RE Attempt #3

September 28th, 2008

by Anu Maurya

After our 2-day back-to-back first RE “A” attempt in July, where Lego had decided it was more fun to run in the ring than perform… I gathered my courage and signed up for 2 more back-to-back trials on September 27 and 28.

September 27, we arrived at the location 40 minutes prior to the starting time. I took a walk with Lego to get him acclimated with the environment. We were the last entry in RE, which made us the 1st dog to honor.

In Rally Excellent, there is an Honor exercise where a dog either does a sit or down-stay (depending on the judge), while another dog-handler performs the course. The honor dog is selected in a round-robin fashion — the last dog in the list of entries honors for first dog-handler team. And after the dog-handler team finishes the course, they in turn honor for the next team.

I was happy to be the last entry on the list. I felt that doing the Honor exercise first might help in getting Lego acclimated to the ring — at least we would get a chance to walk in the ring before our actual show time. The Honor exercise was a down-stay. Lego is very consistent with his downs, I was very confident it would not be a problem. Following the judge’s instructions, I put Lego in a down, told him to stay and walked at the end of the leash. Lego did very well in this exercise.

As our show time approached, I grew more nervous. The dog that went before us took off and ran out of the ring in a playful prance. Lego and I were lined up at the entrance of the ring, and that dog’s playfulness excited Lego a lot. This made me very nervous and gave me flashbacks of Lego’s “run-and-jump-for-joy-routine”.

The judge invited us in the ring and asked me to hand over my leash to the steward. “Are you ready?”, the judge asked. I asked Lego to watch me, took a deep breath and said “Yes” to the judge. On the judge’s command, we moved forward. The first sign was a broad jump. This was a very hard sign for many dogs because the dog doesn’t have much time to react to it. I asked Lego to go over the broad jump, and he did! This was a good start and it boosted up my confidence.

We then approached the “Evil Temptation 8” which had 2 food distractions. Lego was always by my side and performed perfectly at this exercise. However upon finishing the figure-8, I lost track of the direction I had to exit from! I started walking towards the wrong sign… luckily I saw the number of the sign and immediately turned towards the right sign. This threw us off a bit.

The next few exercise where close to the honor dog. But Lego didn’t even look at the honor dog — he was entirely focused on me :)! The last exercise was the hardest one, it was the “Backup 3 Steps”, where the dog walks backwards as the handler takes 3 steps back. With a small dog, it’s hard to get their attention. I asked Lego to watch me, took three steps back while asking him to back up, and he walked backwards perfectly, in a straight line next to me — it was a great finale for us! I was ecstatic that Lego was focused on me the entire time and didn’t take off! I put back the leash on Lego and left the ring with a huge smile

I looked at our score, and was in complete awe… we got 98 points and earned First Place! We were awarded 1st place Blue Rosette, Green Qualifying Ribbon and a gift.

 

RE Attempt #4

Day 2 – September 28, we arrived at the location 30 minutes before the course walk through time. The stewards were running late, which resulted in us waiting for quite some time.

I checked in and received the copy of the course. The course was more straight forward than the previous day’s. But the judge made 2 last minute changes to the course which she announced at the walk through.

I wasn’t as nervous as the previous day. Lego and I were again the last entry in RE “A” class, which meant I would get to honor first in the ring. After the judge finished judging the RE “B” class, she took a break. And just like the previous day, I assumed they would do the award ceremony for RE “B” class before they proceed with judging RE “A” (my group).

In this break time, I decided to take a walk with Lego and do some warm up exercises. After a short while, I returned back and saw a RE “A” dog-handler team entering the ring to be judged and a volunteer dog doing the honor. I rushed to the ring and told them that I was supposed to do the honor and I explained how I thought they were going to the awards for RE “B” before they started with RE “A”. But they told me that the judge decided to do both class awards together and that I should now wait to do the honor exercise after I finish the course.

It wasn’t a big issue, but it just threw me off a bit. I had planned on getting the ring exposure prior we were judged for the course. It probably wouldn’t have made a difference, but nevertheless, my nervousness started to kick in.

Our turn arrived. I walked into the ring. The judge asked if I was ready. I looked down at Lego and asked him to watch me, but he was focused elsewhere. I took a deep breath and acknowledged to the Judge.

“Forward”, the judge said. At that very moment Lego looked at me as we proceeded to the first exercise. We finished the course smoothly and stayed to do our honor exercise, which was a sit-stay.

We eagerly awaited our scores, and I couldn’t be happier – we got 97 points and were awarded first place

I am very proud of my little Lego – he did absolutely everything I asked, and more

Entry Filed under: Lego, Memoirs