It's HOT, HOT, HOT!

Wow, we went from 40 degrees to 85 in a hurry here! What happened? I don't mind temperatures in the 60s but this is ridiculous! I am so HOT all the time - in the house too because mom believes that no air conditioning should be run in the month of April! It's against her principals! LOL! The only relief I get is playing in the hose.

Any way, enough complaining. Last Wednesday was our last novice competition class for this session. We ran a course of 21 obstacles. We got to run it twice all the way through and also worked on the middle section (the sequence that we tried to replicate in the video the next day). Mom and I did really well. We're very excited to take the class again - it starts over on May 6th.

Yesterday mom left me stranded at home while she went off to our club and volunteered for their spring obedience trial. She did this to me last year too. Then she has the nerve to come home and tell me all about it! She was a ring steward for Open again - her job was to set up the broad jump and also lead the people and dogs into the ring for the long sits and downs. The judge (Carol Ann Klein) was super nice - to the ring stewards and also to all of the competitors. There were lots of Goldens entered but also a Berner, a Russell Terrier, a couple Rotties, a Dobe, two Corgis, and a BC. It was interesting for mom to watch. She said she was smiling the whole time - either at how good a dog was doing or at how cute the dog was when they did something wrong (even though she knows how frustrating it was for the handler when the dog would go straight to a finish on a recall instead of coming front or would not sit at a halt in a heeling pattern or would roll over and scratch his back on the matting instead of just doing a simple down!). Some dogs really showed their personalities out there! Mom learned a lot and came home more excited about the prospect of showing me in the novice obedience class eventually.

We are starting to get a lot of birds migrating through our neighborhood. Swainson's thrush, hermit thrush, yellow warbler, nashville warbler....mom and dad know a lot of the birds' songs so they can hear them and identify them even if they can't always see them. It's a great time of year for birdwatchers!

Hope lots of you are having a beautiful weather weekend - but maybe not so HOT!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky

Obedience Trial

Today mom volunteered as a ring steward for an obedience trial. When she got home, she told me all about it. Mom and I had been to see some of an obedience trial before, but this was her first time working at one. She worked the Open B class that had around 30 dogs entered in it. First of all, the judge was a really nice man who was easy to work for and who was very patient in explaining the duties of the ring steward. The other ring steward did not have any experience either. Mom was in charge of changing the broad jump boards for the different height dogs. So if a dog jumped 20" for the high jump, then mom had to make the broad jump 40". She also gave the dumbbell to the judge and took the handler's leash. And for long sits and downs, a ring steward had to lead the handlers out of sight (they actually went outside of the building). For anyone who doesn't know, the Open class consists of the following exercises - retrieve on flat (dog goes out and brings back the dumbbell with no jump), drop on recall, retrieve over high jump, broad jump, figure eight and heel-free (all with no leash). Then after every ten or so dogs, they do a group 3-minute sit/stay and a 5-minute down/stay all with the handlers out of sight. The sit/stay seemed to be the hardest exercise for a lot of the dogs - too many merely laid down during it and that is an automatic NQ (disqualification). It was sad to see so many dogs do great exercises and then see them lie down during the sit/stay. It was all very interesting and a great learning opportunity. Mom came home with lots of ideas for us to work on and with a renewed enthusiasm for learning obedience (after my one advanced novice class, we weren't feeling like obedience was for us - maybe it was that class with that instructor - since we had to miss so many classes at the beginning, we decided to wait and try the class next time). Mom met some nice people and saw a lot of great dogs! We are hoping we can show for that judge (his name was Frank Washbaugh) some day too.

Gotta zoom!


Ricky