Princess obedience

Trixie going out to get the dumbbell. She started positioned next to me in her setup (heel) position sitting, told to "wait", the DB is thrown and on the "take it" command, she goes out to complete the retrieve on flat.

Even though we've had plenty of blog news about Trixie's puppies, the Princess has not been resting on her laurels, eating Bark Bons and watching Animal Planet reruns. She's been training in agility and although we've taken some time off from formal obedience, we are now back on track and getting ready for trials. She is excited to be working and especially loves the reward part. Since we decided to enter Jam in conformation shows in PA, in an indoor, air conditioned venue, we thought it was the perfect place to start Trixie back up in Open A, where she already has one qualifying leg towards the CDX title. The key words for the Princess - indoors and air conditioned!

Nice pickup...

Returning at a brisk trot...

And a sit front, holding the DB until I take it from her while she remains sitting. Once the DB is in my hands, the judge would then give the finish signal and I would give her that command and she would do her swing to the left and be back in heel position.
In Open obedience, the second retrieve is done over a jump. The dog must wait while the handler throws the DB over the jump, which does take some coordination on the part of the handler, the dog is sent on the judges signal, must jump over the jump, pickup the DB and return over the same jump to sit in front of the handler.

In the background is the broad jump, which the dog is left in a stay, the handler walks to the right side of the obstacle, stands halfway down, calls the dog to jump over and while the dog is in mid-air, the handler makes a quarter turn and the dog lands and comes to front position with a sit and then does a finish. Open obedience also consists of an off lead heeling pattern and a drop on recall as part of the individual exercises. Then there are the out of sight groups stays which are very challenging...more about that in a later post. Oh, and if you've never done AKC obedience, an important thing to note is that you are only allowed to give ONE command or signal for each exercise!