Chewie would like to thank his fans.....
Chewie and I had a fabulous agility trial the last weekend of December. The trial was held at Soccer Blast and was indoors on artificial turf. The space was bright, warm and dry and there was plenty of room to sit and spectate. Chewie liked this space. I liked it too and I am sure that helped his confidence.
Since the trial was at a location that was comfortable for spectators and close to town, I mentioned it during a family holiday gathering. Folks were interested in watching - hmmmm
After our first run early in the morning the first day of the trial, I texted folks about the timing of our next couple of runs that would be back to back in case they were interested in finding out what it is Chewei, Gromit and I do every week.
Later in the morning, as we were walking away from his crate to stretch - and much to Chewie's absolute delight he recognized my parents - he pulled me to them and oh my, if you could have heard the greeting he gave them. It was somewhere between a bark and an operatic baritone howl. The sound started way back in his throat and bellowed out of him as he tossed his snout in the air and wagged his whole body.
My goodness as soon as he had a second to take in my parents, my brother and his girlfriend appeared. I thought Chewie was going to shed tears of delight. He couldn't stop prancing in place and chatting up Paul.
Then Kristin, and our good friends Alex and Suzanne showed up. He was beyond delighted and once again exploded with little high pitched barks and a little bit of sing song in his voice. He nudged them with his big snout and cozied up to them with the weight of his big shoulders.
We stood with this new Team Chewie fan club and watched the elite class run. I talked our family of supporters through some of the things that were going on. I mentioned which dogs were national caliber competitors. Then we watched the open dogs and finally it was our turn - we were part of the novice group.
I spoke to Chewie like he understood English. I told him we needed to warm up and do a few jumps and barrels to get ready for our run. We needed to leave the crowd. He trotted along with me like he was walking the red carpet. We got to the start line on the side opposite the bleachers where his peeps were hanging out.
The course started with a dog walk to a barrel. Chewie and I have worked hard to get him comfortable on multiple contacts but this was a dog walk surface he had never been on - so I had told folks we might have an immediate balk to work through.
The next obstacle - a big red barrel. This was ssomething we had rarely worked with in our agility classes. Chewie is quite suspicious of new things or out of place things.
At the trial previous to this one, on the second day, we were listening to the judge's briefing and he was in his crate. Suddenly he started barking. There were no dogs or people around and it was kind of interrupting the judge. I went and got him out of his crate and he stood, head below his shoulders looking the long way down the arena to the hay bales. I looked too for critters, for cats, for...and there atop the hay bales was a chair for bar setters. It wasn't there the day before. They had put it up there during course setting. Thankfully no one had run the course so I ran out there, put the chair on the ground, and the barking stopped. Chairs do not belong on hay bales, they belong on the ground with people sitting in them - duh!
The point here - I had no idea what was going to happen with the barrel. These new obstacles in NADAC are an effort to make courses less taxing on the canine athletes running the course. Chewie is my OSHA dog though - he is about precision and safety. I thought Chewie may or may not talk to me about it - and he may slow down. I was sure we could get around it just not sure what would happen with our time nor sure how long it would take me to convince him it actually did belong on the course with us.
Well - Chewie showed me. He ran right up the dog walk and around the barrel and hit a tunnel discriminating it from the dog walk. He was so excited and running so fast I couldn't keep up with him. We were both laughing as we made our way around the course. He hit his weaves and did the A-frame and then we had to do a 180 through a set of hoops. It was at this point that we were closest to his cheering fans. Chewie stepped through the first hoop, made sure to take a look for his fans and get a little bark out to them before rmaking the turn to come racing back to me through the other hoop.
He got whoops and cheers and he came to the finish line wagging and heckling me with his barking. When Chewie has a lot of energy I take it that he is enjoying himself. This was a big deal as in this trial he had 6 qualifying runs out of 7 runs. The last trial in October he qualified only 1 of 7 runs. He had been steady and happy but not energetic like this trial.
Chewie went running back to his posse and enjoyed a little loving. Then it was a trip outside and we headed back for our next run. After that run folks needed to hit the road. Chewie had one more run for the day.
When I pulled him out of his crate for the last run - he trotted out looking for the crowd.
I tried to explain that folks had taken off. He asked to go outside and I followed his lead. He didn't really have to go out - he put his nose in the air and eyed the parking area for any sign of his cheerleading crowd.
The next day we picked up our agility buddy Karen. Chewie was delighted to find out that she was joining us for the day. He greeted her in the car with whines of laughter.
And then when we arrived and set up he saw his chiropractor - Dr. Annie Seefeldt. The look on his face kind of made me think he was saying - 'wow, you come here too? that is amazing! I could use a little alignment after hopping over those jump, scooping through those tunnels and winding through those stupid weave poles."
I of course can't be sure that he was happy, or that he was looking for folks - all this was just my interpretation of the behaviors he exhibited. I hope I know him well enough to know when he is grooving on our activity. I decided we would continue on in agility until the next trial in March. I hadn't been so sure though - he loves playing ball, he is my running buddy and I know he will enjoy nose work when I get him there.. This winter we are going to try skijoring together. He doesn't seem to mind having several different jobs and hanging out with me. Lucky for me!
