# The Long Road with a Fearful Dog



## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

I've mentioned in several other threads that Pongu, my Very Special Dog, is a severely fearful little guy. I adopted him from a city shelter at 16 weeks, having absolutely no idea what I was getting into as a first-time owner. He is now 3 years old, and much better than he was, but there's no cure for a fearful dog. There's _improvement_, but you never finish the journey. You never get a "normal" dog.

Just this past weekend, I left him outside a bakery while I stopped in to grab a loaf of bread. Pongu was not there for more than two or three minutes, which I figured was within what he is currently able to tolerate, but in that time a car pulled into the parking spot beside him and the awning on the next storefront flapped in the wind, so when I got back outside, he was completely terrified and cowering and had pooped himself. After three solid years of rehab and confidence-building, after thousands of hours and dollars with the best trainers and behaviorists in our region, I can't leave him tied outside a store for two minutes.

That's my Pongu. He's a scaredybutt.

He's also my competition dog.* Because of his mental (and some physical) issues, the only sport he can really do is Rally. (Well, to be fair, he can also do canine musical freestyle, and that's actually where we first began. He's pretty darn good at it. But _I_ can't dance, let alone choreograph a half-decent routine, so we never made it to competition in freestyle.)

Pongu can't tolerate a stranger approaching him; he'll never do the Stand For Exam in obedience. He can't tolerate loud noises or unstable footing; he'll never do the teeter in agility. Flyball, dock diving, and of course all the protection sports are _completely_ off the table for this dog.

But he can do Rally. On his good days, he can completely kick butt in Rally.

On his bad days, he melts down at the start line and we never get off the ground.

And there are a _lot_ of bad days. Competing with a fearful dog is not much fun sometimes. Even more than with a normal dog, you have to be willing to put your ego aside and do what is best for your dog to avoid damaging his confidence, because he doesn't have any to start with. You have to accept that the brilliant, snappy, precise dog you see in practice will very often not show up at trial, because the trial venue is a NEW SCARY PLACE!! and little tiny things that other dogs don't even notice will cause your fearful dog to implode.

That's hard for me. By nature I'm an overachiever. I like to win. I _don't_ like seeing my dog collapse like an overcooked souffle because there's an overhead fan blowing on the course and he can't deal with that. I really, really want to tell him to suck it up and tough it out and yell FOR GOD'S SAKE YOU CAN DO THIS WHAT IS *WRONG* WITH YOU.

But I can't do that, because that doesn't work with a fearful dog. What _does_ work is patience and practice and patience and practice and gritting your teeth and telling him that why yes he _is_ wonderful for taking that ($*&(#*&$ stupid jump on the third try after you've already NQ'ed in front of everybody for the fourth straight run and wasted 12 hours of your life and $150 in entry fees.

It can be incredibly frustrating.

But there are moments of glory too, and those are what keep me going. There are those perfect golden runs where everything is in harmony and Pongu is smiling and happy and I don't have to say a word or give a single formal cue and we finish the course in total communion. Moments like that are beautiful with _any_ dog, but you never expect to have them with a fearful dog. To me it's worth everything else to have those moments where Pongu is confident and happy and _winning_.

In this thread I hope to chronicle our long, slow journey to the ARCHMX -- the highest title offered in World Cynosport Rally. In so doing, I hope to provide some insight to other owners of fearful dogs about what it's like to compete with such a dog. It is possible, if you're patient and willing to listen to your dog. I was told many times never to expect Pongu to set foot in the ring at all, but we do compete and sometimes we do well, and it boosts his confidence more than anything else in the world.


(* -- you might reasonably ask: what about Crookytail? It's true, I have two dogs, and Crooky is not fearful in the slightest. He is a perfectly friendly confident normal dog. He's spectacular with the fosters and endlessly funny and a source of constant joy in our lives.

He's also dumb as a box of rocks and incredibly boring to train. I'll take the brilliant crazy dog over the genial dopey one every time, thanks. Crookytail has been retired from every sport I've ever tried with him after getting his novice titles, because that is as far as my patience goes.)


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## Kaimeju (Feb 2, 2013)

I like your writing a lot. I'm looking forward to what you have to say.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Thanks! I'll try not to be too boring. 


This past Friday we trialed at the Bella Vista Training Club outside Harrisburg. It's a very nice facility that usually draws a moderate-sized, friendly, and supportive crowd for the Friday night Rally runs. It's spacious and usually not too crowded, so Pongu has done pretty well in the past there.

Unfortunately this most recent trial was not one of his better visits. It was an unseasonably hot and humid day, so all the dogs were hot and grouchy, the bugs were out in force, and the club staff had turned on enormous standing fans to cool the place down.

Pongu doesn't do well with fans. Or bugs. Or anything the least bit out of the ordinary. He came out of the box squeaky and stressy, and our day got off to a real bumpy start.

On his first Level 1 run, Pongu broke a Stay on the bonus exercise. Breaking a Level 1 Stay is _brutal_. It's the kind of mistake that foretells disaster ahead: if Pongu can't keep it together on a Level 1 run, I know we are in for bad times. Also, that mistake cost us all the points for the bonus exercise, so we ended up with a final score of 197, the second-worst score we've gotten this year, and the worst we've done since February. Inauspicious beginnings, boy howdy.

Our Level 2 run was even worse. This ring was full of flies that had come in from a nearby field. Pongu has an obsession about chasing flies. He can ignore them when he's happy and focused, but it's hard for him. He absolutely _cannot_ ignore them when he's anxious -- he runs around chasing them in the same frenetic desperate way that some trichotillomaniacs obsessively pull out their hair to relieve stress. We NQ'ed on the first sign when I pulled him off the course because trying to get him to focus under those circumstances was hopeless.

Level 3 was yet another failure. It was a whole lot better than our Level 2 attempt, because at least we made it halfway through the course before NQ'ing, but I knew it was going to be a bad run when Pongu sat down to do some stress scratching at the start line, and indeed so it was.






Slow, laggy, unfocused. Pretty much the only good thing I can say about this run is that his Sits were mostly in the right place and I might have gotten two nanoseconds of actual attention Heeling at some point. It's not the _worst_ run we've ever turned in, not by a long shot, but it sure ain't much good.

In World Cynosport Rally, you are permitted to feed your dog on the course at certain specified signs. However, time counts for placements, and in the regular classes you can't feed your dog while moving. Therefore, whenever you feed your dog you're losing time, and as a result serious competitors tend not to treat on the course because it slows them down. For that particular run, though, I already knew from the get-go that we were not in contention for placements, so I treated Pongu every time the rules allowed.

You're also allowed to use verbal encouragement on the field and can give your dog simultaneous verbal/signal cues (these have to be given at exactly the same time though, or else you get dinged for repeating cues). Throughout this run I was more or less training on the course -- lots of treats, great big hand signals, etc. -- because Pongu was squeaky and stressy and I already knew we'd be lucky to hobble through the course with a qualifying score at all. It helped a little; he started to perk up more and squeak less as we got further along.

But even a crappy score was not to be. We were wobbling along, not pretty but passing, until Pongu ran past the jump uprights; that's the instant at which we NQ'ed. I sent him back to do it again so that I could treat him for getting it right on the course (we'd already screwed up that run, no reason not to use it as a Teachable Moment for the next one), but he moved forward on the Stay _and_ knocked the bar on his second try, freaking himself out completely.

Welp.

By the end of our third lousy run, I was thoroughly demoralized and on the verge of scratching our remaining runs and going home, because I always have a million other things to do and what is even the point of sticking around just to suck mightily.

But first I took Pongu outside to just sit in the sun with him and walk in the grass and look at the flowers... and take a bunch of deep calming breaths which I needed pretty badly right then.

He seemed to be feeling better after we'd been outside for a while, so I asked him to do some Heeling and some Stay drills, and he executed those beautifully. You can barely see him in the picture below, and that's the point.










He ignored the bugs. He ignored the bees. He ignored the neighbor setting off fireworks or shooting cans in his yard or whatever that guy was out there doing that night.

And he was happy. Happy and snappy and quick.

So we went back in and did the rest of our runs, and this time Pongu was able to work. He pulled high scores in his second set of runs: 209 in Level 1, 208 in Level 2 (taking that godforsaken jump, the continual bane of our existence, perfectly for the first time _ever_ in a trial). We NQ'ed in Level 3 again but at least he did better than he did on his previous try. We'll get it someday.

Overall it wasn't our greatest trial, but it also wasn't our worst. I'm proud of Pongu for taking that Level 2 jump smoothly, since he's _never_ been able to go over a strange jump without massive hesitations before. Normally it looks like the double botch on the video of our Level 3 attempt.

And I'm proud of him for recovering so nicely after a real shaky start. It's a much bigger mid-trial improvement than he's ever pulled off previously.

Progress! And another QQ toward ARCHX. Two to go.


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## Kayos and Havoc (Oct 17, 2002)

This is a thread to follow for sure. I have a dog that is not really fearful, she just takes a long time to acclimate to new places. She is a monster on agility, nice obedience, working well in tracking and herding. 

Extremely intelligent and keen. I really think the combination works against her in that she has difficulty focusing if a bug flies by. 

A training challenge for me and a real exercise in patience.


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## Bear L (Feb 9, 2012)

Hi, I appreciate your post and really connected with it. I've a fearful / weak nerve dog that has improved over time and every success that is normal for a normal dog warms my heart tremendously. I too have come to realize patience is key with these dogs and she'll be ready when she is. She's incredibly brilliant and obedient when she can set her fear / paranoia aside. I am thankful that her fearfulness has taught me so much about dogs - because when you have one, it forces you to learn more!


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## Shade (Feb 20, 2012)

I'm definetely going to subscribe to this thread. Thank you for the encouragement and I wish you all the best in working with Pongu and look forward to more updates


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Kayos and Havoc said:


> A training challenge for me and a real exercise in patience.


Well, like everyone always says, "it makes you a better trainer, it makes you a better trainer, it makes you a better trainer." Sometimes I close my eyes and (semi-)silently chant that to myself as a mantra when I'm clinging to sanity by the ragged edges of my fingernails. I'm still not sure it helps, but at least it's something to say. 

In all seriousness, though, I do think that fear/anxiety is the hardest thing to overcome for a competition dog. (In terms of _training,_ I personally have the most difficulty with a dimwitted dog, which is why Crookytail doesn't even make it to trials anymore. I just get bored too quickly working with him, poor guy. But back when I was trialing with him, he'd Q just fine; his performances were just as good [or bad] in the ring as they were in practice. The jump from class practice to the trial ring was nowhere near as hard for him.)

But with practice and patience (repeat x infinity), and constant reassurance to the dog that yes! you're good at this!, yes! I'm really proud of you!, it does get better.

This is a video from the very first time Pongu and I ever set foot in a Rally ring, which is also the first time either of us had ever done any kind of dog event.






I was absolutely _petrified_ (ring nerves like woah!), and he was too. I actually kind of hate looking at that video because it's so excruciating to relive that experience. The terror just soaks through the screen. I've never been able to make myself watch all the way through in one sitting.

Anyway, that was last August. At that point, my goal was just for Pongu to beat 170 and get a Q. I had no aspirations beyond that, because I didn't want to impose expectations on my little basketcase beyond what he could do. At that point I thought it was an utter miracle that he could even go into the ring and do ANYTHING like a "normal dog."

We earned a 196 on that run (I think the judge was being nice, seeing how scared we both were and knowing it was our first time ever) and placed almost exactly in the middle of the field, to my everlasting astonishment. So I raised my goals to getting our RL1 with an Award of Excellence for all three Qs over 190.

Then we proceeded to NQ twice in a row at the next trial we entered, which was 100% my ring nerves causing us to implode. That was completely and totally my fault, and I learned a painful but valuable lesson about trusting my dog and giving him a chance to do his thing instead of panicking and flailing and bringing us both down. Oh well. Best to learn that lesson early, I guess.

At our third trial Pongu finished his RL1 and got his Award of Excellence and, for the first time, broke 200 and placed in the ribbons (due in no small part to most of the other competitors having advanced out of our class by then, significantly lowering the number of other entries we were up against; it is _not_ that we were an awesome team!). Accomplishing that goal encouraged me to aim a little higher.

And then once again we proceeded to NQ a bunch because Level 2 is the first off-leash level and Pongu got scared by that for a while. Also, Level 2 is when you start encountering jumps in World Cynosport Rally, and Pongu has problems with strange jumps to this day. The jumps at class are no problem, and the jump at home is no problem, but any strange new jump is CLEARLY a horrible dog-eating monster in disguise.

But eventually he got his RL2 with another AOE, and then he got his ARCH, and now we're midway through the ARCHX and well on track to continue racking up the advanced championships. All with a dog that spent his first six weeks in class hiding behind a barrier and shaking uncontrollably.

It's been a bumpy road, and it continues to be bumpy. But the more we practice, the better he gets. Right now, we mostly either score high or NQ completely. There's not much in between. It's either brilliant or disaster.

