June Trial Part 3.

Simon with all the ribions from the trial.

Over the next few days Simon did better than I had hoped. However he did show me a lot of things we need to work on and his performance was not always ideal. I also think three days of a trial was a little overwhelming for him and towards the end although he still seemed to enjoy hanging out with me and exploring he didn't seam very motivated to do the exercises.

Working on relaxing.

In the end we received six qualifying scores. Four in obedience and two in rally. This meant that he had surpassed the requirement for his beginner novice title in obedience (you only need 3 qualifying scores but I had entered for all four days of the trial so I figured it would be good practice for him) and we had two out of three legs for his rally novice title. We hadn't prepared as much for rally as obedience and it showed. Also during the first and last day I made some handling errors that ended up costing us.  Still it was better than I had expected for first trial for both of us and it was a good experience.

Relaxing, napping same thing.

The big things we need to work on is improving his focus especially when heeling. He would lose focus sniffing, lagging and forging. Most of the higher levels will require off leash work so we will really have to improve. He also had a bad reaction to a German Sheppard while we were there puffing up and growling. I talked to the owner after apologizing for his behavior and she thanked me saying that her dog was about to have the same reaction when I moved Simon away. The dog was giving Simon some pretty hard eye contact before but I hope to get Simon to a place where he doesn't react like that in the future.

My friend and her show/sled dog Keegan. 

Other than our own stuff Simon and I enjoyed watching the agility dogs and the conformation dogs.
I had friends in both so it was fun to cheer them on and relax when I wasn't showing with Simon.

My other friend and her Borzoi Ranger. 

Also I figured some training to settle in strange situations was a good idea, He did pretty good most of the time in what I would consider really weird situations for him but occasionally we had to move back so he would behave and could settle down. I really enjoyed the experience it was a great place to show and the support I had from all my friends there was amazing.

Some photos from dog watching.

Afghan

Standard Poodle

More poodles.

Portuguese Water Dog.

Irish wolf hound.

Samoyed.

Cane Corso.