Open Level Obedience

Since I have started teaching Riley Open level obedience exercises, I thought I would show Katie and Travis competing in Open so readers who do not compete in obedience would know what we are working towards.

This is Katie competing in New York (see, she used to be fine for 15 hour drives) at the Greyhound Nationals in 2007. Obedience was at the beginning of the day with few greyhound entries. Kathy Helmke and I made up majority of obedience entries, each with two greyhounds. You can see there were few spectators. And check out that busy road! I was warned ahead of time about the show site (thank you, Kathy), but had zero concerns with my two trusty hounds. This is actually Katie's very last show. The Greyhound Nationals were on Wednesday and she competed through the rest of the weekend. But about 10 days later she suffered her neurological injury that forced her to retire, ready or not. She won first place (against Travis) with a 195.5 out of 200 possible points.

This is Travis competing locally in Newnan, Georgia. He tortured me at the Open level. Katie completed her Open title (CDX) in 5 attempts.... I lost count on Travis. He never had a consistent problem, but would present a new goofy way of doing something that would earn a disqualifying score. Missed a couple of drop on recalls for sure. He did a 5 minute stand stay instead of a down stay once. Laid down during a couple of sit stays. On one occasion, he jumped the broad jump and then just kept on going to jump the ring gating and check out my chair... cause the treats were over there. I believe Travis qualified with a score in the high 180's here.