On a day-to-day basis, it often feels like we aren't getting anywhere, because progress is so incremental and it zigzags back and forth. It's not a straight line up. But then I look back on our first run, and remember how completely over the moon I was that Pongu _EARNED A Q!!_, and it puts things a little more back into perspective. His huge big success then is so much worse than his "failures" now, and we haven't even been doing this a year.

He's a good dog. He puts his whole heart into the work. Every time Pongu goes in there, he's wrestling down a huge monster of fear. And more often than not, these days, he's winning that match.


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## BowWowMeow (May 7, 2007)

Good for you for sticking it out with Pongu and for starting this thread! 

I adopted a fearful gsd at age 4.5. His name was Basu. He was not genetically fearful but had been abused and neglected for 4.5 years. He was severely undersocialized and had spent most of his time locked in a cage in the garage or hiding in a crate in the house. He was let out twice a day into a nice field where he was bullied by the family's other dog. 

Somewhere on this board I've told his story but the short version is that I lived in Madison, WI at the time, was active in gsd rescue and was fortunate enough to be able to attend classes with Basu at Patricia McConnell's training school. He eventually graduated Advanced OB and by the time he was 10 I could leave him in the room with strangers for a minute or two without fear of him biting them. :crazy: He came a long way in the 6.5 years he lived with me and although he was always fear aggressive and had a really short trigger, I learned to predict his behavior and how to manage him and he had a pretty happy life. 

After Basu died I adopted a gsd x acd (best guess) named Kai. Kai's mother was semi-feral and he was genetically fearful. Therefore rehabbing him was a completely different game than rehabbing Basu! He was more like your Pongu--one day (out of the blue) the eating area chandelier was the scariest thing in the world and he started crawling to get into the kitchen. :help: I had to be super creative with his training because he really wasn't that predictable. He was super smart though and so devoted and willing to work with me. I lost him in an accident when he was a year old but the 7 months we spent together were quite a learning experience for me! 

I look forward to hearing more about your adventures with Pongu!


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## sitstay (Jan 20, 2003)

This is a great thread! I will be following it closely. Some of Pongu's behaviors remind me so much of my Tanner. Tanner's triggers are different, and his stress relievers of choice are to have explosive diarrhea in the ring and to launch a preemptive strike against the dog outside the ring who might look at him at some point.
Sheilah


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Oof, explosive diarrhea is no fun. Pongu did that the first time I took him to a groomer, with bonus bloody streaks mixed in. He's never done it in a trial ring, though. I don't think I'd ever have the courage to go back if he did!

Also: thanks, everybody, for your responses and support. 

I really recommend World Cynosport Rally and CDSP obedience as great venues for trialing fearful dogs. Both of them allow verbal praise, touch rewards, and the use of treats in the ring. The rules are structured so that you're put at a competitive disadvantage by stopping to pet or feed your dog, so people who don't need to use rewards do get a boost, but those of us with fearful dogs are able to reinforce our little scaredybutts for scraping together the courage to even go in there.

With Pongu, I'm not rewarding him for doing the behaviors. He _knows_ how to do the behaviors. What I'm rewarding him for -- and I think this is key with a fearful dog -- is _going into a trial ring_. Just setting foot in there and not immediately freaking out and fleeing. That's what he's earning treats for: being brave.

It helps a LOT to be able to reward your fearful dog in the ring. Even if Pongu could tolerate the Stand for Exam (which he can't, otherwise we'd be trialing in CDSP too), the limited voice reinforcement permitted in an AKC obedience ring would probably cause him to melt down hard in there and come to view the obedience ring as a Very Bad Place. In venues where I can constantly tell him he's a Good Dog, that issue is mitigated, and while I don't have to do it nearly so much anymore, I relied on that _very_ heavily when we were first getting started.

So I really, really recommend those particular venues to people who are looking for something they can do with a dog who needs a whole lot of hand-holding to not totally collapse into a puddle of panic.


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

It looks like you are doing a great job with him. Some dogs are ummm... "challenging". My Ilka is not a fearful dog, but she is highly reactive, and tends to shut me out when stressed. We managed to get her AKC Beginner Novice and Rally Excellent title, plus two legs of her CD. I can recall all too well our first four scores in Rally Advanced. They were Excused, Excused, Excused, and NQ.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Thanks! 

Pongu does make me proud. Trialing is so hard for him sometimes, but he does his best. Sometimes there's a moment right before we step up to the start line where he looks at me and smiles and there's this glorious shining trust and happiness in his eyes, like he's thinking "let's go out there and show 'em what we've got!"

I got several of those moments yesterday when we were competing at the Positive Motivation training center in Washington NJ. It's a smallish venue, with only a single ring and no crating space inside, but it's nice. Importantly for scaredybutt dog, its air conditioning system is very quiet! We had good runs and flawed runs, but I got some happy start line smiles from Pongu, and that makes me pretty content with our experience overall.

This was our first visit to this particular facility, and it turns out that GPS tends to malfunction on the way there because if you're approaching from the south (as we were), at some points it's equidistant between two routes and so a lot of GPS systems, including ours, will glitch and send you one way, then the other way, then the first way, etc., back and forth in giant circles of frustration. Apparently there's actually a warning about this on the club's website, but I didn't think to look at that before we left.

As a result, we were _really_ late to the trial and missed the entirety of the first Level 1 run. I arrived just as they were getting ready to break down the course. Incredibly, the judge graciously agreed to hold off long enough to let us run it RIGHT AWAY.

So I ran back across the parking lot to grab Pongu and ran straight back to the club and we did the Level 1 course blind and cold. I had NO idea what was on the course, hadn't seen anyone else run it, didn't have time to glance at a course map. We did the whole thing with Pongu straight out of the car and me struggling to catch my breath after running from parking lot to club to parking lot back to club.

Pongu's not a dog you can run cold in an unfamiliar venue and expect to get good results. He held up very well, though, and we finished with a score of 198. Not stellar, but under the circumstances I can't complain -- I was just so grateful they let us run at all!

The rest of the trial we bounced back and forth between decent scores and NQs. This was a big trial, with almost 50 teams entered, and the competitors included a couple of AKC obedience judges, the training club's owner (who also literally wrote the book on APDT Rally), one of our Rally instructors, and the #1 worldwide Rally team from 2012. It was pretty stiff competition and Pongu had never even set foot in the venue before, so I'm pretty thrilled that we did as well as we did.

We placed in the ribbons in two out of our four qualifying runs, got another QQ toward ARCHX (one to go!), and _finally_ picked up our first Level 3 Q after about a bajillion failed attempts. That was both satisfying (FINALLY!!) and a little frustrating, because it just went to show that Pongu can do great... when he doesn't make his fatal NQ mistakes.

On our Level 3 run, we lost 3 points for a re-cued jump (same problem as always: Pongu sees strange jump, gets nervous that it's a monster, hesitates and has to be re-cued), but otherwise it was clean, for a final score of 207 and a second place finish. (The first place finish went to the club's owner and Rally author, who scored a perfect 210 with her beautifully precise Sheltie. They were AMAZING, and I am pretty okay with coming in second to that team!)










No videos from this competition, but there was a pro photographer taking pictures of various teams doing their runs, so hopefully I'll be able to buy some good shots when he posts them on his website. I don't have any pro-quality pictures of Pongu working, and I'd love to get some -- if by some miracle the photographer was able to catch me looking anything but completely goofy.

Our next trial is likely to be in a difficult venue for Pongu, but we'll give it our best shot. He's within striking distances of quite a few titles right now, and that always tempts me to push harder.


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

Congrats on the Q's, and good luck in your upcoming trial.

I retired Ilka from competition back in January. She had reached the point to where she couldn't be trusted on the stays.Now, she does lure coursing, which she absolutely LOVES. GSD Leontine is going to be my competition dog from now on.


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## blackshep (Aug 3, 2012)

What a great thread! 

Congrats on your accomplishments so far, and it's wonderful that you have persevered with your dog despite what probably seemed like an insurmountable obstacle.

I have a reactive dog, but she love so much to work. My new love is flyball and she loves it too, but seeing other dogs working makes her completely melt down. I have wonderful teammates who are experienced dog handlers who still think she can overcome her issues.

Myself, I'm not so sure. But we keep working at it, and at the very least, if she just practices on her own and enjoys it, then so be it. I hope we can do more, but we'll have to see.

But thanks for sharing your story, your stick-to-it-iveness is really inspiring. Maybe I need to have more faith in my dog and her ability to get this issue of hers under control. I don't think it will go away completely, but hopefully we can get her focused enough on her job that she can still do it and have fun.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

blackshep said:


> Maybe I need to have more faith in my dog and her ability to get this issue of hers under control. I don't think it will go away completely, but hopefully we can get her focused enough on her job that she can still do it and have fun.


Give her a chance -- and a lot of patience and love and understanding. She might surprise you. 

When I started on this road with Pongu, and even still today, I decided that it's acceptable for him to tell me "I can't do this." That's okay. He has boundaries and limits and a lot of things he just can't do. His refusal is a message I will respect. Refusing to listen to my dog runs the risk of setting us back hard and undoing a lot of painstakingly earned progress.

So he's allowed to tell me when he can't do things.

But, if it's anything that it will EVER be remotely reasonable for him to achieve, I will always take that answer to mean "I can't do this _right now_." Because we are gonna come right back and try it again in our next training session, or maybe tomorrow, or maybe a week or a month or a year down the road. Giving up completely is not allowed.

I accept that my dog has limits, but I choose to believe the ceiling is set in rubber, not stone. We can push it up. It might take a lot of work -- and the higher we go, the harder it's likely to become -- but I can push _real_ hard when I want to. And even if I'm wrong and deluding myself, so what? Stone moves too, eventually, if you push it long enough.

I don't know if you're already familiar with the Team Unruly blog, but one of the bloggers there has a (formerly) reactive pit bull that she pushed to an exceptional career. This dog would go so berserk at the sight of other dogs that she would literally vomit with rage. She ended up being a rock-solid, nationally ranked competition dog. I found her story incredibly inspiring when I was starting out with Pongu, so I'll share it here in case you find it worthwhile too: You only get one Novice A dog: In praise of Luce. | Team Unruly

And this post, too, is one that I often reread: Normal Ain’t Easy: How My Dog Got Her CGC | Team Unruly

Because it's so, so true. For a lot of our dogs, normal _ain't_ easy.

But it's worth trying for.


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## blackshep (Aug 3, 2012)

Thanks for the links, I'll definitely give them a read.

Yes, it can be quite disheartening. There are moments in time that I feel very sorry for myself and want to give up  , but then you have to tell yourself that that is not an option and we just keep going and keep doing things. 

We might have some limitations, and I think I'm struggling to find ways to push her current limits, without her totally melting down. It's a really fine line and it's always in flux depending on her mood and the environment at any given moment.

She does surprise me sometimes. Sounds dumb, but she was horrible for jumping and muzzle punching me in the face when she was excited. I thought she'd never learn to quit doing that, but somehow, one day it stopped. I don't know if it finally clicked or what, but every so often I realize something just got a whole lot better, almost overnight.

So it goes to show you, you just never know when you'll have a breakthrough!


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Well, Pongu surprised me! I expected yesterday's trial to be quite challenging for him -- we were back at BVTC again, with the same old fans and flies and a bonus added distraction of a large, noisy fireworks show at the kids' camp on the other side of the hill -- but, while he was clearly distracted and off his game for the early runs, he held it together well enough to Q in 5 out of his 6 entered runs.

I figured we might be off to a shaky start when Pongu got distracted chasing flies and bees as we were waiting outside the ring to start our first run of the evening. He actually caught a big slow bumblebee and bit down on it, then spat it out really quickly -- not sure if he got stung or not, but he sure seemed shocked by whatever he'd bitten into! But once we got into the ring we made it through with just a few wobbles. We got dinged for some crooked Sits, lagging and wide turns when Heeling, and one pop-up during position changes, but nothing too awful.

And after that, it was relatively smooth sailing. Pongu NQ'ed one Level 3 run on a broken Stay, but all his other Stays and jumps were perfect; our drills are paying off! He took some really difficult, crooked jump entries that were 100% the result of my faulty handling. We don't do agility, so I never learned to get good at cueing jumps. I've tried to compensate for that by drilling Pongu on all conceivable crookedy jump entries in our practices and letting him figure out how to take each jump at his own discretion, and it seems like that paid off.

He even fell for a booby trap on the second Level 3 run: at one point the course had the dog heeling right up to a jump, then veering to the right at the last second instead of taking the jump. Pongu, like several other dogs, fell for the trick and took the jump when he wasn't supposed to, so we lost points on that. But given his history of fearing trial jumps, I am _thrilled_ to have that mistake on our scoresheet.

