Robin, who had a cream coloration about the same shade as Alder’s, hopped nearby on the lawn looking for worms.  One of the other handlers commented that maybe it was a good omen for us.

After the interminable 3 minutes, I went back into the ring to see Alder, slumped on one hip, eyes half-closed, and dangerously close to sinking into a down.  But still technically upright!!!!

And so, both Alder and I have our first CDX.  Score was 188.5. (Biggest point loss was going directly to heel after the drop on recall.) As the only Q in the class, we had a lock on first place.  Nice way to finish up for the title picture.