The second weekend in
January was the weekend I had to work, but I took it off. I get to miss
one a fiscal year and I decided this was a good one to miss. Not only
was there a 2 day seminar I wanted to attend, but the closer we get to
our inspection
at work, the less likely I will be to receive approval for time off.
The seminar I wanted to attend was put on by our SchH club and was
regarding the new rules that go along with the name change from SchH to
IPO. (I may be boycotting the term IPO. Now that I know what it
translates to, it is just so dumb. Like calling
agility, “NR” National Regulations. That is what you call the rules
governing your sport, not the actual sport.) In the morning there was a
slide show, followed by Q/A, then lunch, then some demos on the field,
then the field was opened up for practice.
The slide show was informative, the Q/A not so much because people
just need to pay better attention. Lunch was good. I got put in charge
of the hot dogs on the open flame grill and I got smoked out and then
my fire went out (just add more wood next
time.) The demos were helpful and Dottie gave a demo of how not to
approach the start flag on a track. The dog should be walking calmly,
not dragging you. I can’t help it if she gets excited to track. I
heard afterwards some people were impressed that she
took up the scent and followed the track on the training field where
everyone had been walking all day. She really likes to track. Then we
got in some protection work on a helper she’s never worked with
before. I had him yell really loud at her on the long
bite in prep for the regional. She did well. Except for the back
transport. We just don’t know how to do that yet.
Then the next day most people went home and the seminar was a new
helper classification and current helper re-certification. I am not
interested in being a helper (I don’t need a big dog crashing into my
knees and popping them out, I handle that just
fine on my own) but by watching and listening, I learned a lot about how
to spot a good helper vs. one who needs more work. This was only
addressing trial helper work, which is very different than a training
helper. Then all of the helpers had to work dogs
thought out the day, and also do a full SchH 3 routine with a dog they
didn’t know. Dottie helped out here, and again it was great for her to
get on different helpers. During the practice, it was evident some of
the helpers were more skilled than others.
The brand new guy almost ran me over on the back transport (another
reason I can’t be a helper, I don’t think fast enough- I almost
neglected to get out of the way!) and another guy tripped over a dog,
who then came off the sleeve, and it was good on the dog’s
part to re-grip on the sleeve, and not on the body part that was closest
to his mouth (the man’s rear end. Ouch.)
During Dottie’s routine, she was very good, again except on the
back transport. And she was a bit dirty with getting in little bites on
the outs. But not too bad for a little girl. It gave me confidence to
see her work with a helper she didn’t know.
I’m told the helper at the regional pressures the dogs a lot, so I
wanted to be sure she was ready for that.
It was a great weekend, very educational, fun, and any weekend I’m not at work is an even better than great weekend.
Also, one more note- the "judge" in the video was our normal helper, so Dottie gave him a second look during the side transport when we report into him. Wondering, "What are you doing here without the sleeve?"
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