At the end of the day, Pongu earned all three championship titles that we were eligible to take, becoming one of fewer than 100 mixed-breed dogs _ever_ to earn the ARCHX (Rally Champion Excellent) title. To be precise, Pongu is muttpuppy #97 to earn an ARCHX.










He also took home his RL1X2 and RL2X championships, earned another Level 3 Q with a score of 206 (first place!), _and_ earned a perfect 210 in his last Level 1 run of the night (first place again!). Not counting the NQ, his lowest score of the night was a 204.

Once we got our ARCHX, which was my big goal for the evening, I cracked open a smuggled airplane bottle of rum and mixed myself a celebratory cocktail on the sidelines. We earned both of our first-place finishes after that. Clearly alcohol improves my ability to run Rally courses.

So, woooo!! good job, nerd puppy!!

The ARCHX is probably the last major title we'll earn this year. The next one is the ARCHEX, which requires 10 QQs of 195 or better in Levels 2B and 3B. Given our continuing difficulties with earning consistent Qs in the higher levels, and the fact that we're not even _in_ 3B yet, it's probable that we won't get the 10 necessary QQs until early 2014.

But Pongu has a good chance of earning a national ranking in his division for this year (in his first full year of competition!!), so I can't be too sad about that. My little crazypants is out there competing like a real dog. I am so, so proud of him.


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

Congratulations. 


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Thanks!

A day later, I'm still over the moon with happiness that my little goofball did so well.

These will be memories to cherish as consolation during the long, arduous haul of racking up QQs for ARCHEX.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Awesome! And Congradulations!

What a testement about accepting the dog that you have, not the dog that you envisioned yourself having, and finding his strengths and pushing the envelope only so much that the dog is still enjoying himself despite his insecurity.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Back then I didn't know nearly enough to even have a vision of the dog I was going to get. So, hey, at least I didn't know enough to be honestly disappointed. 

Anyway, dusting off this thread just long enough to add a quick picture of our title certificates, since the ones from several months ago finally arrived. WCRL says they'll be updating title calculations more regularly starting next month, so hopefully we won't have to wait as long for the rest.










I think I liked the APDT certificate design better, but I'm just happy to have them no matter WHAT they look like.

Our competition schedule will probably drop off dramatically for the next couple of months as I'll be scrambling to make book deadlines and won't have much time to spend at Rally trials (last time I'm ever making that mistake when accepting contracts...). But come October, we'll be hitting everything in range again.


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## Magwart (Jul 8, 2012)

What you have accomplished together as a team is so impressive! You are wonderful for having such patience and love for your dog. Kudos!


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

In a possibly horrible moment of hubris, I'm registering Pongu for CDSP obedience today.

Yesterday in class, while we were waiting on the sidelines to do our run-through, I had him do the Beginner Novice Sit for Exam (where the dog Sits, handler goes to the end of the leash, judge just touches the dog once lightly on the top of the head). It wasn't really in a trial environment and one of my friends, whom Pongu has been seeing at Rally trials for months, served as the "judge," so it was a real easy version of an exercise that's only at the Beginner Novice level anyway.

But _Pongu didn't move_. He held his Sit-Stay and let somebody touch him. Only once, lightly, on the top of the head, but still. That is HUGE for this dog. For years he has completely freaked out if anybody even looked at him. Barky-lungy-woowoowoo panic attack. He failed his CGC test spectacularly (and I do mean "spectacularly" -- the spectators were _real_ impressed) because of the "accept petting from a stranger" issue.

I wrote off competition obedience completely for Pongu because, as I said in the very first post in this thread, I figured he'd never in a million years be able to do the Novice Stand for Exam. And the Utility version? Pfft, he has a better chance at learning how to drive a car.

But he let a (familiar) person touch him (once, on the head) and didn't break his (Sit-)Stay, so that's good enough for me, I'm going for it.

As a bonus, Pongu completely _hates_ retrieving his dumbbell. We have to use a ridiculously oversized Great Dane dumbbell because he can't stand the bells touching his whiskers. Even that one he barely tolerates.

In World Cynosport Rally, you can retrieve whatever article you want, so I either have Pongu retrieve a rubber ball (if we have a serious judge) or a little airplane-sized bottle of tequila (if the judge has a sense of humor). We never use the dumbbell in competition because I know we're going to lose at least 3 points and probably more if I try with that article.

In obedience, obviously, there's no flex. It's the dumbbell or nothing. So that'll be a fun additional hurdle if we ever make it to Open.

I'm still doing it, though. In CDSP, not AKC, because (a) I don't have the mental fortitude to run a mutt in AKC right now, given the number of psycho meltdown NQs we're likely to rack up while doing this; and (b) I have a weird superstition about taking my AKC Novice A dog All The Way, and I know that Pongu's not going to go All The Way. He'll probably top out with a CD, maaaaybe a CDX if I'm lucky. So I don't want to spoil my pristine Novice A qualification by putting a CD on Pongu in AKC obedience, because I'm loony like that. Next dog is going to be the Novice A dog.

So anyway we're entering our first CDSP obedience trial in November and I'm sure I'll have lots of fun crash-and-burn stories to tell then. YEAAAH.


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## Kaimeju (Feb 2, 2013)

The plot thickens! I can't wait to see how you do. Tune in next time for the amazing adventures of Pongu the Insane(ly Awesome)!


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Jotting down some miscellaneous notes...

-- I think I broke Pongu's jump exercises in class yesterday. We were using a new jump, and this one had a STRIPEY BAR, so of course _that's_ terrifying (  ) and Pongu froze up while jumping it. Our instructor had him jumping full height, which is not normally an issue ("full height" in World Cynosport is only 16" and, even gimpy-legged as he is, Pongu can jump a foot higher than that without too much trouble), but because he froze up, he knocked the bar and freaked himself out and that was it, bam, 100% jump refusals and run-outs for the rest of the night. Even when we lowered the bar to 8", he was _not_ going over that jump again.

I'm sure I can fix this in a couple of weeks, but we don't have a couple of weeks. Our next trial is on Sunday. I'll do what I can today and tomorrow, but I anticipate that his jumps are gonna be a disaster at the trial.

Blargh. We were doing a lot better on broken Stays and jump refusals up until last night, and I had really hoped to finish Pongu's RL3 this weekend because this venue has extra nice title ribbons, but it looks like I'll be going back and fixing those again for September.

Oh well. I'll pack my collapsible bar jump and try to warm up in the parking lot before our run, and then we'll do however we do. Not like NQs are anything new or unexpected.

-- A couple of days ago I bought Pongu a new dumbbell (I'm still somehow optimistic that eventually I will find the perfect magic dumbbell that dopeypants can stand to carry, and then we'll be able to trial in CDSP Open, because the retrieves are going to be our big problem there). He seems to like this one much better than any other dumbbell I've tried. I guess this wood tastes less bad than the other wood/plastic, or something.

I broke his dumbbell retrieve last weekend by pushing too far too fast. It was crappy anyway (Pongu's retrieves have _always_ been crappy), so I should have seen this coming, but I got greedy and tried to assemble the pieces of the exercise into the full version before Pongu was ready to put them together like that. Since I got ahead of myself, I broke the whole stupid exercise. Oops.

But it's coming back together with the new dumbbell (we even started the Retrieve Over High Jump this morning! granted the "high jump" is set to 4" right now, but _he still did it_), so I'm pretty optimistic about being ready to trial in Open next year. Provided we pass Novice this year, obv.

-- Did a full-on Novice Stand for Exam in class yesterday and Pongu was _perfect_. Didn't move a paw on his Stand. Twice! I'm feeling pretty good about passing Novice in November and might enter a trial in late October to get a couple of extra shots at earning our C-CD this year.

So, overall: short-term prognosis probably lousy, but long-term outlook much better than I expected at the beginning of this year. I am actually beginning to entertain delusions of going All The Way in CDSP.

If Pongu can get his tolerance up for the SFE and learn to do a proper retrieve, both of which are beginning to happen!, then there's really nothing else stopping me from gunning for a C-OTCH. It's still probably a two- to three-year project, but that's fine. I read the other day that it usually takes _normal_ dogs two to three years to train up to a UD, so looking at it that way, we're actually not that far behind.


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## LifeofRiley (Oct 20, 2011)

I really enjoy reading about your adventures with Pongu! Best of luck this Sunday! Keep us posted on how it turns out : )


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## Magwart (Jul 8, 2012)

Sending good thoughts your way for Sunday. 

The thing I cherish about you and Pongu, though, is that even if he disappoints, you'll never let him know it and will love him anyway. He's a very lucky dog to be so loved -- and I'm very sure he knows it.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Thanks for the well-wishes! I do love him, hopeless dingbat that he is.

I insult Pongu mercilessly throughout our practice runs. I tell him that his brain is full of radioactive spiders and every time he coughs on a treat (which he does a lot, because when he gets stressy, he tries to gulp them too fast) I say "GOOD, if you choke to death I can get a dog who isn't crazy." But he knows I don't mean it. It's like in Jack London's Call of the Wild, where Buck's last owner just calls him the worst names constantly and that is what passes for their terms of endearment.

But yeah, I love my little guy. When we have hugs on the couch, he curls up next to me and fits his head perfectly under my chin and it is just <3 <3 <3 to infinity.


Here's a quick (not) funny story: The week after Pongu's triple championship trial, I went to the shelter that he came from so that I could give them one of his championship ribbons, because I know if somebody who adopted one of _my_ dogs helped him win a bunch of stuff, _I_ would definitely want to know. I keep in touch with all my adopters on Facebook and I LOVE knowing what my former fosters are doing. It's fun! It's rewarding! It makes me feel really good to know they got to "happily ever after." Yay, that's the part that makes all the pee mopping worthwhile.

I mean even while I was writing this post, I got an email from my rescue group saying that we have to take back one of our dogs because the adopter has been beating the dog with a stick for not wanting to take baths. How do we know this? He called in a frothy rage to yell about it. The guy has had this dog for 8 or 9 months and I don't even want to think about what kind of rehab case we're gonna have to deal with once we get the dog back. You NEED good stories to get you over the ones like that.

However, this is apparently not a sentiment that everyone shares. There is this one really unpleasant staffer at that shelter who has been mean to me every time I've been in there, both when I adopted Pongu and every time I stop by to update them on what he's been up to. Somehow she never remembers me (??? I brag a _lot_), but it's pretty hard to forget her. She's one of those people whose face is permanently locked into a frown. Like I think she probably sucks down a bottle of Bitter Apple instead of coffee every morning to get her in the right mood for the rest of the day. That kind of person.

ANYWAY so I'm in there trying to find the (now ex-)adoption director, who is a really awesome person and shares my pride about Pongu, and it turns out she's on vacation that week so I have to deal with Bitter Apple Lady. Spiffy. So I tell her about how Pongu has all these championships and he is a Very Special Dog and bla bla he's so great bla bla, and then she cuts me off with the hugest, nastiest frown and goes "IS THIS DOG FROM OUR SHELTER?!"

like what

WHAT

no, lady, I just stopped by to brag about some totally unrelated dog who has never set foot in your shelter. And why would you remember Pongu anyway, he's only the ONLY TITLED DOG YOU EVER PRODUCED. 

I don't have a point to this story (and the ribbon eventually made its way to the person that I wanted to have it, so that's good) except that I wanted to vent that one unpleasant person on the planet Earth did not appreciate what an awesome dog I have, and in my distorted world that is a thing worthy of all-caps outrage. I think what made me maddest about the whole incident was her tone of accusatory disbelief, like NO WAY would a dog from their shelter ever win anything.

Whatever. The end, good post!


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## JakodaCD OA (May 14, 2000)

don't ya just love stupid people like that? NOT!

Pongu is the type of dog that will teach you so much. I think we learn so much more from dogs that have 'problems' than our easy trainers ..

Good luck to you both this weekend!


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

Merciel said:


> --------------I'm still doing it, though. In CDSP, not AKC, because (a) I don't have the mental fortitude to run a mutt in AKC right now, given the number of psycho meltdown NQs we're likely to rack up while doing this; and (b) I have a weird superstition about taking my AKC Novice A dog All The Way, and I know that Pongu's not going to go All The Way. He'll probably top out with a CD, maaaaybe a CDX if I'm lucky. So I don't want to spoil my pristine Novice A qualification by putting a CD on Pongu in AKC obedience, because I'm loony like that. Next dog is going to be the Novice A dog.


After trialing Ilka something like a dozen times in Novice A, I am still eligible to show Leo in it, because we only got two legs.  Anyway, it takes either courage or insanity (or possibly both) to take reactive and/or fearful dog, be it purebred or mix, into the AKC ring. This was Ilka's last (and ironically, best ever) individual exercises at a trial. 



 She had a Q going until she broke the Sit Stay.  Even though I was terribly disappointed to not retire her with a CD, I had a lot of fun with her. 

I've thought about doing the new "Pre" classes with her, because there are no group exercises, but she _hated_ trialing, so we are sticking with CATs and Tracking. I've kind of got my sights on first ever All American CT.  Not holding my breath for it, but hoping.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Aw, poor Ilka. I know that stressy face all too well! I hope she likes tracking better.

