Shayne's Second Rally-O Weekend! ~ Success Just Clicks Dog Training

Shayne’s Second Rally-O Weekend!

This past weekend Shayne and I were entered in an APDT Rally-O trial at Splash N Dash in Plum. I decided to only run Shayne and not Rio, but there will be more info on this in tomorrow’s post, so it was a nice weekend of just Shayne and Tena time which was pretty awesome. Leading up to this trial we were enrolled in a Rally class to familiarize ourselves with the level 2 signs we had not previously encountered. It was definitely helpful fot get to try the signs in the context of a course and get some tips on performing the behaviors (sometimes the written descriptions of the behaviors are a little hard to picture).
Shayne was an absolute rockstar during the trial–the trial was smaller so it had a lot more room than the last time we were there and far fewer people crating in the building. I had planned on ‘crating’ her in the car since the weather would cooperate but with the amount of space and the types of dogs in the area I was sitting, I decided to let her come inside and lay on her mat most of the time. During the whole weekend she was AWESOME not a single reactive moment until the last trial on Sunday. A guy brought in two out of control dogs into the building (one at a time)–a lab and a golden–and it ruined our perfect reaction-free weekend.
The dogs were super excited and amped up and he decided the best place to sit was a few feet away from me and Shayne (and in between us and the exit)–the dogs were both wiggling, flailing, pulling, lunging, whining, and just going CRAZY. Shayne held it together when he brought the Golden in for a few minutes (though she was clearly getting amped up)… but when he brought in the lab who lunged at her she got SUPER over aroused and I had to get her out of there. We had to pass them to get out the door–and then run the gauntlet of 6 dogs on the way out the door. In the hustle to get out of the building, she reacted at another dog. I was FUMING mad at the guy–she had done SO well all weekend and this guy with rowdy and out of control dogs just ruined it for her. She settled down just fine once the dogs left (I don’t think either dog actually even ‘ran’ the course) and she knows the dog that she reacted to and he’s fine and the owner didn’t bat an eye. I felt bad that there was just no way to get her out of the situation without a reaction.
Other than 30 seconds on the last day she was AMAZING… dogs were walking all around and she was just great at staying on her mat and focusing on me while we were getting ready to run. I had her in a down while we were waiting an another big dog pretty much walked OVER her while I was looking in the other direction and she just stayed there like the good girl she is!
In terms of the trial, it was a very successful weekend–Shayne earned her RL2 title (all three legs) this weekend!! Our scores were certainly good but they were not what I know we are capable of especially during the first trial of the weekend. I got video of 5 of our 8 runs but missed our last three. Here are videos from each trial showing our runs and scores!

The first trial was certainly our most difficult… I have NO idea what was going on with her but it was a ROUGH two runs… Laurie, our judge, who is a friend and who has judged us before was even laughing at the end because it was so out of the norm for us! The runs were rough but we did make it through and I had fun with her regardless of our scores! Level 1B we scored a 198 and managed to snag 5th place (out of 15+ dogs)–so it seems we were not the only team that had a rough morning-haha! Level 2A we scored a 199 and got 2nd place out of 6 dogs.

Our second trial was MUCH better. I didn’t have to work nearly as hard to keep her with me which was super nice–HAHA! Shayne scored a 205 in level 1B good for 2nd place out of 15+ dogs. She got a 209 in level 2a which was good for first place!

Our Third trial was actually pretty good. Our level 1B trial we score was a 207 and was again good for 5th place. Our 2A was actually a nice run– we encountered 2 signs we’d never seen or practiced and Shayne did them both FLAWLESSLY! We did NQ on that run because I did not clearly cue her the jump and although I stopped her before she or I passed the upright, I didn’t think we were permitted to retry a jump under any circumstance so we moved on and finished (again the end of the course was pretty nice). Turns out we ARE permitted to retry a jump if we didnt’ pass the jump upright! HONESTLY, I didn’t get this run (or the rest of the weekend) on film but it was actually a good run. Even with the NQ, I felt good about the run and how we did the two unknown signs really well!

Like I mentioned, I didn’t get any video of our last trial, but it was a really good trial! In our level 1B run we scored a 209 which was good for 2nd place –we would have had a perfect score if I had not taken TINY forward step on a finish right (there was a forward right two signs ahead on the course and I was anticipating it). In level 2a she scored a 206 which was good enough for 3rd place (based on time… she was sloooow going on the course–it was right after she had her only reaction so it didn’t surprise me).

With that last level 2A run, Shayne earned her RL2 title! Yayy!!