Well, it's the Potomac Lab Retriever Club hosting its Obedience Trial and Breeder Cup competition in Frederick, Md.
Sugar and I went early and here's what we observed:
1) Obedience Trials...the handlers/dogs competing were generally sloppy. In retrospect, Margot's Wed morning Advanced Class and her Thursday evening class are way easier!
2) The Breeder's Ring was painful to watch as my observation is who has been trained to do what? The 'handlers' were going through these weird gyrations of 'feeding & manipulating the dogs with sounds, food, toys. etc.,' that kept the dogs agitated constantly and the handlers (if you want to call them that) doing these on-going gyrations. I was appalled at what I saw and appalled at the weight obesity of these competing dogs! They were just plain fat...no getting around that fact and in essence looked like/matched many of their handlers! YUCK!
3) At one point during the competition of the Breeder's Ring, the competing dogs were put on a stand. What a patheticc joke! Without the constant, and I do mean constant, food as incentive, toys in the handler's pocket's, and endless stupid noises from the 'handler's', the dogs didn't stand AT ALL. I put SUGAR on a Stand/Stay next to the ring as a distraction and he held his position during the entire judges examination...not like the actual competitor dog's that couldn't/wouldn't hold still without the food/toy/sound etc., from their handler. I had a few photo's taken and left in actual dismay and disgust at what I saw. Sigh:(
4) Went back to the Obedience Trials and watched/observed the competition closely. Now, 5 weeks ago I would've been impressed. Yesterday, I was floored at the sloppiness of the handler's/their competition dogs and what I was seeing. Some of the foot leads were just plain wrong, some of the dogs were just plain 'not trained', and some of the handler moves were poor to fair.
5) And I was able to choose my 'top 3 place picks' from what I saw in Utility B and was correct. The handler's/dogs who followed the exercises correctly, who were 'sharp' in their delivery, and who completed what needed to be done....won the top awards.
6) In reality, there was minimal competition and I consider our Thursday evening class to be much 'tougher' than what I saw required on Friday.
7) Watching the competition Friday cemented in for me the desire to compete, ASAP, with Sugar at this level AND WIN TOP SCORES/AWARDS. It also toughened my requirements on myself for personal trainer excellence and a new appreciation for the excellence Margot requires for her advanced students and their dogs.
Sigh...so much to learn and so little time.
Roxanne
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