Pongu would (probably) be fine in Novice for AKC, I think. The out-of-sight Stays in Open would kill him though. CDSP doesn't have that one, which makes it a lot more feasible for us.

My plan is to trial Pongu in AKC when Imaginary Future Puppy is ready to start showing in that venue (so probably, oh, 2018 or so?). They can both be my Novice A dogs if I start them at the same time, and that will symbolically capture an essential truth. Or something. I dunno.

I started screwing around with the foundations for his Retrieve Over High Jump yesterday:






Right now I'm just throwing easy fun stuff (balls, stuffed toys) over an 8" jump blocked off by other stuff so that Pongu can develop his confidence and fluency with the notion of taking a jump with something in his mouth, which is something he's never done before. Once he gets to the point of loving the Big Fun Game then I'll start shaping it toward the actual exercise. For Pongu especially, the most critical foundations are emotional, not physical.

It's going pretty well. I'm always delighted when I can get him to enjoy the work. Yesterday, after we did a few rounds with the jump, we moved on to some Heeling. No treats or toys, just heeling games for about five to seven straight minutes. Pongu was having SO MUCH FUN and didn't want to quit, and that made me really happy.

The way I figure, these are all just silly games we play in the ring. What's the point if it's not, at least sometimes!, _fun?_


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Well, today's trial managed to be even more underwhelming than I expected. I'm pretty frustrated at the moment, and it's absolutely not fair but I can't help it.

After Pongu knocked the bar in class on Thursday and decided that he was going to be afraid of jumps again, I spent Friday and Saturday attempting to fix the issue. I strung up Crookytail's sparkly birthday hat on the bar of my jump, and impaled a zombie toy on one of the support poles, to make the whole thing Extra Scary. Then I took it out to a public park so I could add on a little more stress.










The goal of this exercise was to be able to reinforce Pongu heavily for taking Scary Jumps. He is not afraid of the bar jump normally, but by adding all those bells and whistles and putting it out on a heavily trafficked area, I was able to get the same level of resistance and hesitation that he had been showing in class. So: great! We worked on that a bunch and drew a crowd of gawkers (naturally, the time I'm intentionally setting Pongu up to push his limits is when we get our biggest crowd ever. Good thing I have no dignity anyway).

Of course, two days is not nearly enough time to fix a broken exercise, but I hoped that crazypants dog wasn't going to be _that_ crazy, since he had gotten a lot better about jumps before the bar-knocking incident.

I also brought the bar jump to the trial and set it up in the parking lot with varying configurations of towels and bags, etc., to make it look less familiar.










Again, initial hesitation (yay!) that I was eventually able to push to good, clean jumps with no hesitation (yay!). By mid-afternoon he was hitting that bar jump no matter where I put it or what I put on it.

Sadly this did not carry over to the trial environment AT ALL.

Today's trial was hosted by our training club and drew a lot of really good competitors. Lots of obedience-line Labs and Border Collies, quite a few excellent Cocker Spaniels and Poodles as well. Probably close to a third of the people entered in today's trials were nationally ranked in either 2011 or 2012 (or, in at least one case, both years). It was a full trial, so we had 50 teams entered (they capped entries at 50).

In light of this, I _should_ be proud that Pongu took home the ribbon for High Rescue Dog (an optional award only offered at this venue) and placed 3rd and 5th in two out of his four qualifying runs. I _should_ be proud that his low score of the day was 203, and he racked up a pretty decent tally of championship points.

But I'm not, because we NQ'ed both of our Level 3 runs on jump refusals and lost a _bunch_ of points in Level 2 on re-cued jumps. If Pongu had had his head in the game, and I hadn't had to recue him two or three times on every single jump today, we wouldn't have scored below 209 on any of our runs and we would have hit the ribbons every time.

In everything but the jumps, he was close to perfect. No broken Stays. No crooked Sits. We got a few dings for lagging (the Fast Forward from Sit cost us a point every time, which is my fault for not practicing that one enough) and Pongu had some other heeling glitches in his first run of the morning, but those issues were practically negligible and I would have taken them happily if only, IF ONLY, he had done his stupid jumps.

aaaarrrggghhh

What's most frustrating is that we're going to have variations on this problem forever. Pongu just has a brain full of spiders. He will always have a brain full of spiders. I am never going to be able to make my insane pound dog become not-crazy. It is not his fault. It is nobody's fault, except maybe for whatever idiot let his parents breed in the first place. But it is still awfully frustrating some days, and today was one of those days.

I let Crookytail pose with the ribbons when we got home today because I was so annoyed with Pongu.










So we are going to take a step back and spend some time fixing this again, and next time we'll do better (I hope. Fervently).

But today I find myself wishing I had a competition dog who could face a simple, basic #$*(&#$ BAR JUMP without melting down. Oh, how I wish for one of those.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

A day later, my mood is considerably improved. Pongu and I had nice hugs and slept all snuggled up on the couch together and everything is good and we are back to being determined to do better next time. (Also, I tried doing some heelwork with Crookytail just to re-convince myself that I am competing with the right dog. I am definitely competing with the right dog.)

I think I'm going to go ahead and drop $250 on a new and improved set of practice jumps. I suspect part of the reason our practice sessions aren't carrying over as well as they should is that our little collapsible bar jump is not even 3' across and the standard competition jumps are 5' across. They look very different and I think Pongu finds the bigger jumps more intimidating, even though the height is the same.

So OBVIOUSLY the solution is to clutter up the condo with even more dog training junk, because we _definitely_ have spare storage space for _that_. (Did I mention I bought a set of Utility articles last week? Well I did, because I am a sad, sad person with sad, sad delusions. That and I figure I can always use them for Imaginary Future Dog when Pongu inevitably bombs out in Open.) I'm totally not going to feel stupid lugging around a ginormous set of vinyl practice jumps to practice in random parks, either. Hooray for living in the city with no yard!!

Also, I got Pongu's CDSP registration number this morning and I'm signing him up for a couple of trials in November because I am a not-very-bright glutton for punishment. I might as well enter the October CDSP trial too, really, since I don't particularly want to do the Rally trial that overlaps with it (entries at that trial are always insanely high and the event takes 12 hours to get through, not counting driving time). It's being hosted by a training club we've never visited before, so that'll be extra fun.

So that's where we are today. We've got about a month before our next competition. By then, maybe we'll be over this setback.


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

I have a set of 4'wide PractiJumps from J&J. It has the high jump, bar jump and broad jump, and only weighs about 50 odd pounds, all together. It was worth the investment, IMO. And I have also been known to tote them around to various parks about town.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Oh good, I'm so glad to know someone else has them! That's the exact set I was looking at. I looked at several other models too, but that one seems to strike the best balance between resembling what we (usually) see in actual competition and being something I can actually lug around. I am not a big person and downright wimpy when it comes to carrying things.

Do you feel like it carried over well from practice to competition?


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

I think it definitely helped. I'm not sure about the rules in the organizations you compete in, but in AKC, Rally uses the same flat white jumps as obedience, and can use any of the three jumps in Advanced and Excellent. 

They are pretty easy to use. The only real "complaint" I have is that it can be a bit of a pain to adjust the height of the bar and high jumps, because you have to unscrew the wing nuts off the bolts, put the bolts in the new holes, and put the wing nuts back on. Other than that, it's really just a matter of remembering which standards are for the bar jump, and which standards are for the high jump. 

Like I said the whole shooting works weighs in at about 50-55 pounds, and even I can carry them. However, you can always leave the ones you aren't using at home. They're also easy to clean, just hose them off.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

World Cynosport only has the bar jump, not the high jump or the broad jump. It's designed to be friendly to disabled dogs, so all the exercises are built around the bar jump, as that's the most easily adjusted for an arthritic or HD-suffering dog who needs a lower height.

However, I'm looking at buying the whole three-jump set anyway because CDSP _does_ have all three jumps and I'm also looking at this as a long-term investment. I'd like to be able to reuse all the same stuff with Imaginary Future Puppy, and Imaginary Future Puppy's gonna be doing a whole lot of AKC.


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## Gwenhwyfair (Jul 27, 2010)

Whaaa.....?!

But that is scary! 

Poor Pongu.  

(just reading through some of this thread now.  Keep on truckin' your "reward dog" will come soon....)




Merciel said:


> Well, today's trial managed to be even more underwhelming than I expected. I'm pretty frustrated at the moment, and it's absolutely not fair but I can't help it.
> 
> After Pongu knocked the bar in class on Thursday and decided that he was going to be afraid of jumps again, I spent Friday and Saturday attempting to fix the issue. I strung up Crookytail's sparkly birthday hat on the bar of my jump, *and impaled a zombie toy on one of the support poles*, to make the whole thing Extra Scary. Then I took it out to a public park so I could add on a little more stress.
> 
> .


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Gwenhwyfair said:


> Keep on truckin' your "reward dog" will come soon....


Pssh, Pongu's already my reward dog. 

It truly is a great gift to have a dog as dedicated as he is. He is so in tune with me that when we're sleeping, we often sigh out deep breaths at the same time. If I move a little bit on the couch, he always scoots in to smoosh every possible inch against me.

Sometimes I doubt I'll ever recapture that same connection with another dog. I don't have it with Crookytail; I don't have anything close to it. There is love, but it's not the same kind of love. My heart doesn't stop at the thought of losing Crookytail someday.

Other times I feel like the real heart-of-hearts reason I want another dog is so that I can have _more_ of that same connection. I have used this analogy before, but Pongu's fear is like static on the line, interrupting the clarity of the connection we share. Sometimes it comes through clear and true, other times it's completely lost. Most of the time it's somewhere in between -- we get fits and starts, but it's rarely smooth. Almost all the work I do with him is ultimately about trying to eliminate that "static" from the line... and we have come a long, long way, but I don't know that it'll ever be really gone, and some days I think: if only I had a dog with this much intelligence and heart but only a little more _courage,_ what could we do then!

And then I feel bad and ungrateful, you know? Because I _have_ a dog who's giving me everything he's got, and for all his handicaps he's accomplished more than all but a tiny fraction of more genetically blessed dogs in the world, and... that's not enough? I can't be happy with that?

Lots of guilt, lots of indecision. This is not a new dilemma for me. I've been wrestling with it for a long time. I'll struggle with it for another couple of years, if not more.

The only thing I know for sure right now is that I'll take Pongu as far as he can go before I bring a new puppy home.


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## Gwenhwyfair (Jul 27, 2010)

I've had plenty of 'if only's' over the years too (with animals and ex-husband too LOL!).

I am in a similar position with Ilda in a way, but with her it's physical, her hips. I can't progress like I wanted to in IPO. 

I won't ever get rid of her, but I do hope (as you and I have chatted about) to get a dog that can go the places with me that I want to go. I'm already having some problems with my knees and back (due to saving a pongu version of a horse btw!...) and my time is limited.

Now I have one heck-uva a bond with Ilda, deeper then my Smitty dog who has been with me much longer and I doubt a new dog will bond with me like Ilda has. 

Still I won't feel bad or like I'm giving up on her, she will still be my girl, my wild-child, I'll still do things with her that she is capable of.

For this reason I don't feel guilty about looking for another dog. I don't think you should either. Pongu is happy being YOUR dog, whether you are playing with him in the yard, taking him for walks or napping with him on the couch. So if you did retire or semi retire him but kept him active in other ways he'd be happy ..... so you know my friend, that guilt is not his....

I say this with humility and kindness, just so you know, I'm few clicks further down the path then you and hope sharing my experience helps you clear some of the indecision and guilt you speak of.  



Merciel said:


> Pssh, Pongu's already my reward dog.
> 
> It truly is a great gift to have a dog as dedicated as he is. He is so in tune with me that when we're sleeping, we often sigh out deep breaths at the same time. If I move a little bit on the couch, he always scoots in to smoosh every possible inch against me.
> 
> ...


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

I think you're right and, as usual, very sensible.

But I'm still a little guilty about it. I won't pretend it's a unique situation by any means -- I would guess that a whole lot of people who start out with a not-completely-perfect first dog and aim higher with their next one feel something similar.

Part of what gets me over the hump is that I think Pongu only loves competition about half the time. Half the time we go into the ring, he is blazing to go. The other half of the time, he doesn't particularly want to be there. Sometimes he _really_ doesn't want to be there (as in our last trial, especially the Level 3 runs with the Scary Jump).

So I think he'll take to retirement okay, really, especially a few years from now when he's older. He has crap structure and I expect he'll slow down faster than a strong dog would. And he'll always be my first dog, he'll always have that.

Ah well. I'll worry about it in a year or three. I'm still on this road for now.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

The new jump set is here! I set up the bar jump yesterday. I haven't assembled the others yet because we're nowhere near being ready to train for a CDX. I'll worry about that later -- I don't need any extra frustration when it comes to scaredybutt dog and jumps right now.

