Friday, July 25, 2014

Pre-Open - Riley

I really have not done much obedience in the last few years.  I am kind of torn about it. Agility really is so much more fun than obedience. But with the right hound, obedience can be fun too!
Riley is one of those "right" hounds. She is just so precious. But ever since she fractured her hock, her sit just has not been the same.
She is trained through Open level (second out of three levels), but she cannot physically do the 3 minute sit stay anymore and I don't ask her to. Generally, she is fine with all the brief sits for heeling and fronts.
Since Riley cannot meet the requirements of the Open level, we have now shown twice at Pre-Open. It is scaled down version of open.  The jumps can be lower and there are no stays.  I figured why not?  She is already trained in all of the exercises.  I might as well show her off.
Last time, we got away with no practice and qualified anyway... and with a borrowed dumbbell because I forgot mine.  This time it showed that we had not practiced.  Riley did pretty well on all of the exercises and her drop on recall is always fantastic.  But her heeling left much to be desired. On certain ribbed matting, she will get picky about her sits and well... she was picky about this matting.
  Oh well, she was super cute anyway and I guess next time we will practice.

Photos by InMotion Photos.