Fun Match!

Cedar and I got up early this morning to attend the Idaho Capital City Kennel Club's fall fun match. Matches are basically "practice" dog show and are great for proofing, practice, and socialization. Since I'm wanting to enter Cedar in Rally-O at the club's "real" shows in October, this was the perfect opportunity to get in the ring under real show conditions and see where we are and what we need to work on before then. I entered her in one run of Rally Novice B.

My goals with Cedar were to have fun and to work on keeping her focus on me. She gets overstimulated and excited around other dogs and--especially--people. She LOVES little kids and always wants to go snuggle up with them. It's cute, but not when I need her head in the game! We have done lots of training at home, but I haven't taken her many different places to practice, especially with lots of commotion, so I wasn't sure how she'd react.

She did awesome!

She was friendly to everyone, was able to focus on me, and gave me some great obedience. Turns out she's quite the little show-off! Our run was pretty good. It started off a little bit rocky (i.e. distracted) because Cedar was napping right before we went in (the two dogs in front of us were absent). However, by the third sign, she was awake and heeling like a champ. She's never seen cones or rally signs, and didn't even notice them. I was very proud of her! I guess all our foundation training is starting to pay off, because she has been exceeding my expectations a lot lately. I think we're definitely ready to compete in rally. Yay!

Here's a video of our run, shot on my iPhone:





Cedar's pretty tired, as am I. It was a long, but really fun day! It was great to see all my old dog show friends that I haven't talked to in awhile.