My boss and his family were gone on vacation for almost a month in July. I knew he was taking his Golden Retriever, Khayenne, with him, but I had no idea he was going to the National Obedience Invitational in Houston! Wow! His first Golden, Lillian, was always so quiet and graceful and obedient that I would have believed anything about her. She was virtually the perfect dog. But I haven't really seen much of Khay since she was a puppy, and when I do see her, she is so much more active than Lillian was. She just doesn't seem as much like the obedience champion type! I knew they did obedience trials, as well as field trials, etc., but I had NO idea she was that good at the obedience thing!
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| Here's a picture of Khay in a play last year |
Anyway, here's the note John e-mailed to members of his local obedience club after they came home from Houston. I am SO impressed!
Kayenne qualified for the 2012 National Obedience Invitational!
I am so proud of my puppy!
A few folks have asked why I've kept a low profile about the NOI Qualifier in Houston last weekend -- The truth is, I've just been too exhausted to write much until now.
Only a few months ago, the NOI wasn't even on our radar -- that's something for the Big Dogs, not for us. The NOI, that's for the folks who drive hours and hours to go to obedience trials weekend after weekend, and who rack up more OTCh points in a month than we'll have in a career. No, the NOI wasn't even on our radar.
That is, until several months ago when we started to plan our summer vacation. We had decided to go out west to the mountains, with the dogs. Whenever we drive somewhere, I always check out what dog events might be on route, or at least not too far out of the way, so maybe we can work that into the same trip too. Turns out there were a couple of obedience trials in Texas in July that might work. One of them was labeled a Regional Qualifier for the National Obedience Invitational. My initial reaction was that that was a good enough reason for us to stay far away from it. That would attract the Big Dogs for sure, and ruin any chance for us to earn OTCh points.
But I got curious, and did a bit of research on the Regional Qualifiers. A Qualifier is a designated set of three trials in one weekend. You add up all the scores in Open B and Utility B for all three days, and the top four dogs qualify for the National. This is an alternative route to the traditional method of accumulating loads of OTCh points. There are 10 or 11 regionals held across the country during each 12-month qualifying period July 1 - June 30.
Still, I'm thinking this is absurd -- us going to compete with the Big Dogs, and ending up in the top four? Yeah, right.
But I did a bit more digging. In particular, I looked at records from various Regionals held over the last three years. And I noticed something very, very interesting. It turns out that consistency is more important than high scores. A dog who consistently Qs, even with lower scores, will beat a dog who usually gets high scores, but who occasionally NQs. That's because an NQ counts as zero in this game. You don't just lose the points for the one exercise, you get zero points for the entire class.
That made me think that Khayenne and I actually had a chance. Because, you see, even though our scores aren't spectacular, Khayenne is pretty darn consistent in the obedience ring. I can generally count on her for a green ribbon.
An extreme case to illustrate: Imagine at a regional Dog A consistently gets a minimal score of only 170 every time. While Dog B does brilliantly, 200 points every time, except for one time when Dog B takes the wrong glove. Dog A wins: 170 x 6 beats 200 x 5. Do the math.
What else reviewing the records from the past regionals had shown was that very, very seldom were there more than four dogs who Q'd all 6 times. Usually, there were only 2 or 3 who held it together all six times.
So what we needed to qualify was not high scores, but green ribbons. If we could consistently get green ribbons, we had a chance. And Khay is very good at earning green ribbons in obedience. On two separate occasions, she has earned seven consecutive UDX legs (i.e., QQs) without an intervening NQ. So we decided to enter the regional in Houston, scheduled for late July.
And then, without warning, in May Khay started NQ'ing. Oh, no! Where did this come from! Indeed, we had NQ'd five of our last six trials prior to the Houston regional. So here's the picture: With only 1 Q in the last 6 trials we'd entered, I was gambling we could compete with the Big Dogs and beat them by qualifying in six out of six classes. I'm nuts right? Ready for the Loony Bin, wouldn't you say?
