Medicine Hat

This weekend was the Medicine Hat Obedience & Rally Trial.
I had Kort entered in Open & Rally Advanced. Tate was in Novice !!

I'll start with the Tater Dog.....he had some good moments & some bad moments. His good moments were during his heel on leash, he seemed to be enjoying himself & didn't lag too much. His bad moments began with the off leash heeling. He started off ok, but right after our left turn he veered wide & went off to sniff a yellow dot on the floor...hmmmm. I was thinking oh oh, there go's the ball game :) I called him to heel & he sort of followed, then the about turn...well, lets say I did alot of heeling on my own & leave it at that. The recall was interesting, Tate usually flys across the ring & jumps up on me he is going so fast. He actually walked to me then sat about 5 ft away, yup, there was no touching that boy.
We NQ'd, no big surprise.
I think I will try him once more in July, I'll see how that goes & make my decision then about his obedience career.

Kort Kort Kort, what can I say ?
I think Amanda said it best, everyone has a challenging dog once in their life & I have mine now. It makes me crazy, not knowing what to expect from him.
In Red Deer he was amazing, totally focused & pulled in high 90's for scores in Rally.
On Sat. in Medicine Hat he was the most difficult that I have ever experienced with a dog in all the years of training. His run took over 5 min. It was so painful I wanted to cry. Many times I thought about asking to be excused, but then I didn't want him to get his way. I think the problem happened with the off set figure 8 & the food bowl & toy. It blew his little brain & he just could not think of anything else. He refused to sit at all, it took minutes to make him sit, the more stubborn he got, the more stubborn I got. To say I won would be a lie, I'm not sure what I accomplished by continuing on when Kort was clearly unfocused & not doing his part.
The funny thing is I passed, serious, I got an 82, a far cry from the high 90's he got for his first 2 Advanced legs, but we Q'd & now he has his RA.

Today I moved him up to Excellent. He started off great, I was pumped, he was my old Kort, then the first sit came, again I had to ask him many times to sit, he did , eventually. The course was the most difficult & challenging course I have ever seen, it had layered signs, twists & turns, circles & many many left pivots! Kort started to get better, but then it happened, the chewing on my leg by Kort!!!! Damn this dog, everyone , including the judge thought it was entertaining, I however was not so impressed :) I lost 10 points on a station the we completed properly, the moving stand, however the judge docked me the 10 points for not pausing at Kort's side after walking around him :(
We also lost 10 points because the darn dog decided to take a jump instead of listening to me :) :)
Soooo, our first Rally Excellent leg was a score of 70....not stellar, but a Q. Oh, his honour was perfect, we got it out of the way first & I was very pleased with Kort for staying even though we were honouring for Amanda & Pixel!!

Now for our first attempt at Open.
Kort's off leash heeling was AMAZING!! He scored a 38.5 out of 40 !!! How cool is that! He did his drop on recall, & his retrieve on flat! He surprised me by running up to the high jump but then deciding to run around it, both ways. Amanda thinks he may have been overwhelmed by the sheer size of it, the jumps we practice on are much smaller. Next came the broad jump & as I expected he refused the first command to jump, he went on the second command but walked through it :(
However.....now pay attention!....Kort did his out of sight sits & downs ..seriously!!!! Amanda even video taped them !!! That alone made my weekend!

I have alot of training to do between now & the next trail in July. I won't give up on my dream of having a Utility dog, that dog is Kort, he just hasn't realized it yet, I see the potential & that is what frustrates me, he can do it, now I just have to convince him :)