I had to get up at the crack of dawn this past Saturday for a dog event that I had been invited to attend. (Okay, well maybe not that early since I overslept my alarm like an idiot!) I can’t tell you how regular an early wake up call is in the life of a dog sport addict, but it was so worth it! (The two hour drive…yeah, not so much – especially after I realized I had forgotten my wallet and I was fifteen minutes from my destination!)

I arrived at Cher Car Kennels just after they had started the course walk through. I was nervous when I got out there but I was among like company.  No one knew the layout until the same time I did. Now I didn’t feel quite ad silly.  It didn’t quite kill the butterflies that were brawling MMA-style in my gut much but it allowed me to get my nerves up enough to sign up for Beginner (Obedience only).

The Beginner level was all on leash.  I felt the safest doing that since I haven’t had the time (or desire) to really train or work with Ryker much. (My wonderful cheer team thought I could, but I was absolutely terrified!)

They called this a training trial.  This meant we had the option (with a 5pt deduction) to use a pinch collar.  I, admittedly, took advantage of this offer.  The extra reminder to him was well worth it for my piece of mind.

This year’s course was designed to be similar to a ‘day at the dog show’. (I had a laugh over this since I am not a major fan of doing conformation-type events.). The layout was arranged to expose the dog to a variety of real world scenarios.  In the protection phases, obedience only dogs weren’t penalized if they didn’t react but were given bonus points if they did.

The course layout was six stations long and definitely a challenge when you had to pretend to be in danger at times.  Here the are:

STATION 1: The dog was put in a ‘crate’ on wheels and taken to the second station.  During this exercise, the dog wasn’t supposed to panic or try and escape. (Ryker had a momentary ‘what the heck?!’ moment but settled soon after.)

STATION 2: The dog was unloaded from the crate and asked (or placed if the handler chose) on a ‘grooming’ table.  They then had their coat ‘groomed’ via a blow dryer. (Ryker was great considering being dried with a blow dryer wasn’t a common occurrence. Yay for wash and wear dogs!)

STATION 3: After being groomed, the dog and handler report to the ‘show ring’ where the ring steward sends you to ‘your’ car for your arm band that you have forgotten.

Once in the car, a decoy (in a full suit) starts acting like a threat – banging on the vehicle and yelling. The dog is supposed to defend the car on all sides to ‘protect’ the handler. (Once again, Ryker surprised me.  I never expected him to ‘protect’ me.)

STATION 4: After exiting the vehicle, the dog and handler had to rush back to the ‘show ring’.  In the ring there were two other ‘dogs’ (i.e. stuffies on PVC pipe leashes) that were being shown too (and acting like freaks since their ‘handlers’ had too much fun there.  Ha!). The handler and dog had to gait/heel around the ring with the other ‘dogs’.  The dog was supposed to leave the others around. (Fat chance with Ryker!  He thought they were flirtpole toys!)

STATION 5: The dog and handler were given 1st place.  They had to go up on a multilevel winners podium and ignore the ‘other dogs’ and their handlers.

Once in place, a trophy is put in front of the dog and the dog is agitated so they guard the object.  During the threat display a bucket of plastic balls is dumped onto the dog and handler.  The dog is allowed to startle but should defend shortly after recovering.  (Ryker did exactly what he was supposed to and defended the trophy before and after.)

STATION 6: This was the final station.  For obedience only dogs, they had to do a friendly greeting in a position of control (sit/down-stay).  The dogs doing protection as well would have to do a friendly greeting and then hit the decoy when he ‘attacked’ but out on command. (Cheryl allowed Ryker to be agitated and gave him a bite too.  He also outed beautifully and had the crowd cheering wildly.)

In the obedience only class, Ryker finished with 105 points out of a possible 90pts (Yay bonus points!).  For not having trained much at all in weeks, I couldn’t be happier.  We will definitely be doing this again next year.

Oh, Michelle and Liz?  If you happen to read this…I promise I won’t chicken out of Intermediate next year.  Haha!

Left to Right: Michelle with Ruby & Riggs, Liz with Inara and me with Ryker.
Photo Credit: Demo Dick