But I never lost confidence in Khayenne. Those five NQs were all for a single issue. She otherwise continued to do fine on everything else. And I was convinced we could cure that one issue with hard work. It was the stand signal. The stand is the easiest of all the signals, and in hindsight I had just taken it for granted for too long, and it was finally coming back to bite me. We worked with Julie Hill, Dog Trainer Extraordinaire to help us fix our stand issue, and we decided to go ahead.
We continued to practice all the other exercises too, until time to leave for Colorado. Then, during the two weeks of our vacation between leaving home and arriving in Houston, I decided to give both of us a break from obedience. We did not practice obedience at all the entire two weeks before we arrived in Houston, except that she had to do a very brief heeling pattern ending with a stand signal for her meals. I released her from the stand for her breakfast and dinner. That was it. No other training for two solid weeks. Just chasing marmots and swimming in lakes and such.
The Regional Qualifier is a test of nerves as much as anything else. In Houston, at least, it is a very large event, with conformation, agility, flyball all going on too. And Joe Q. Public was out in droves.
Wednesday was the only day there was a match. Khay did well in the match. Thursday was a warm-up trial, a day of specialties. Khay got first in utility (7 dogs) and second in open (9 dogs) in the Golden Specialty, as well as High Combined, which seemed to bode well for us. Best of all, her stands were solid.
It started for real on Friday. Those of you who know what ring nerves feel like, well it's amplified many-fold in this setting. A single mis-step in a single exercise in any one of the six classes, and you're out. Khay never got nervous, but I sure did.
There were some nail-biting moments, right up to the very end. Here are some of them:
First, the venue itself was hugely distracting. It was a very large show, with conformation, agility, and flyball. Obedience was in a separate room, and paneling partly blocked out the sound from the other events, but still it was chaotic. I think our agility background helps us there -- working in chaos, that is.
Joe Q. Public was out in force, especially on Saturday. They wander around, including right up to the ring, without a clue how they're affecting the dogs. One lady was right outside the back ring gate during Khay's go-outs on Saturday, walking back and forth. Khay went over to check her out. She pulled Khay way off center for both go-outs. We lost points, but not as many as we otherwise would have -- I guess the judge was sympathetic to why her go-outs weren't square.
My wife Karen was there, and she usually isn't at obedience trials with us. Khay was very much distracted to watch what her Mommy was doing -- in fact, we actually NQ'd the first class after Karen joined us, because Khay was watching Karen rather than me. Fortunately, that was a "practice" class, not the real thing (Graduate Open), so it was a worthwhile experiment rather than a disaster. Regretfully, I told Karen she should go watch agility or visit the vendors while Khay was in the ring after that.
As if the distracting spectators weren't bad enough, on one day the stewards themselves were distractions -- kids from 4H I think. We had what appeared to be two brothers as stewards in the Open ring, one about 11 and one about 16. They were OK when actually in the ring, but when out of the ring the 11 year old was routinely cutting up, waving his arms and such. Distracting spectators are one thing, but stewards? When no parent or club member came over to talk to them, eventually I took it on myself to have a little chat. I didn't like doing it, but I wasn't going to let Khay's chances at the National be ruined because some 11 year old was acting up and didn't even realize what he was doing. He calmed down after that. Probably thought I was a nutty old man, but that's OK.
I'd nearly forgotten that the drop on recall is not a signal exercise. We always, but always, use signals on this exercise -- simply because Khay responds to signals better -- and since she's so fast, it reduces the risk a judge might ding us for anticipating a spoken command. On Saturday the initial recall and the drop went fine, but once she was down something in the next ring distracted her and she wouldn't look at me. I couldn't give her a signal for the second recall. It's not exactly rocket science, but it took me a moment to realize I could give a spoken command instead of a signal, "Khay, come." Which she did, promptly. Somewhere in my poor little brain a synapse fired and allowed me to recover from the unexpected.
