Obedience Gong Show

This weekend is the SKOC obedience trial. As with most CKC obedience trials, there was a fun match scheduled for this evening. It serves as a fund raiser for the club, and also allows people entered in the show the next day to bring their dogs to the building and get them aclimated with the new surroundings.

I have Gio entered in two trials tomorrow as he only needs one more leg for his Novice CD. I took him this evening so that I could introduce him to the new building as he has never worked there before. The building that SKOC rents for this purpose is a community Metis center. Apparently some wires got crossed somewhere along the line as, come 6:00pm fun match start time, the building was still not unlocked. I don't know where the mix up was, but regardless, there was no way for us to get into the building for the match. Calls were made, and after much bitching and complaining and debating "What to do now", everyone went their separate ways. Some people went back to the SKOC training building, others spread out to the Paws n' Train building, and still more decided to heck with it and went home. I am part of the latter group. Since the sole reason for me to go to the fun match was to introduce Gio to the new building, there was no reason for me to trek across the city to a familiar building to practice. He doesn't need the practice, if he doesn't know it now then he certainly won't know it tomorrow in front of a judge. So we are home now. I can't say I am completely upset by it. It's been a long week (even though I only went in to work for 1.5 days!) and I'm quite tired for some reason. Looking forward to a quiet night at home with a bowl of popcorn and a good strong Cesar (the yummy drink, not the crazy dog "trainer", or should I say "behaviourist" ... same BS either way).

I don't know what is going to happen tomorrow at the trial. I am confident that Gio will do wonderfully and give 110% as he always does. The only questionable area is the long group sit. It's not that "stays" are a problem for him, but with his messed up back end, the sits are a cause for concern. On the slippery trial mats, he just cannot keep a grip and really struggles to remain sitting up for the required minute. More often than not he ends up sliding into a down at about the 40-50 second mark. We've been working on conditioning hoping to build up some muscle in his back end to help with the sits, but his legs are just getting worse as he ages so it isn't helping much. It's a shame really, as everything else he does in the ring is stunning! It's just that darned long sit ... and I can't even blame it on a training issue. He just can't physically do it. Poor guy, he tries so hard. I have decided that if he does not get his final leg tomorrow, we are going to call obedience quits for him. It's not an important title for me, and there is no question of us moving on to Open or Utility. The CKC jump heights are ridiculous and there are no allowances for disabled dogs. I'm not going to put him through that, what is it going to prove? So if he gets his CD tomorrow, great! If not, no big loss. I will just stick to Rally-O, tracking, and therapy dog with him. At some point in the future, I may decide to toss him into another Novice round and see what happens. But it is certianly not going to be an active pursuit.

Wish us luck tomorrow, anyways! If he can just hold a sit for one minute with minimal sliding, this will all end on a positive note! If not, he'll still get his cookies and cuddles because I know he will work his hardest.