On December 6th Georgie and I entered our first Rally competition. Rally is basically a way to ease into the Obedience ring. Traditionally in formal Obedience competitions, only one command can be given and the commands can either be vocal or hand signals. In Rally you can talk to your dog as much as you want, give encouragement, give hand signals and vocal commands together. It's basically a way to get used to the distractions involved in competing and get rid of some of the jitters associated with the obedience trials. 
I really didn't prepare Georgie very well at all. She's never been to any formal classes, but she's incredibly intelligent, okay...not according to Todd or Sarah....but she IS and she's very attentive, too. Plus she loves to work and she's so stinkin' happy and bouncy that I just had to enter her in the show.
My friend Diane, who is also my training buddy, entered her dog Zelda, (who happens to be Georgie's half sister).
Rhiannon and Kess also went to the show to give us their support and to watch us strut our stuff. They gave us lots of love and encouragement. Just when the day couldn't get any better, imagine my surprise when Sarah showed up...in Fayetteville, with her 3 small children in tow, just to support us and cheer us on. Imagine her surprise when I told her to please not yell, "Go black bitch", when it was our turn! I was so touched by her sacrifice and support. It was a really, really great day. Sarah made it extra fun and entertaining. She even blogged about it...a dogumentary, as she likes to call it.
Georgie did well. She got kind of distracted with all of the barking dogs. It wasn't a clean performance, but she did what I asked and it was a great first time. She and Zelda tied with 97 points. Zelda's time was faster, though. So Diane and Zelda took second place, and we took third. It was great to finally be back in the "dog world" again, and we're looking forward to the spring and attending a few more shows!
After it was all over I was so happy, not that you can tell from my cheesy grin...thumping heart, sweaty palms, but Georgie kept her cool and just looked for more bums to sniff!
2 comments:
yet another thing i learned at the dog show....the "elite" dogs dont sniff crotches....just butts....
You did awesome girlfriend. I was so proud!!! Cant wait for the next show.....part 2 of the Dogumentary.
I want to come! We love when dog shows are on TV. We know nothing about them, but pretend like we do, and place bets on who will win and who will cave when they refuse to cooperate, and which handlers will have a heart attack after the show.
And I totally look forward to your posts.
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