Overnight, between the second and third days, someone stole Khay's "ring leash and collar," which I always leave on top of her crate. I didn't have another "legal" collar to take into the ring. We were fairly early in the running order for utility, and while there were vendors aplenty none of them were open yet for the day. I went with Khayenne and started walking up and down the vendor aisles, hoping to find someone open for business early, and trying not to lose my cool. We did find a vendor finally. I didn't care what the new collar looked like, just hoped that it wouldn't bother Khayenne somehow to have a new collar on her. It didn't. Karen even says it looks OK. It's a souvenir, anyway.
There were about 40 eligible dogs in the competition. After Day 1, only eleven had qualified in both classes. After Day 2, five had qualified in all four classes, including Khayenne. Khay was third in the (unofficial) standings at that point. And we were so far ahead of dogs # 4 and 5 that I knew we only had to Q on Sunday. Just a Q in Utility and a Q in Open, and we were in. Talk turning me into a bundle of nerves!
All went well in Utility on Day 3, Khay's new collar was thankfully not a problem. Then I had time to drive back to the hotel (10 miles away) to get Karen. She'd slept in, since she couldn't watch Khay anyway. Only Open was left.
Individual exercises in Open went well. Some crooked finishes, but so what? We only had to Q. We were almost there. Only the sits and downs remained. And the sits were first. We could do this!
With two dogs remaining before the group exercises, the judges took their lunch break. The judge would come back after lunch for two more dogs and then the stays. I'm not one who handles waiting very well, and that lunch break just about killed me. Arrgh! But what can you do?
Seemed like forever, but finally it was time for the group exercises. Just a sit and a down, and we're in the National. I could hardly breathe. I'm doing my best not to make Khay skittish. She knew I was nervous, of course, but she didn't let it affect her. She played with a toy just like she normally does before going in the ring. Finally we go in the ring for stays. The sit was uneventful.
Only the down left. Only the down. And then . . . just as we were going out of sight . . . from the corner of my eye I saw a black dog right next to Khayenne stand up and roll over on its back. Then I was around the corner and could see nothing. Nothing to do but deep breathing, with my eyes closed for the next 4 1/2 minutes, seemed like forever.
When we returned, Khay was right where I'd left her. And the black dog, a flat coat I think, was also down by now. I put on Khay's leash. The judge (Roger Ayers) called out the numbers of the dogs who had qualified in open . . . and he did NOT include Khay's number. Heart sinks. What had happened? Did she get up and go back down? Could I plead for mercy due to the extenuating circumstances and ask for another opportunity to do the down with the next group? What to do???
We dallied till everyone else had left the ring. I approached the judge, and said, "Excuse me, sir, we didn't qualify?" He checked his notes and said, "No, you qualified." "Oh, because you didn't call her number just now." He checked his notes again and said, "You qualified." "Thank you very much, we really appreciate it."
After that I still didn't really believe we'd Q'd until I saw the score sheet two or three hours later -- and there it was, a 193 1/2. We'd done it. Somehow, we'd done it.
There were exactly four eligible dogs who Q'd in all six classes at the Houston regional, so all four qualified for the National. Khay finished third overall. We only ever got green ribbons, but that had always been the plan. Nothing fancy, just hang in there.
Overall, the weekend played out more-or-less as expected and hoped, based on how I'd analyzed records from prior regionals. The one factor I had not picked up simply by looking at the old numbers is what a game of nerves the whole thing is -- for the handler, that is, not the dog. We saw many Big Dogs, dogs who usually outscore us, NQ along the way. It's easy to do. Now I better understand why. Only today, five days later, do I really feel like I'm starting to recover from the nerves I had all weekend. It's a mind game as much as anything. Khay is the one who held it together for us both. I just went along for the ride.
I could not be prouder of Ms. Khayenne! She's going to the 2012 National Obedience Invitational in Orlando.
John
Can't wait to see how all that works out. (I hope John isn't a nervous wreck by then -- he has WAY too long to think about that next one because I think those Orlando trials won't be happening until October.)
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