New RE for Spryte!

I went down to the dog show last Friday to watch all the shelties in conformation and to run Spryte in a round of Rally Excellent.  We arrived there at 9:30 in the morning  and we didn't go in the ring until 4:00 in the afternoon.  That was waaayyy too long for Spryte to spend doing nothing.  I took her out and walked her around the show a few times, but that was about it.  So by the time we showed she was full of excess energy and she needed some way to express  it!  Well as it usually goes with shelties, her idea of expending some of that energy was by barking happily beside me during the majority of her round.  She sure looked like she was enjoying her work, and lucky for me the judge didn't mind barking shelties.  She had a beautiful round and she got a score of 100.  She also finished off her Rally Excellent title, so I was pleased about that too.

We continue to work on her running aframe.  I have now faded out most of the box, the only thing left is a bar at the top of the yellow zone.  During our practise today I did a couple of reps with the bowl out in front and then I took it away and started working on sequencing obstacles before and after the Aframe. I wanted to see if she would hit her contact zone without the lure out front and with a little more excitement.  We only got to do it a couple of times and then she split a nail open and started limping. But the few rounds we did, she hit the zone very nicely.  I am starting to feel more confident that the new behaviour will carry over into the ring.  She is starting to pattern very nicely and I haven't seen a "superman" leap in a long time.  I really think she is much happier running her aframe than doing the two on two off behaviour.

I heard a really sad story this week.  A few friends who were at the show on the weekend in rally witnessed a lady abuse her Giant Schnauzer when it left the ring during its rally round.  The lady left the ring after her round and violently leash popped the dog three times and then kneed it in the face. When confronted about her abusive behaviour the lady would only say that she was so mad at the dog and the dog deserved it.

 How very upsetting!  It amazes me how seriously people take these dogs sports, and how they will stop at nothing for a ribbon or a title.  It is supposed to be a GAME that we play with our dogs, its not life or death, it's not world peace, its not the end of hunger.  Its Rally-O!  (or obedience, or retriever work, or whatever)

I'm sure we all got into these sports initially because we enjoy spending time with our dogs and we enjoy the relationship that forms during training and play.  It seems some people loose sight of this and can only see the ribbons or the titles.  Nothing else matters anymore, but their reputations.  And the dog only suffers for all of this.  The trainer is no longer focused on building a positive relationship with their dog.  They are no longer concerned with how stressed the dog might be, how he might not be ready for the proofing or the showing, they don't care that the dog isn't having fun or that their chosen sport might not be their dogs chosen sport.  They only care about that perfect score or that blue ribbon to hang on their walls.

It makes me really sad to see these people and their dogs.  If they could just let go of the goal of winning or that OTCH, they might start to have fun with their dogs again.  Maybe then they will remember why they got into dog sports in the first place.