I can't get a crowd to every trial but if you can I would recommend it, Chewie totally enjoyed it. We'll see how the next trial goes - in the mean time here are a couple of pics of him running when he agrees with my instructions - LOL Photos are by Great Dane Photos - http://www.greatdanephotos.com/.
Since the trial was at a location that was comfortable for spectators and close to town, I mentioned it during a family holiday gathering. Folks were interested in watching - hmmmm
After our first run early in the morning the first day of the trial, I texted folks about the timing of our next couple of runs that would be back to back in case they were interested in finding out what it is Chewei, Gromit and I do every week.
Later in the morning, as we were walking away from his crate to stretch - and much to Chewie's absolute delight he recognized my parents - he pulled me to them and oh my, if you could have heard the greeting he gave them. It was somewhere between a bark and an operatic baritone howl. The sound started way back in his throat and bellowed out of him as he tossed his snout in the air and wagged his whole body.
My goodness as soon as he had a second to take in my parents, my brother and his girlfriend appeared. I thought Chewie was going to shed tears of delight. He couldn't stop prancing in place and chatting up Paul.
Then Kristin, and our good friends Alex and Suzanne showed up. He was beyond delighted and once again exploded with little high pitched barks and a little bit of sing song in his voice. He nudged them with his big snout and cozied up to them with the weight of his big shoulders.
We stood with this new Team Chewie fan club and watched the elite class run. I talked our family of supporters through some of the things that were going on. I mentioned which dogs were national caliber competitors. Then we watched the open dogs and finally it was our turn - we were part of the novice group.
I spoke to Chewie like he understood English. I told him we needed to warm up and do a few jumps and barrels to get ready for our run. We needed to leave the crowd. He trotted along with me like he was walking the red carpet. We got to the start line on the side opposite the bleachers where his peeps were hanging out.
The course started with a dog walk to a barrel. Chewie and I have worked hard to get him comfortable on multiple contacts but this was a dog walk surface he had never been on - so I had told folks we might have an immediate balk to work through.
The next obstacle - a big red barrel. This was ssomething we had rarely worked with in our agility classes. Chewie is quite suspicious of new things or out of place things.
At the trial previous to this one, on the second day, we were listening to the judge's briefing and he was in his crate. Suddenly he started barking. There were no dogs or people around and it was kind of interrupting the judge. I went and got him out of his crate and he stood, head below his shoulders looking the long way down the arena to the hay bales. I looked too for critters, for cats, for...and there atop the hay bales was a chair for bar setters. It wasn't there the day before. They had put it up there during course setting. Thankfully no one had run the course so I ran out there, put the chair on the ground, and the barking stopped. Chairs do not belong on hay bales, they belong on the ground with people sitting in them - duh!
The point here - I had no idea what was going to happen with the barrel. These new obstacles in NADAC are an effort to make courses less taxing on the canine athletes running the course. Chewie is my OSHA dog though - he is about precision and safety. I thought Chewie may or may not talk to me about it - and he may slow down. I was sure we could get around it just not sure what would happen with our time nor sure how long it would take me to convince him it actually did belong on the course with us.
Well - Chewie showed me. He ran right up the dog walk and around the barrel and hit a tunnel discriminating it from the dog walk. He was so excited and running so fast I couldn't keep up with him. We were both laughing as we made our way around the course. He hit his weaves and did the A-frame and then we had to do a 180 through a set of hoops. It was at this point that we were closest to his cheering fans. Chewie stepped through the first hoop, made sure to take a look for his fans and get a little bark out to them before rmaking the turn to come racing back to me through the other hoop.
He got whoops and cheers and he came to the finish line wagging and heckling me with his barking. When Chewie has a lot of energy I take it that he is enjoying himself. This was a big deal as in this trial he had 6 qualifying runs out of 7 runs. The last trial in October he qualified only 1 of 7 runs. He had been steady and happy but not energetic like this trial.
Chewie went running back to his posse and enjoyed a little loving. Then it was a trip outside and we headed back for our next run. After that run folks needed to hit the road. Chewie had one more run for the day.
When I pulled him out of his crate for the last run - he trotted out looking for the crowd.
I tried to explain that folks had taken off. He asked to go outside and I followed his lead. He didn't really have to go out - he put his nose in the air and eyed the parking area for any sign of his cheerleading crowd.
The next day we picked up our agility buddy Karen. Chewie was delighted to find out that she was joining us for the day. He greeted her in the car with whines of laughter.
And then when we arrived and set up he saw his chiropractor - Dr. Annie Seefeldt. The look on his face kind of made me think he was saying - 'wow, you come here too? that is amazing! I could use a little alignment after hopping over those jump, scooping through those tunnels and winding through those stupid weave poles."
I of course can't be sure that he was happy, or that he was looking for folks - all this was just my interpretation of the behaviors he exhibited. I hope I know him well enough to know when he is grooving on our activity. I decided we would continue on in agility until the next trial in March. I hadn't been so sure though - he loves playing ball, he is my running buddy and I know he will enjoy nose work when I get him there.. This winter we are going to try skijoring together. He doesn't seem to mind having several different jobs and hanging out with me. Lucky for me!
I can't get a crowd to every trial but if you can I would recommend it, Chewie totally enjoyed it. We'll see how the next trial goes - in the mean time here are a couple of pics of him running when he agrees with my instructions - LOL Photos are by Great Dane Photos - http://www.greatdanephotos.com/.
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