Pongu ran out of the living room and wouldn't come back for probably 20 minutes when I first set up the jump and put it there for the dogs to sniff. Crookytail, being a _normal_ dog, had absolutely no problem with it. He was happy to do easy 8" hops in exchange for loads and loads of ostentatious cookies and praise while Pongu lurked suspiciously in the background, poking his head around the doorjamb and squinting at the jump.

After about 40 minutes I coaxed Pongu into doing a stupid 8" hop, after which I had no more patience for dealing with his brain malfunctions. So that's as far as we got the first session. The bright side is that if he's this big a weenie about the new jump, maybe it'll carry over to trials better once he gets over it.

Later I took it out to the dog park and did some easy practice drills at 12" and 14". It went okay although I got poopyfooted on both shoes. Thanks, people who don't pick up! But still, small price to pay.

Then today I took it out to a city park and practiced some more. Today we got the bar up to 16", which is Pongu's regular jump height for World Cynosport. In CDSP he'll be jumping 24" (I think, maybe it's 26") so eventually we will train for that height, but I'm trying to move as slowly as my limited patience allows.










It went pretty well. The other areas of the park were being heavily used, so lots of distractions, but Pongu still managed to do his (easy) drills with zero bar knocks. Little bit of hesitation and some broken Stays while I was setting him up for directed jumps and recalls over the jump, but he did the actual jump every time. For a proofing session with kids playing tennis and kicking soccer balls all around him, I'll take it.

I also got our Utility articles:










I am pretty sure that Utility is going to prove a complete failure with Pongu, but I'm going to try and train the exercises anyway if only in the hopes of making fewer mistakes with Imaginary Future Puppy.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

We have returned... more or less triumphant from our one scheduled trial in September.










This was a small, laid-back trial, which I was happy about because Pongu TOTALLY SUCKED for his first few runs. It was like he forgot everything I ever taught him. Blargh it was a total mess, I was _not_ happy with him.

I brought the new jump to the venue so I could practice outside, and my friend had brought her practice jump too, so we ran our dogs over the jumps and her dog was awesome (she runs a Corgi that she rescued from a puppy mill bust; he has a lot of similar fear issues to Pongu, but despite his handicaps, he's a great little guy and he has come SUCH a long way with her and I love him) and Pongu was a disaster, so I did not expect a whole lot from him in the more advanced runs.

But actually he did really well. His Stand-Stays were flawless, his jumps were flawless (first time _that's_ ever happened -- he nailed them all: the offset jump, the recall over jump, and all the send-by jumps), and if only he hadn't bombed out on his retrieve (same issue as ever, it falls apart when he's stressed) we would have picked up some very nice scores indeed.

He still pulled Qs in all six of his runs tonight, which is the first time Pongu has _ever_ had a perfect run of 6/6 Qs, and overall he seemed pretty happy and we had a great connection on our last two runs of the night, so I'm content. Lots of room for improvement, as always, but he's running almost like a normal dog!, and I'm happy with that.

Tonight Pongu picked up his Level 3 title with an Award of Excellence, so we are finished with Titling division in WCRL forevermore. Well, other than Veterans, but that's many years off for Pongupants.










We still have two big championships and infinity little championships to earn, so we're not through yet, but for the next couple of months we're shifting gears in class to focus more on competition obedience.

I've enrolled Pongu in two _very_ different schools of competition obedience -- one at our normal club, using purely motivational methods, and the other with a different instructor in our area who uses more of an old-school approach (mixed motivation and compulsion, but tipping more toward the latter than the former). My plan is to learn and adapt whatever I can from the latter course while keeping true to my own goals and values in training. We'll see how it goes...


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## Jack's Dad (Jun 7, 2011)

Congrats. Your hard work is paying off.


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## Gwenhwyfair (Jul 27, 2010)

Very cool Merciel!! Yeah for Pongu!


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Thanks! 

The next morning, I'm even more pleased with my little guy. Lately I've been doing a lot of finesse drills, because we make a lot of stupid little 1-point mistakes that don't _really_ hurt our scores but still bug me because I want things to be perfect! _perfect, by god! perfect!!_

In particular we've been working on:

-- closer, straighter Fronts. I want him to be touching my toes on a Front, and I want it to be perfectly squared up. Pongu has a tendency to go off about 5 to 10 degrees, usually with his butt tipped slightly to the right, and it doesn't always get dinged as a crooked Front but it does always bother me. We just started working on this a couple of days ago but I'm already seeing a small amount of improvement in the ring and a lot in practice, so I'm pretty confident we'll have this in a month or so.

-- tighter heeling on right turns. Pongu has a tendency to go wide on right turns (I know exactly when it happens, too, it's very consistent that he goes wide when I break eye contact on the turn) and I want to fix that. Partly this is/was a footwork issue on my part, but I've cleaned that up and we're getting much better heeling on right turns. I got several _perfect _360s at the trial yesterday, so that's encouraging... and a couple of phenomenally lousy ones, so we still need work on that.

-- Stays and jumps, Stays and jumps. These are infinity times better than they were, to my great joy and relief, because those were our instant NQ bugaboos. But I can't afford to get complacent because crazypants dog deteriorates very quickly on everything if I slack off on practice.

-- pace changes. Pongu's never had an issue with Slow, but Fast used to give us some lagging problems, and we'd pretty routinely lose a point or two on that. I have fixed this by adding a big forward shoulder tilt to cue him that we're about to take off, and then doing lots of cheerleading and crazy running to encourage him and get him over his fear of OMG WE MIGHT BE RUNNING TOWARD MONSTERS OMG.

There were a lot of pace changes on yesterday's course, including the Fast Forward From Sit that cost us a bunch of nitpicky little points last time, and Pongu nailed them all perfectly. I was proud of that. Now I just need to work on fading that big shoulder tilt cue...


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

Congratulations. Pongu looks very proud of his "loot". 

Have you taught pivots? That might help with the lagging on the about turns.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Yeah, Pongu has perfect pivots. No issues whatsoever on the 90 or 180-degree pivots. His backwards moves in general are very strong (as they should be, since we've done just about every possible variation: backwards circles in both directions, backwards up the stairs, backwards crawling, backwards walking and then reversing back toward me a la the "Grease" freestyle routine).

It's specifically the 180/270/360-degree right turns that cause him to go wide, and it's really just a matter of practice to tighten those up. I know what I need to do, and we are already seeing improvement, it's just that now I get to do 23983247 repetitions under all imaginable proofing circumstances to perfect it for trials.


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## debbiebrown (Apr 13, 2002)

i just want to say you should be very proud of yourself and your dog. your determination and patience is extremely inspiring, and it takes a very special person to have the will and patience with a dog like you have. i can appreciate that because i have been there................you keep going girl, and you will see the fruits of your labor with this guy!  Fabulous job!


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

I haven't updated this thread in forever so here are some quick updates on our current state of progress:

-- I took Pongu off Prozac about a month ago. Last time I tried weaning him off the crazy pills, he began self-mutilating pretty bad and I had to put him back on, but this time he seems okay and I haven't caught him chewing holes in himself, so HOORAY maybe he's finally reached the point of behavioral rehab where he doesn't need medication for the brain spiders anymore.

-- We are officially beginning our competition obedience career this weekend! I did a couple of run-throughs at a practice match last Saturday and they were good enough to get imaginary Qs, albeit not _awesome_ imaginary Qs (lots and lots of nitpicky issues I need to fix because I'm a lousy trainer who sucks, plus various problems related to Crazy Dog Is Crazy), so good enough, we shall plow bravely forward into disaster.

Pongu is entered in CDSP Novice trials on 10/26 and 11/9. Hopefully we'll be able to pull out a CD between the two and then be able to start trialing in Open next year. I don't mind admitting I'm a little nervous about it, since starting in a new sport is always occasion for a _little_ nervousness, and the SFE has been a total boogeyman since day one. But hey, we will do how we do, and I'll just be happy I could even take my scaredybutt dog into the ring.

(^ This is a lie. If we don't get a CD between the two trials I will be very sad and will probably whine a whole bunch in this thread.)

-- Picked up another ARCHEX QQ at the Rally trial on 10/13. Pongu earned Qs in 5/6 runs (one Level 3 NQ on, YET AGAIN, a runout on the Recall Over Jump). Scores were 206, 207, 203, 207, NQ, 208. Placed in three out of the five runs (1st, 2nd, and 5th), marking the first time we've earned a first-place finish in Level 3.

His performance was actually better than those scores reflect, because I made a lot of dumb handler errors that cost us a bunch of points. Overall I was pretty happy with Pongu's performance; he did a lot better than I did at that trial.

So that's what we've been up to. We have an insane competition schedule from now until the end of the year, plus I have a new foster dog right now (she's leaving on Friday to her new adoptive home) and Crookytail is starting in pre-agility and it is madness out here. MADNESS. WHEEEE.

I am content with our progress right now. We still suck and are terrible at all kinds of things, but on the whole I'm feeling like Pongu is (sometimes, sort of) an Actual Competition Dog, and that is making it a lot easier to just have fun training him instead of pining for a new puppy constantly.


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## Kaun (Aug 23, 2013)

I see you listed scores of over 200, what is the highest score available?

I've been spying on your progress but never posted before. You and Pongu are certainly an inspiration.  I can't wait to get involved in obedience with my puppy next year.

Good luck next Saturday, I hope you'll update after the event


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

In APDT/World Cynosport, the highest possible score is 210.

The run itself is worth 200 points, and then there's a bonus exercise that's worth up to 10 points. Scoring works the same way as AKC obedience and Rally: you start with a perfect score and then lose points for mistakes. There are no half-point deductions, everything is at least 1 point. If you lose more than 10 points on any single exercise, it's a NQ (in addition to all the myriad ways you can NQ). Grading is generally stricter than AKC Rally but not as strict as AKC obedience. That's my feeling, anyway, it might vary depending on where you are.

In our most recent run, both of the 207s were because I made stupid 3-point handler errors. I set Pongu up for his recalls so that he had a sign directly in his path on the recall (bad handler! very bad!) and if he knocks a sign over then that's points off, and if he breaks his Stay because OMG THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE WAY that's an NQ, and basically a lot of things could have gone wrong, so I ended up re-doing those exercises to reposition him correctly like I should have done in the first place. A sane dog would probably just have jumped over the sign or run around it, no big deal, but I do not have a sane dog so I wasn't about to count on that.

Re-doing an exercise is 3 points off. So both of those runs, all our lost points were because I'm a moron. _Pongu_ was perfect.

The 206 we got because one of his Sits was crooked so I made him do it over again, and that's a second cue which, again, is 3 points off. (The other 1 point was for Pongu going wide at one point on the spiral heeling exercises.) That time the judge specifically (and rightly) called me out for being an idiot as she was reading off the scores, because if I had just taken the crooked Sit we would only have lost 1 point instead of 3.

OOPS.

Anyway, thank you for the kind words, and good luck with the puppy next year! It really is a lot of fun.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Quick update for last night's Rally trial at BVTC:

This was a Wednesday night trial so it was _very_ small (something like 22-23 dogs total, and several people were running multiple dogs so I think there were only maybe a dozen handlers total) and friendly. Several of the competitors were doing their very first trials, as they'd just finished that club's Rally program. They did great! Their dogs were really nice and I hope to see more of them in the future.

Also, an elderly Golden Retriever won his ARCHMX at that trial, capping off a long career in obedience and Rally, which was a pretty special moment. The dog was clearly aware that he'd done _something_ special, even if he maybe didn't know exactly what, and his big golden tail waved like a banner as he trotted along to collect victory cookies from the spectators.

Pongu did pretty well although he once again NQ'ed one of his Level 3 runs. Breakdown:

Level 1: 210, 209 (one point off on a crooked Sit)

Level 2: 206 (one repeated cue [3 points off] and a heeling fault), 200 (8 points lost on a single exercise; Pongu popped up from a Sit-Stay into a Stand [5 points off] and looked like he was about to break the Stay, so I gave him another cue to Stay [3 points off] and that was the majority of our point hits. I'm not sure where we lost the other two, I was a little frazzled after that)

Level 3: NQ (broken Stay) and 209 (on the bonus exercise, instead of walking backwards in a straight line, Pongu got a little confused and walked straight backwards for a couple steps, then arced left in a perfect circle to Heel position, going backwards the whole way. Creative interpretation, and the judge laughed, but he still didn't go straight back for quite long enough, so that was a point off).

I'm not excited about the NQ and I'm not excited about the 200-point run that was almost an NQ, but other than that I can't complain too much about those scores. One more QQ down, seven to go for ARCHEX.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Oof, it's been a long weekend.

Foster dog got adopted Friday evening (hooray!). I wish her a long and happy life with her new people; I hope she's everything they want and doesn't give them too many headaches.

