Exhausted

Congratulations are in order for my girl Hulda! After her Intermediate training class which is from 7-8pm the trainers informed me that she was ready for the Novice class. The Novice class is for those dogs who are preparing to compete in the Novice class at AKC Obedience trials. Basically my little girl is ready for the big time. The reason I titled this post Exhausted is because that is exactly what I was last night. See, the Novice class on Tuesdays is right after the Intermediate class from 8-9. So right after we had our feet walked off from heeling exercises we had them run off in the Novice class. I was soooo ready to go home and not move for the rest of the night. So, since we are in the big time now I decided to just go ahead and enter her in the Alamo City Cluster. This is 3 days of dog show bliss! We are entered only on the Saturday and Sunday shows. After our Novice class I realized that it is possible that we may have bitten just a tiny bit more than we can actually chew. She is solid on most things but I now realize we are going to have to work extra hard on three very important exercises. Exercises I believe we will have solidly in place by March 10 &11. These exercises are the 'Finish' which is returning to the heel position (at my left side) from the 'Recall'. This is by far the most challenging exercise that we need to perfect. Then there is an exercise which I don't know the name for which involves heeling between two posts to test our teamwork. She does this perfectly but I need to work on my form. The handler is tested just as much as the dog is. The final exercise which I do not foresee any real trouble with it is just that I have not tested her on it and that is the 'Off-Lead' heeling exercise. So we've got our work cut out for us but I believe that we may be ready and just might get one or two legs towards her Companion Dog (CD) title.