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Jovial Monk
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Triumph!
Oh man, last night was so weird: Went into ring, took lead off and gave to steward and thought “Will she run away straight away like the last trial in May/” No, didn’t run away, obediently followed me as I walked at a smart pace as directed by the judge “Forward. . .left turn. . .right turn. . .halt (and Demi did the automatic sit) etc” She missed one “drop” command. Anyway, we worked our way to the back of the (rectangular, roughly 15m x 50m, ring) and I thought “now she will stuff up” because the judge tends to let people stand there for maybe quarter of a minute. But Demi was still there, and I get the command “fast forward” so I tell Demi “heel” with voice and hand signal and break out into a bit of a trot—usually the time when she will misbehave, just out of excitement and joy of running but we did a halt, left turn and into the figure of eight, two stewards (in practice sometimes just two small witches hats) standing 2-3m apart and I am thinking “We are going through the flipping figure of eight!” It was on leaving the figure of eight I clapped my hands for Demi to come up to me, sheer nerves! The figure of eight as usual caused quite a few dogs to fail, lagging too far behind the handler and then walking past the figure not through it: key is to walk briskly esp in the bits in between the two posts (the stewards making the posts) but I had no worries, Demi does this quite well.
This is all fairly hard—the heeling is heeling free—no lead! One of the stewards took the lead after I took it off Demi and took it way! Remember there are like 200 dogs there, going through rings on either side, standing around the ring as the owners wait for their turn to go into the ring and naturally there is some barking etc. It is purely the bond between dog and handler that keeps the dog by your side, and terriers tend to get bored and sidetracked easily.
After the heeling pattern is the stand for exam, bring dog up to a mark, stop telling the dog “stand” with voice and hand signal, on command of judge leave the dog telling it “stay” and come to rest about 3m from dog. Judge then goes up to the dog and “examines” it, running his/her (a her last night) over dogs back and legs, then leaves dog and tells handler (handler is not always the owner, e.g. due to informity) to return to the dog down its left side, around behind the dog and up its right side. If the dog moves 1 or 3 legs you get penalised, if the dog moves all 4 legs you bomb the trial. You must get at least half marks in EVERY part of the trial.
After stand for exam you are told to go to the back of the ring where there is a little marker—and Demi did head for the edge of the ring but came back promptly enough when I called her. On the marker judge tells you forward, so move forward 2-4 paces “Halt” and I stopped and Demi did the automatic sit nicely enough “leave your dog” so I told her to “wait” and walked, oh about 20 metres, turned around and halted on command (you must let yourself become a robot and just do what the judge tells you, this becomes more important the higher you get) then on command I shouted “Come! trying to keep the tone of voice happy—you are such a bundle of nerves already and you try to remember everything your instructors have pounded into you :bgrin — and sometimes the dog just sits there and you bombed the trial or it saunters over or it races past you, all of which fail this exercise and the trial. Demi came at a good clip and banged into my legs, costing us 3 points but I was happy as a pig in poo, Demi not being always reliable here :jump “Heel your dog” and Demi obediently wnet down my right side, behind me and ended sitting on my left—we probably lost a point because she sat a little bit crooked.
Then the change of position, where from a distance of 3-4 metres I tell Demi who I left standing “drop” with voice and hand signal and again, sometimes a dog who has done brilliantly will miss the signal and just stay standing, failing the exercise and the trial. Demi, tho distracted by a dog barking at the wrong flipping moment dropped nicely without moving forward—dog has to move straight down, if it moves more than half a body length forward you fail.
So do all that, judge tells me we did really well and I leave ring with adrenaline pulsing through me :jump
After that had to wait for the stays: these are done 10 dogs at a time and the rules say at least 3 dogs have to do the exercise so last night two dogs that had done (and broke!) their stays stayed in the ring to let one last handler do her stays. Dog has to sit and not lift its bum for one minute with handler 10 metres away, then has to drop and we leave our dogs for a 3 minute drop stay—dog must not get up, no daylight under its belly. This gets nerve wracking and I had to tell myself to breathe the whole 3 minutes!
in the end I knew we probably had a place because precious few dogs got through the stays, didn’t know only 3 made it the whole way. Happens like that sometimes, other times 10-20 dogs will pass.
Dog obedience is not a competitive sport, you and your dog just have to get a minimum of 170 points and at least half marks in each exercise and every dog and handler can pass if they are good enough.
Does this have any use in the real world? Well, the figure of eight doesn’t but imagine your dog I still remember thinking “We are doing the figure of eight!”
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