Saturday morning I got up at 4 am for the 2 1/2 hour drive to Harrisburg to enter Pongu's very first competition obedience trial. We entered two Novice runs in CDSP, because I figured we'd need the extra insurance to get his title in November. Originally the plan was just to do the November trial, because that offered 3 runs so it was potentially a finished title in one day, but then I thought "what are the odds of Pongu getting three Qs in three runs? Zero, that's what" and entered this trial at the last minute.

Other than entering one practice match last weekend, we didn't really do any specific preparation for competition obedience, because I expected that the SFE would be our make-or-break exercise and we'd be able to fudge our way through the rest based on Pongu's Rally training.

In retrospect, this was a fairly stupid plan (there's no equivalent in Rally to CDSP's Honor Stay, nor to the Figure 8 around stewards, and the heeling is totally different), but oh well, now I know better for next time. And honestly, my real goal in this trial was to try to figure out if my dog could even _do_ this sport.

It turns out that the answer is "yes." He picked up two Qs with scores of 192 and 190 (out of a possible 200 points), finishing in first and second place not because his scores were so great (they weren't) but because there were only four Novice dogs at this trial and one of them was in Novice C.










Here's the video of Pongu's FIRST OBEDIENCE RUN EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD (this was his 192/second place):






Obviously we have lots and lots of room for improvement, but I'm still delighted with that overall mediocre performance because it means my insane fearful dog _can do obedience!!_ and I never ever thought that would happen. He can even do it in an unfamiliar venue that he's never seen before!! And while he did make lots of mistakes on that run, and the one after it, they're all mistakes that I think we can fix in the future with more practice and better training on my end. We just need to work more (and I need to get better at some things).

Then I got greedy so I went back on Sunday trying to pick up our third Q and get Pongu's Novice title (what can I say? They have nice title ribbons at that venue! Ribbons well worth waking up at 4 am and driving 5 hours for!), but alas, I overreached. Pongu NQ'ed when he anticipated my cue on the Recall Over Jump and took the jump on the judge's cue ("recall your dog") instead of waiting for mine. 

So that was an instant NQ, but it's also totally understandable -- he's only ever competed in Rally before, and in Rally the judge does not speak. It's not surprising that Pongu, as tense and tightly wired as he is, would jump as soon as he heard _anyone_ say _anything,_ and really it's my fault because I didn't prepare him correctly for this specific venue by training for that. And hey, at least he took the jump, so that's an improvement. (I also didn't know that this is how they do things in CDSP, because I'd never done it before either. But now I know this, so we'll train for it.)

I bought him some consolation chicken tenders on the way home, because Pongu earned those even if he didn't earn a ribbon today. He got two Qs and did three good SFEs, and if he can do a SFE then he can do competition obedience, and if he _can_ do it then he _will_ do it.

Today I'm very proud of my dog Pongu. And if we have to wait two more weeks to finish his title, woopie. It's two weeks and a CD, no big deal on either count. He spent his WHOLE LIFE getting to the point where he could even trial for that.


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## Kaun (Aug 23, 2013)

Yay! Great job you two! He definitely deserved the chicken after this weekend  You deserve something as well, I'm not sure many would have the patience to take a dog like Pongu this far. Looks like he's nowhere near finished 

Is the video the entire run? The obedience trials in Iceland are different, there's no figure 8 and the stand for examination isn't as scary as it's done sitting in heel position next to the handler.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Thanks!  That's the whole thing except the honor Stay.

CDSP is slightly different from AKC in that there are no group Stays; instead each dog is required to do an on-leash honor Stay while another dog does the on-leash heeling exercise. You can choose either a Sit-Stay or a Down-Stay, but once you choose, the dog cannot change position. In that ring, the distance was about 15 to 30 feet between dogs, depending on where the working dog was in its heeling pattern.

I think the honor Stay is easier for most dogs than the group Stay. It's considerably briefer and both dogs are always on leash, so if there _is_ an incident then it's easier for the owners to step in and keep control. But the honor dog does have to be able to ignore a working dog who may be walking or running a fairly short distance away (in some ring configurations it could be 10 feet or less) and that's harder for some dogs to do.

At this trial it wasn't an issue for any of the dogs. All the teams were really good and none of the dogs had much interest in the others.


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

Congratulations! I thought Pongu looked pretty darn good, myself.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

You're kind to say so. 

I'm certainly not _un_happy with our scores -- especially, again, given that it was both Pongu's first time and mine competing in a new venue and other than one exhibitor who sometimes judges us in Rally, we didn't know anyone there (we certainly didn't know any of the obedience judges!).

But I know he can do better. His heeling on the Figure 8 was a fair representation of where we normally are -- i.e., not _wonderfully_ precise, especially on an obedience pattern, but not as laggy or distracted as he was during the on-leash heeling pattern either (where we moved closer to the stewards' table than we've ever done in Rally, and he was accordingly a little anxious. Again, it's a proofing issue).

The steps forward on the Stand-Stay are another anxiety-driven mistake (to be fair, I'm happy he did THAT well, because I discovered about an hour before our run that I had been doing the Stand-Stay wrong. I thought it was like the Utility Stand-Stay where the handler keeps moving and the dog stops on a dime; that's what it is in Rally, so that's how we trained it. Turns out the handler is supposed to stop beside the dog in Novice, and when I did that, Pongu thought he was supposed to auto-Sit, so he did, and that's an NQ. We had to fix that one in under an hour to get ring-ready. No wonder he was a little stressed about it!). Standing up before my cue and that crooked Front after the Recall Over Jump are pretty basic errors that, again, I'm inclined to interpret as rooted in anxiety.

So with more practice on those specific exercises I think Pongu will get better about those things, and as I improve my training I think (hope?) we'll both get better at the other things. I'm excited that his confidence looks so much better than it did a year ago; I'm hopeful that in another year we'll have improved by an equal measure. But even as I'm thrilled about how far we've gotten, I have to be honest enough to admit that we have a whole lot farther to go.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Slightly bumpy trial at Oakes K9 yesterday.

It was considerably smaller than their Rally trial last year -- I overheard other people saying that this time it hadn't been advertised anywhere except the Rallydogs website -- so the day only took 8 hours instead of 11 or 12.

That was good, because we didn't get off to a great start. I dropped the leash on our first Level 1 run, knocking us down to 205 points. On our first Level 2 run, we got hit for two extra Sits, each of which cost 5 points for a final score of 199 (the last point was on a crooked Sit). I hadn't seen either of those two extra Sits and thought we'd done pretty well on the run, so I was completely dumbfounded when I saw that score on the board.

Our first Level 3 run was pretty shaky too. There were several _really_ vocal dogs at this trial and although barking/yowling from the crating area doesn't always faze Pongu, that day it did. On top of our other glitches, the bonus exercise was the Stand With Distraction, which I hadn't seen in months and had forgotten how to do. The exercise is actually a Sit _then_ Stand (as opposed to a moving Stand), so I cued it wrong and poor Pongu got confused and went Down on his Stay halfway through.

It was a messy, bad run all around. Final score: 197. Ouch. I was feeling pretty bad by the time we limped back to the car for the lunch break.

The second round went better though. We got dinged for some minor errors (bumps, lags, crooked Sits, a split sign, etc. -- all stuff that I'm working on polishing out, but we're not 100% there yet) but Pongu was beautiful on all the things that used to be so hard for him. His Stays were solid, he flew through all the jumps without hesitation, and we even heeled right up to a jump without his taking it uncued (a booby trap that has gotten us several times before). AND his bonus retrieve was perfect.

Scores: Level 1 207, Level 2 209, Level 3 209.

Pongu finished his RL1X3 and RL2X2 level championships at this trial (which are not particularly impressive titles, insofar as they really just demonstrate that we NQ in Level 3 a bunch, but they do come with nice ribbons!) and picked up another two QQs toward his ARCHEX. We're halfway to that title now and have a good chance of finishing it this year, which makes me happy.










What really blew me away at this trial was seeing Edith the border collie put up _six straight runs_ that all scored perfect 210s. That was amazing. Edith and her handler have been one of the top teams for as long as I've been doing this -- they rarely score below 208, and that's with a sharp-penciled judge -- but I've never seen a string of six perfect 210s before.

Man, I'd like to be that team someday.


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

Congratulations on the new titles.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Thanks. 

Pongu took home a 193 (third place) at yesterday's CDSP trial to finish his CD-C with a string of three okay-but-unexceptional scores in the low 190s. I'm proud that he has his Novice title in obedience now -- a goal that once seemed unimaginable for us -- and I'm looking forward to trialing him in Open next spring.

At the same time I have to admit that I have a lot of mixed emotions about our showing yesterday. It pointed up a number of trouble areas and reminded me that as far as he's come in the past year, Pongu still is a fearful dog and always will be. I will never be able to take for granted that he's bombproof. He isn't. He still falls apart with very little prodding.

_And_ it tantalized me with siren promises of just how good he _could_ be if I keep working at it (and/or if I had a better dog, which is a devil voice that I shall do my utmost to ignore. At least for the next few years).

_And_ it gave us our two worst NQs ever.










So, on to the recap.

Yesterday's trial was held at BVTC, a venue with which Pongu is very familiar and where he's normally pretty relaxed, or anyway as relaxed as crazypants dog ever gets. However, deer season recently started in our area (on the way home we passed several enormous pickup trucks with two or three freshly killed deer apiece strapped onto the back), and there were a _lot_ of people shooting guns on the properties around the training facility. Not hunting, but doing target practice -- and doing so much of it that the percussion of shots was unending and you could actually smell the gunsmoke drifting across the fields.

Pongu did not like that. He was more of a wreck than I've seen him in months: shaking, drooling, wild-eyed, totally unable to focus. It hearkened back to our bad old days starting out in Rally last year. He calmed down somewhat as the day went on, but he was never in good form that entire trial.

Nevertheless, he held it together enough to eke out a Q with a score of 193 on his first run, finishing his CD-C title. We lost points on more anxiety-driven mistakes like Pongu jumping _into_ me (and knocking me back a couple of steps) instead of doing a clean Front after his Recall Over Jump. He also popped up into a Stand when the judge spoke, which hit us for more points. _argh._

That was the only Q I was going to get out of him the whole day.

Midway through Pongu's second run, he flipped out and ran wildly around the ring for a solid 20 seconds or so. I have absolutely no idea what set him off, other than general anxiety. It was between exercises so it didn't cost us anything, and I got his focus back after a couple of prompts, but it wasn't a good omen of things to come. (An alternative view, though, is that he _was_ able to calm himself down and become semi-functional once I started asking him to work again, so looked at from that perspective, it's not all bad.)

Right before we set up for the Recall Over Jump, a metal shutter rattled loudly on a window directly behind Pongu. He did not want to have his back to that shutter, and he was super tense holding his Stay on the far side of the jump. So this time when the judge spoke, he broke his Stay and took the jump and that was an NQ.

However, the judge apparently forgot to write this down, because when it came time to read off the scores and pin the class, she had us down for a score of 196, which was _also_ first place and High In Trial. I had to shamefacedly admit that no, actually, we NQ'ed that run, and watch in agony as the big glorious HIT ribbon moved down to the next person who had actually qualified.

_argh._

Pongu's third run was even worse. Once again he turned in a performance that had a couple of minor flaws (lagging on the Figure 8 was particularly bad that time around) but was overall pretty good... until he POOPED IN THE RING right before setting up for the Recall Over Jump.

That was a total wtf moment, because Pongu does _not_ have housebreaking issues. At all. Ever. He hasn't had an accident since he was five months old. He has always been flawless in other people's houses and rental cottages and every training or trial facility we've ever visited... and then he just laid a massive stinker right in front of the jump.

I have to think that was another anxiety issue but I honestly don't know. He isn't sick. And he's never been anxious enough to poop himself at a trial before, even though he _has_ done it a couple of times out on the street. So I guess Pongu must have been even more frightened at that trial than he was letting on, and that makes me feel bad that I didn't see it.

(As an added humiliation, I don't know what our final score would have been on that run because he didn't do the Recall Over Jump so that part didn't get scored, but based on the points we lost up till then, I believe it would have been 195 or better. _argh_ x3.)

So... that was that. Pongu finished his Novice obedience title _and_ he gave me humiliations galore. He came infuriatingly close to capturing a HIT on his second (or third, depending on how you're counting) obedience trial ever... and then he didn't, because he was a nervous wreck, but he almost did it _even though_ he was a nervous wreck, so I still don't know how to think about that.

On the way home I stopped at the Valley Forge rest stop and got him some chicken nuggets from Burger King. I feel like overall that day deserved a three-dollar box of chicken nuggets. It wasn't a Barclay Prime filet mignon day. But it was a chicken nuggets day.

That (probably) concludes our competition obedience trialing for 2013. I'm planning to make our debut in Open next spring, and hopefully progress to Utility in the second half of 2014 too.


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## Kayos and Havoc (Oct 17, 2002)

Just catching back up with Pongu. Sounds like you guys are actually doing very well and have been wildly successful! Keep up the great work! 

