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Comment by Gail and Ashton on April 21, 2010 at 1:19am

I finally got the videos uploaded to the site. :) Feel free to link to them all you want. Grats again, you guys are an amazing team and I know you'll continue to do great things together! See you later!

Comment by Gail and Ashton on April 14, 2010 at 10:38pm

Good news! Rally-O is going to be held in one of the other buildings on the fairgrounds. That means cement floors! Hopefully this will set the corgis up for some great runs! I'll keep you informed of any important info. We gotta make sure corgis rule Rally-O!!!

Comment by Gail and Ashton on April 13, 2010 at 10:47pm

How exciting! I am looking forward to this weekend. It should be fun! My hubby John is running with Ashton through the course both days. I will be on the sidelines cheering them on. We'll be there all weekend since it's our club's home show. Take comfort in knowing at least at this show you aren't expected to do anything but compete. John got wrangled into being the Show Grounds Chairman. He got a brief description of the job and has basically been thrown in. He's a little suspect of the job since during the meeting where he was "elected" everyone gave him the "oh you have no idea how terrible this job is" smiles. lol I'll probably be floating around helping with odds and ends but will for sure be at ringside during Rally O. We're closing in on showtime! See you this weekend!!

Comment by LaVerne & Shirley on April 13, 2010 at 11:13am

Gail and Ashton Helloooo! YES LaVerne and I will be in the same class as you and Ashton! How exciting! I have never even BEEN to a dog show of any kind let alone BE in one. I'd been taking both of my dogs to classes, LaVerne in Rally-O and Shirley in Agility, just to have something special to do with each one. When LaVerne did so well I was convinced by my teachers to enter her in this trial. Thanks for the heads up on the horse poop. Oh dear.....she has never had the pleasure of rooting around in that! I'm not sure how I will be able to keep her away from it. But like you said, it will be fun to spend that time with our dogs and get to see lots of other dogs. I really need to lighten up. It certainly wont be a tragedy if we dont pass but I really had my heart set on passing.....lol. I will be there Sunday as well. My name is Tracey. I will see you there!!!! I would also like to thank everyone for your advice and encourgement. I have been working on distractions but mostly I've been working on myself. I get myself too wound up and nervous which in turn makes LaVerne nervous and confused. We will keep practicing and hope for the best but like Doug said, if we stay dedicated and focused then success will come. Might not be at this show, but it will come. Thanks again everyone for taking time to give me advice. I really do appreciate it!

Comment by Gail and Ashton on April 13, 2010 at 12:07am

OMG! So, is that town near you the Moses Lake show by chance?!?! I hope so because I would love to meet you! Ashton is competing in his very first Rally O trial (Novice A) this weekend and we are feeling a bit overwhelmed! LOL If anything this will be a grand learning experience. We are completely new to the dog sport world.

Ashton too finds goose poop to be much better than training treats. We work on the "watch me", "leave it" and walking at a brisk pace to keep his nose off the ground, but sometimes that smell is just too tempting. I feel your pain. Exposure to lots of different environments and smells has made him a bit better about focusing on us, but it's still a challenge.

If you are coming to the ML show: I am not sure where exactly Rally is going to be held, but if it is in the Kenny Ardell pavilion then I have a heads up for you. Horse poo nuggets. We just had the agility show there the end of last month and during set up Ashton found that if you root around a bit around the edges of the ring you can find little remnants of horse poo. Not being around horses he found this smell very interesting making focusing on us very difficult. I hope he doesn't decide that it's more fun to find hidden horse poo than Rally O! We start set up on Wednesday so I will go scope it out. ;)

Let's just take comfort that even if things don't go well with Rally O we got time to spend with our corgis. :)

Comment by Bev Levy on April 12, 2010 at 11:58am

Oh they are so much like kids! If they can make you look foolish they will. I had the opposite problem with our doberman when I took her to classes. She is difficult on a leash, pulls, lunges and generally makes it tough to walk her. I took her to obedience classes and she walked beautifully, never pulled or lunged and did everything perfect. Other people in the class asked if I was there practicing for competition! No advice, just lots of understanding!

Comment by Beth on April 11, 2010 at 6:55pm

Whoops, time to practice distraction training! I have this problem when we go to the nursing home for therapy visits. At home or in the park when I work with Jack he's such a good boy, and will leave it and sit and stay and focus on me completely; if we are working he's even good when other dogs are around or whatnot. And theeennnn we get to the nursing home, and oh goodness the elderly folks there have crumbs on their shoes and maybe some butter on their hands, and someone over in the corner is practicing with their dog and has liver treats! And Jack won't come back to me, won't look at me.

I would say to maybe try a combination of taking her to the park and really upping the ante by having her do off-leash heeling using a very tasty lure where you do very rapid changes of direction and have her follow you at heel or she gets stepped on, and then really up the praise level 5-fold and have a clapping, dancing praise party; and on another day take her and make her do the submissive postures like a down-stay so she knows you are in charge, and then go back again and do the fun and exciting off-leash heeling with hot-dogs or liver treats or something so you end on a positive note.

LaVerne sounds just like Jack. He's oh-so-good and oh-so-focused on me, staring up at my face and grinning and dropping like a stone when I say down and staying for ages on a long stay, and doing recall at 100 mph---- until the day he decides that poop is much better than anything I can offer and then I might as well not even be in the area.

Comment by Gromit, Sparkle, and Doug on April 11, 2010 at 1:55pm

I have no experience with Rally but I've competed in many things myself and have friends who show their dogs. It's pretty much certain that everyone, dog or human has an off day now and then. The usual advice is to resume focus on the fundamentals and practice practice, practice. I'd suggest too that you might begin trying your practice sessions at various locations so that the performance becomes more independent of the surroundings. You might even, with the aid of a helper, set up some known distractions like a bit of wiener or a new squeaky toy on the ground so you can really reinforce that "Leave it!" means just that until you say otherwise. If you really want to get fanatical have someone video your performance so that you can see later what you and LaVerne are doing right and wrong and where you can fine tune your leadership skill. And of course keep in mind the old baseball analogy that even the greatest hitters strike out periodically. You guys are new as a team, some setbacks are inevitable as you both learn. If you're dedicated and consistent the success will come.