{"id":121,"date":"2009-04-06T15:26:50","date_gmt":"2009-04-06T22:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mordanna.com\/quigley\/?p=121"},"modified":"2011-04-19T20:26:22","modified_gmt":"2011-04-20T03:26:22","slug":"first-time-in-open-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mordanna.com\/quigley\/archives\/121","title":{"rendered":"First time in Open A"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>First of all, I’m so glad I went. Entries weren’t so great, there was one entry in Utility, one in Open B (the same dog as in Utility) and 6 dogs in Open A. I didn’t count the novice dogs, but I’d estimate probably about 5-6. The secretary said they were trying to get a judge for Rally to get more entries, but apparently UKC doesn’t have enough qualified Rally judges yet and they couldn’t find one. I’m just always afraid that if entries keep dropping, the clubs may not bother with the trials anymore, and we already only have a handful of UKC trials every year within about 150 miles driving distance.<\/p>\n

I arrived just after 8 am and didn’t have long to wait for our turn in trial 1.<\/p>\n

We had to start with the Honor Down and Quigley actually stayed put as I walked out of sight and the entire time I was gone, while the other dog was doing the heel free and figure 8, with the judge and ring stewards around. Unfortunately he popped into a sit from the down just before I reached him, so that was our NQ already. If he had sat up when I was already back in heel position, it would only have been a major deduction, not a NQ. I’m thrilled things went as well as they did though, since this was definitely the hardest exercise.<\/p>\n

When it was our turn to work, Quigley did ok on the heel free (minimal sniffing, a slightly crooked sit) and figure 8, in fact we only got 6 1\/2 points off where in Novice it was usually a lot more. I know heeling is a challenge for Quigley, and I very much doubt we’ll ever be perfect.<\/p>\n

His drop on recall was flawless, with just one point off for a not quite perfect finish at the end. This was just awesome!<\/p>\n

The retrieve on flat was fine too, we got half a point off but my score sheet doesn’t say why, probably a slightly crooked front.<\/p>\n

On the retrieve over the high jump I apparently didn’t sound confident enough giving the “bring it” command, so Quigley didn’t go on the first try (which is a NQ), but did when I repeated it. I also hadn’t thrown the dumbbell very well, so it went off to the side where the extra jump boards were on the ground, but Quigley found it anyway. The judge later apologized and said he would have let me throw it again if we hadn’t already NQ’ed during the Honor exercise and it still had mattered for our final score.<\/p>\n

Broad jump again, very nice, with a 1 point deduction for a not quite perfect finish. I was happy to see that Quigley went straight over the jump and didn’t try to cut the corner though. Pretty good for fist time in the Open ring!<\/p>\n

Last the 3-minute group sit, at this point Quigley had obviously had enough and went to find me after I was out of sight, so a ring steward held onto him until the time was up.<\/p>\n

If it hadn’t been for the 3 things that outright NQ’d us, we would have had a score of about 188 (at worst), which is not bad at all. For our first Open run I’m beyond thrilled and very, very proud of my little guy.<\/p>\n

Trial 2 didn’t go so smoothly, by this time Quigley was just not interested anymore and was very sloppy, which once again confirmed that one trial per day is all we should sign up for right now, no matter if it’s Rally or Obedience – if it weren’t for those long drives. I’ll have to work with him on that if we ever want to go for the Rally Advanced Excellent title (must qualify in both Advanced and Excellent class), but that’s still far off anyway and I don’t know if I can even handle the pressure of collecting 10 legs that require double Q’s.<\/p>\n

All things considered, I’m very happy that we did go instead of chickening out, pleased with how things went (among other things the “no leading the dog around in the ring by the collar” between exercises), and grateful for the experience. It’ll be a while before I try Open again though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First of all, I’m so glad I went. Entries weren’t so great, there was one entry in Utility, one in Open B (the same dog as in Utility) and 6 dogs in Open A. I didn’t count the novice dogs, …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15],"tags":[11,25,10,15],"class_list":["post-121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-dog-activities","category-ukc-obedience","tag-old-stuff","tag-open-a","tag-ring-experience","tag-ukc-obedience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mordanna.com\/quigley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mordanna.com\/quigley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mordanna.com\/quigley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mordanna.com\/quigley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mordanna.com\/quigley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mordanna.com\/quigley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124,"href":"https:\/\/www.mordanna.com\/quigley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions\/124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mordanna.com\/quigley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mordanna.com\/quigley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mordanna.com\/quigley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}