Mayhem, my timid girl, got her AKC BN and RN last month. Will be starting UKC rally and agility in Jan/Feb.


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## e.rigby (May 28, 2011)

I'd have to disagree... you can go from a severely fearful dog to a normal dog. I know, I've had a fearful dog, to the point she'd choke herself nearly to death to get out of her collar on walks (just the slightest thing would spook her). 

Time, dedication, mainly lots and lots of time and not pushing limits to the point of creating more fear... 

She's a normal dog. She's pretty laid back and subdue. Things just don't phase her anymore. 

I think it all depends on the dog, the work you put into the dog (again, based on the dog), and time... because nothing happens overnight!


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Kayos and Havoc said:


> Just catching back up with Pongu. Sounds like you guys are actually doing very well and have been wildly successful! Keep up the great work!
> 
> Mayhem, my timid girl, got her AKC BN and RN last month. Will be starting UKC rally and agility in Jan/Feb.


Thanks, and congratulations!

I've been thinking about going for Pongu's BN in the near future. 

I'm holding off on the AKC CD for the completely frivolous reason that I want to take him all the way through Utility in CDSP before starting AKC, because (a) I still secretly nurse the idiotic fantasy of OTCH'ing my Novice A dog, and if Pongu can't OTCH (which he probably can't, but then I also thought he'd never get a CD, so who knows) then I'm not sure I want to break Novice A with him; and (b) I also nurse the less idiotic fantasy of getting the Front & Finish Platinum Award for completing all the standard titles (CD, CDX, and UD) within 12 months.

I figure if I can get Pongu through CDSP Utility (big if!), then I'll know whether he has any reasonable chance of OTCHing (probably not, but at least by then I'll know it) and also I should be able to complete the AKC titles in under a year after that.

Anyway the point of this digression is that I'm an idiot, and also that I don't want to go for his CD until I'm dead sure we can blow through Utility within 12 months of starting. BUT the BN is an optional title that doesn't count for that progression, so I could pick that up without triggering the 12-month clock.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

e.rigby said:


> I'd have to disagree... you can go from a severely fearful dog to a normal dog. I know, I've had a fearful dog, to the point she'd choke herself nearly to death to get out of her collar on walks (just the slightest thing would spook her).
> 
> Time, dedication, mainly lots and lots of time and not pushing limits to the point of creating more fear...
> 
> ...


lol

Sorry, I know this is meant well. I don't mean to be disparaging, and I am honestly glad that you've had such success with your dog.

But still... I just don't even know where to begin, besides a weary and defeated "lol."


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## e.rigby (May 28, 2011)

My dog is 14 years old now. It took 6 years to work her past her issues (I got her when she was 1.5 years old)

It's not just me, I've worked with several dogs that have been incredibly fearful. I honestly don't think it's something you could say is impossible. I think it's incredibly difficult and takes a ton of dedication - and I do think some dogs will never be 100% but that doesn't mean that some are not capable of overcoming their fear/insecurity/etc.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Well, I'll never say never.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

In the briefest and most anticlimactic update ever, we finished our ARCHEX this past weekend in the course of a three-day Rally trial marathon (Harrisburg on Friday --> NYC on Saturday --> Exton PA on Sunday).

Pongu is the 47th mixed-breed dog and the 341st dog overall in the history of the world to earn the ARCHEX. There's only one more big title left for us in World Cynosport Rally: the ARCHMX.




























We have one more Rally trial next weekend and then we're done for the year.

Despite this accomplishment -- which is a nice one, I won't lie -- I'm currently not that excited about trialing with Pongu. He's been breaking Stays a lot lately and it's been costing us the 10-point bonus exercises more often than it should, and as a result our scores have been pretty crappy over the past month or so. They were particularly bad this past weekend and I'm pretty demoralized when I should be feeling up.

When I look at his most recent trial videos (which I'm not posting because they suck) I can see that his heeling is improving, but we're getting more bumps and crowding than I'd like. We don't have issues with jumps anymore, so that's good. Pongu's Sits are beautifully straight and close, but they're also _really_ slow (in competition, not practice), and in general there are just problems all over the place that are all tied to fear and anxiety.

It's just frustrating. I mean, whatever, we got our ARCHEX and we'll get our ARCHMX, and we broke a thousand Championship points this past weekend so we might actually crack the Top 20 Overall standings. (This is not insignificant, because for the first third of the year, Pongu was only eligible for 1/3 of the possible Championship points in each run, and until October he was only eligible for 2/3, _and_ we got over 50 NQs which are all worth zero points, _and_ it's his first full year in competition. So if we still manage to break into the Top 20 Overall despite these handicaps, then that'll be... something.)

But still, it is so so SO irritating to deal with these never-ending problems that are not due to inadequate training or unfamiliarity with the exercises, but are simply about Crazy Dog Is Crazy.

It sucks. I watch people with confident dogs who breeze through the exercises as beautifully in competition as they do in training, and I feel tremendous envy, and then I feel guilty because Pongu is doing all he _can_ do, he's just afraid of everything ever, and it's just like, once again: this is why nobody competes with fearful dogs.

graaa

I have one of the most accomplished mutts in the entire history of this sport and I have no joy in it. There's a lot of static fuzzing out our connection right now and I'm tired of it.

It'll be good to go on break for a few weeks.


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## MadLab (Jan 7, 2013)

Congrats on all your accomplishments. You've proved your self a great trainer getting Pongu to that stage and should be proud. 

You should just enjoy him now and let him be a dog and work on another more suited dog for what you want to achieve in the future.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

MadLab said:


> You should just enjoy him now and let him be a dog and work on another more suited dog for what you want to achieve in the future.


This is something I think about quite often.

It's really not a feasible option, though. Pongu _likes_ being a competition dog; he doesn't always do as well as I'd like, and it causes him a fair amount of stress and woe, but he clearly enjoys the training and the trialing and the proud ribbon moments. In other words, he's just like me. It is a masochistic endeavor, dog sport competition, but for some reason we just can't let go.

And he is getting considerably better over time. I complain about him constantly but the fact is, I used to be thrilled when he could just go into the ring and not melt down instantly, and now I'm all grumpy because he's not (consistently) beating the very best dogs in our region.

So... little bit of goalpost shifting going on there. In my saner moments I can see that.

Anyway, Pongu's still enjoying the competitions (mostly) and he's not nearly old enough to retire. And he HATES when I pay attention to other dogs; he rages at every new foster dog that comes into the house until he is completely sure that I still love him the most, and then he continues being a jerk to them just to reinforce the point. So he would never be happy if another dog came into the house and started taking up all my time and attention, at least not while he's still young and healthy enough to want to do it himself.

There's also the fact that frankly I don't think I'm good enough to warrant a "real" performance dog yet. I am not a sufficiently good trainer to think I can do justice to Imaginary Future Dog at this time.

When Pongu retires, or gets close to retirement, I'll get a working dog. Until then we are just going to carry on doing what we do. And I'll complain today, but if he gets nice scores next weekend I'll be all stoked and ecstatic again, because I am competition bipolar like woah.


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## LifeofRiley (Oct 20, 2011)

Congrats! 

I am totally amazed by your ability to work at a demanding job, write a book, title a fearful dog and foster dogs! 

I also really think it is great that you are so candid in your posts about your emotional journey with Pongu. 

I have no doubt that you could immediately take on any competition dog out there and be more than up to the task. I respect that you are considering how Pongu would feel about that.

As always, I enjoy your posts on this thread. 

BTW: I am really interested in knowing more about your book. PM me details!


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## Baillif (Jun 26, 2013)

Merciel said:


> There's also the fact that frankly I don't think I'm good enough to warrant a "real" performance dog yet. I am not a sufficiently good trainer to think I can do justice to Imaginary Future Dog at this time.


I really don't see how you can even think this. What you do with a dog like Pongu is so much harder than doing it with a stable high drive and well socialized competition dog. The fact you put titles on him at all when he melts down at the sight of a ceiling fan is a wonder.


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

Congrats on the ARCHEX.

It sounds like you're hitting a wall, so why not do something else for a while? How about tracking or nosework? I'm going to be starting the girls in nosework in the spring, and we are already doing some tracking. Or maybe he might enjoy lure coursing? How about Barn Hunt? 

I was pretty down after Leo's less than stellar debut in the ring, and actually seriously considered quitting training and competing completely. After a while, though, I sat down and reconsidered my goals. I decided that I like working with my dogs, and even if we don't accomplish all I want, we're going to have fun. (Even if it kills us. )


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Funny you should ask, we're going to be giving Barn Hunt a try in early January. It looks like a lot of fun (and involves basically zero training so HOORAY, I love easy dog sports). I expect Pongu will do abysmally but Crookytail should have fun at least, and if I have a foster around then, I might bring that dog too, because again: zero training needed!

Today I'm feeling a little more sanguine about Pongu's future in Rally and comp OB. We had a good practice session late last night. I think last weekend we just hit a wall because I was asking him to do 15 runs over 3 days in different venues each time, and for that last trial (the one where we did REALLY bad), we got home at 1:30 the night before, left at 6 am that morning, and got hit with a blizzard midway through the event.

Not that this excuses his lousy scores, and I would still rather have a dog who can keep up with marathon trialing like that (hence why Imaginary Future Dog will be a working line _something_ for sure), but it's understandable that Pongu might not be able to handle that level of intensity on his first try. I've never run him more than two days back-to-back before, and never for that many levels.

Anyway, we are taking a break after next weekend, so hopefully in 2014 we can get back to it and do better.


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## Kayos and Havoc (Oct 17, 2002)

I think you under rate yourself!~ It takes an exceptional trainer to have the success you have had with a fearful dog. 

Be proud, stand tall. 

Having an confident dog that can breeze through the exercises is over rated too. I have one. Havoc LOVES to work, he heels like a snap -- and barks and squeals in excitement all the way throughout eh heeling pattern. I think he must be the only dog that earned a CDX with a 173 and 25 points off for barking.  I have no intention of showing him in utility despite his ability.


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## ksotto333 (Aug 3, 2011)

Just a quick note to say, I've read this thread as it appears each time. There's a lot of love going on between you and Pongu...just think of how much he does to please you. You must inspire other people with dogs and issues to never give up...Good luck in all your future adventures..


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## Helios (Aug 29, 2010)

Merciel said:


> I've mentioned in several other threads that Pongu, my Very Special Dog, is a severely fearful little guy. I adopted him from a city shelter at 16 weeks, having absolutely no idea what I was getting into as a first-time owner. He is now 3 years old, and much better than he was, but there's no cure for a fearful dog. There's _improvement_, but you never finish the journey. You never get a "normal" dog.
> 
> Just this past weekend, I left him outside a bakery while I stopped in to grab a loaf of bread. Pongu was not there for more than two or three minutes, which I figured was within what he is currently able to tolerate, but in that time a car pulled into the parking spot beside him and the awning on the next storefront flapped in the wind, so when I got back outside, he was completely terrified and cowering and had pooped himself. After three solid years of rehab and confidence-building, after thousands of hours and dollars with the best trainers and behaviorists in our region, I can't leave him tied outside a store for two minutes.
> 
> ...


I've not read the entire thread yet. But I believe I kind of know how it feels..... I've a reactive and insecure GSD (not really that fearful), my first GSD ever owned, I wasn't expecting it, but I've learnt so many things with him... -he's the perfect dog for me and my house but not the perfect dog for people _-or to be around people-_. I've worked with him and I've accepted the fact that I'll never trust him around strangers, that I'll always have to watch him like a hawk....that he has _memories issues_ (LOL). He can meet someone, and the next day I'll have to introduce them again...and again and again. But I love him. I've learned what triggers his reaction (people and kids approaching him too fast).

_"Moments like that are beautiful with any dog, but you never expect to have them with a fearful dog"_

Those moments you mention...moments that are daily basis for other dogs, _but not for Helios_...when someone pets him, when he's ok doing tricks for a stranger, when I see that he's comfortable...I get SOOOO happy!! I remember one day, it was late, a kid about 10 years old approached us, I told him Helios was in training and thus could not be petted (I always use that as an excuse), we talked for about 10 minutes.. the kid asked if he could pet Helios, I saw Helios and noticed that he was in fact okay, relaxed, the kid approached, petted him slowly like I told him, I remember that I was watching Helios like a hawk! but nothing happened. He liked the pet. I GOT SO HAPPPYYYY!

_*But*_ then there are days when I can see that he's tense with someone approaching him and I just have to smile, say good night and turn around/walk away. I'm okay now crossing the street because there's a kid walking to us. I wanted a dog that I could take everywhere, a Dog I could trust around people, kids....there were days where I'd get sad. But not now. I am in fact thankful. I don't know what would have happened with him if he had gone to another house _-other people would think that maybe he'd be different but maybe not-_. I had learned so many things thanks to him and I had learned to predict him, to manage him, his _boundaries_ and _limits_ like you mentioned with Pongo but I keep working with him...I keep training him! It's a private party between him and me when I see a progress, improvement....LOL!
_-Calming faster when someone enters the house for example, always on leash of course-
_ I'm happy seeing him laying down on a leash _-calm and quiet, paying attention and doing tricks-_ when we have a guest in the house.... 

I'll have a second chance, to do things right from the start, I'll get a puppy from a good breeder, and I'll do what I didn't do with Helios....But I won't ever give up on him. I know what I know and I'm the way I'm thanks to him!

Congrats on your accomplishments so far!  and for doing what you are doing with Pongo! Good luck and don't give up!

This is Helios


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Kayos and Havoc said:


> I think he must be the only dog that earned a CDX with a 173 and 25 points off for barking.


Oh man, that is brutal, I'm sorry.

One of my early instructors has a dog like this (a border collie from a sport breeding that tipped a little over the line toward hair-trigger excitability -- that whole litter was the same way) and yeah they lose a lot of points on barking. I've seen them get NQ'ed just on excessive barking.

They actually did fine in agility, probably because it was faster paced and so the dog didn't feel the need to yell "hurry up! hurry up!" for the whole run. And ultimately, the barking did turn out to be something they could train around (via loads and loads of impulse control work)... but that is definitely on my list of Things to Avoid when picking out Imaginary Future Dog.

@ Helios -- thanks, and I love that picture! That hat, and that expression at the hat, are priceless. 

@ Baillif -- I can think that because I am more than slightly nuts. 

I'm not worried (well, okay, I'm not _that_ worried) about being able to handle a performance dog in the sense of being able to put some titles on the dog and not have it eat my house. What I'm worried about is being able to do justice to a talented puppy with the potential for real, actual greatness. I really don't want to get a potentially awesome dog and then have it be handler impaired; I want to have enough skill and knowledge to take that dog absolutely as far as it can go.

I know I can do that with Pongu, because I'm hitting his limits constantly right now, but the ceiling is (hopefully!) a lot higher with Imaginary Future Dog and I am not good enough to reach that level yet.


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## middleofnowhere (Dec 20, 2000)

Oh phoey! ALL dogs with handlers are handler impaired! Their potential would be greater with someone else always! You can say what you will about my dog's handler - the dog's darned fine! (Handler is a bumble butt!)


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

middleofnowhere said:


> Oh phoey! ALL dogs with handlers are handler impaired! Their potential would be greater with someone else always!


Nah.

I think I know what you're getting at (namely, that most of the time when the team makes a mistake, in one way or another it's the handler's fault), and I agree with that, but even allowing for that... nah. Some handlers make a lot more mistakes than others. 

I wouldn't be worthy of a dog like my cousin's Border Collie. That's a World Team-level dog. With my cousin, she's glorious and a national champ; with me, she'd just be frustrated. I don't have the skills to run a dog like that.

Great dogs deserve great handlers. I need to be better before I make a commitment to a dog like that.

In the meantime I have crazy little Pongupants, and I will take him just as far as his insane little pound-dog butt can go, because he's my dog and I can at least do justice to him right now.


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## middleofnowhere (Dec 20, 2000)

No, that's not really it. Every dog I've had could have gone further, been better, done more. My mare was pretty "cowy" - I only rode her in cows once -- and decided that I could probably get nailed for messing with someone's cows so I quit. She was also pretty talented otherwise. I never did anything competition with her, I just rode her for pleasure. Coulda gone a lot further with someone else.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

middleofnowhere said:


> No, that's not really it. Every dog I've had could have gone further, been better, done more. My mare was pretty "cowy" - I only rode her in cows once -- and decided that I could probably get nailed for messing with someone's cows so I quit. She was also pretty talented otherwise. I never did anything competition with her, I just rode her for pleasure. Coulda gone a lot further with someone else.


Oh, gotcha, thank you for clarifying. I misunderstood.

In that case, no, I don't really agree. I don't think Pongu would have gotten as far with someone else. I screw up on individual runs all the time, sure, but big picture? Nah. The people who could do better wouldn't have picked him, and the people who would have picked him wouldn't have done better. I don't feel like I've failed his potential (yet!).

However the same is not true of Imaginary Future Dog. Not till I get a whole lot better than where I am today.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Yesterday we went up to Nazareth PA for our last Rally trial of 2013. This was originally scheduled for Dec. 14th, but due to a severe ice storm in the area, it was postponed for a week.

I dressed pretty lightly for this trial, because it's been an unseasonably warm weekend in Philly and I figured my usual winter getup would be major overkill. What I forgot (because we had only trialed at this venue once previously) was that Nazareth is both north of Philly and at a considerably higher elevation.

So we got to the venue and it looked like this:










...oops.

Anyhow, the trial itself was pretty uneventful. Pongu was a stressy shaking mess for the first few hours, which is about what I expected since he was a mess the last time we were at this venue, too. It's a perfectly nice facility, but it's on the small side (single ring with the crating area only separated by about 5' to 10' of floor space depending on how crowded it is) and it's relatively unfamiliar, and Pongu doesn't exactly need a lot of prodding to have stress issues.

This trial marked the beginning of our quest for ARCHMX triple Qs. To earn the ARCHMX, which is the final and most difficult championship title in World Cynosport Rally, you must (a) have earned all prior combined championships; and then (b) earn 10 separate QQQs with scores of 195 or better in Levels 1B, 2B, and 3B, all at the same trial.

So it's a lot like the RAE and UDX in that you need to get multiple Qs in separate runs, but it's three Qs and you have to score high in all three, whereas for RAE and UDX you just need to Q, it doesn't matter what your score is. (That said, getting a Q at _all_ in Open and Utility is plenty challenging already!)

Our scores were 207, 200, NQ for the first set (sadface), and 207, 207, 203 for the second set (first ARCHMX leg! yay! nine more to go! less yay!).

The only run I got on tape was our Level 3 NQ in the first trial. For the last few trials, whenever I've asked somebody to tape us, we've gotten a really crappy score and/or NQ. I think it's a sign from above that I should give up my hopes of getting a _good_ run on tape and just accept that we're always gonna look terrible when I try to record things for posterity.

But in the interest of failing massively in public (and demonstrating just how hard it is to get the ARCHMX), here is our crappy NQ run and a breakdown of why it sucked. Even if I hadn't NQ'ed us, we would have gotten a terrible score and no triple Q on this one anyhow.






0:00 -- good attention while waiting for the timer to get started; no stress scratching! yay!
0:27 -- my shoulder tilt pushes Pongu back and out of position (at least 1 point off there if it was just scored as a crooked Sit, or 5 points off if it was scored as a double Sit. Either way, that was my fault for bad handling. Hnnnrrrgggghh)
0:37 - 0:40 -- good backup, I'm happy with this. Liiiittle close to an auto-Sit at the end there. His butt doesn't touch the ground so we're okay, but I need to fix that for later runs, because I don't need to be losing 5 points on a dumb mistake like that
0:47 -- slightly out of position Sit, borderline scoreable; it would depend on the judge whether we got a point off on that or not
0:48 - 0:50 -- good pivot, I'm happy with this
0:53 -- front paw movement on the Sit-Stay, probably not scoreable but I'm not thrilled with it
1:04 - 1:07 -- we were getting a bunch of sloooowww Downs this whole day. Pongu's position is correct and there's only one cue, so it's not scoreable, but the slow time would hurt our placements on a tie and I'm not happy with that
1:14 -- what even IS that way-leaned-back Front position? I think that's a weird stress manifestation. A really tough judge might hit us for a point on that -- most judges wouldn't, because his feet are close even if his body isn't -- but even if it's not scoreable, blegh, that is not something I want to see for multiple reasons

1:20 -- Pongu notices the person filming him, stops to stare. No serious lag in positioning (because I caught him doing it and stopped moving) so not scoreable, but that's another time hit
1:31 -- another spider brain moment. I was actually surprised Pongu gave me a good Front after this (even with me helping him out a little with my hands) because usually he will pull out of position to keep an eye on whatever imaginary threat caused him to stare, but nope, that one's straight and close. Progress or a fluke of luck? Who knows, but I'm happy to see it!
1:34 -- smooth movement into Heel position, I'm happy with this too
1:50 -- I was super nervous about Pongu breaking his Stay on this one because that was a Major Issue for us the last time we trialed. We had been working on this, but it had only been two weeks since our last set of trials and he was clearly nervous in this venue, so I wasn't sure what to expect. But he was good!
1:58 - 2:03 -- distraction from the puppy squealing in the waiting area. Pongu self-corrected for missing his Front, kinda, but that's still massively crooked. 1 to 3 points off there.
2:10 -- this is where we NQ. Sign #17 was an About Turn away from the jump, while Sign #19 was right next to it and was a re-take of the jump. So I did #19 instead of #17 and skipping a sign (let alone two!) is an instant NQ. OOPS. I registered the correct sign and had a "dur" moment at like 2:11, right after I sent him.

2:13 -- from this point on we already NQ'ed and I knew it so whatever, we're doing the rest of this run just for practice.
2:31 -- that's what we were SUPPOSED to do. lol/sigh, oh well
2:36 -- wide on the turn, a persistent issue for us. A little bit of lagging coming off of it. This would probably have been 1 point off, maybe 2.
2:47 -- spider brain moment. Pongu did not hear my first cue to "Down." It wasn't that he heard me and ignored me; he is so stressed that the sound just does not register in his crazed little brain.
2:50 -- so we will make this a Teachable Moment since we already NQ'ed. Pongu does a MUCH faster Down with a finger point to help him along, which was what I had hoped for. Look! You CAN do a Down in the ring at something more closely approximating a reasonable speed! Wowww!! This would have been 3 points off for a re-cue if we were still counting.

2:59 to 3:00 -- I have no idea what is happening here. You can see Pongu start to go into a nice straight Front and then he makes a split-second decision to veer into Heel position instead. Why? Who knows. I'm not giving any mixed signals that I can see. This is a straight-up Crazy Dog Is Crazy moment.
3:02 -- I tried to reset him but he thought it was a sidestep so, welp, I guess we're done here. Pongu was so stressy at this point that he was just not thinking, so that was the end for us.

Because of various point losses, that complete disaster of a bonus exercise, and the re-cued Down, our final score would have been below 195. Therefore this would not have counted toward our ARCHMX triple Q anyway and it doesn't matter that I NQ'ed us. Personally, I'd rather have the NQ than a crappy score.

Then we went back to the car and Pongu took a nap and cleared out some of his brain spiders.










All the gray that's starting to show on his muzzle makes me feel a little sad. I spend a lot of time thinking: _He's not even four yet! Why is he starting to look old!_ 

Life is unfair.

Anyway, after that we went back in and our second set of runs was much better, so we did get one triple Q to kick off our Grand Final Championship Quest of 2014.

And that's it for us this year. 55(-ish) NQs! Some slightly larger number of Qs! 1188 Championship points! (...according to my extremely sophisticated "scribbled on the back of a course map" recording method, that is; actual official results may vary.) Three combined championship titles! Some other number of little ones that I'm not counting anymore!

WOOOOOOOOOOO

Onward and upward. I'm hoping we accomplish some good things in 2014.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

2014 is now upon us and we are back on the circuit.

Our first World Cynosport trial of the new year was last Wednesday. Small weekday evening trial at BVTC, friendly and laid-back, nothing too dramatic to report. Pongu picked up two triple Qs: 210/200/205, 208/206/203. His off-set jump appears to be rock solid now, which makes me very happy, and we didn't get any broken Stays. Alas, his left turns have become a thing of sadness (either that or, more likely, I've just gotten much pickier about what I now consider acceptable) so we need to work on that.

Then this weekend we did our AKC Rally debut. Novice A _yeaaaaahh_.

I actually went into it thinking "lol I don't need to practice for _Novice A_ in _Rally,_ come on now" which turned out to be very stupid because (a) AKC has several signs, even at the Novice level, that don't exist in World Cynosport and were therefore deeply confusing to Pongu; and (b) I was totally unprepared for how huge the venues at these two shows were going to be.

On Saturday we did the Princeton Dog Training Club's trial at the Rutgers campus. This was literally a sports stadium (I think it was a swim hall, but I'm not entirely clear on that) which had been converted to an enormous six-ring dog show with crating in the same room.

This picture does not _begin_ to convey how noisy, crowded, and chaotic the place was. But I have it, so I'll post it.










Naturally Pongu was a total wreck. The first time I brought him into the hall, somebody set off one of the emergency door alarms, so that blared for a solid couple of minutes and didn't much help his state of mind.

But, to my great and lasting amazement, once we actually got into the ring, he pulled it together. Sort of. It wasn't a _good_ run -- his heeling was a mess, he spent a lot of time distracted and unfocused, and we had to re-do one of the AKC signs because Pongu had not practiced it enough to understand what he was supposed to do the first time (although that's really my fault for not preparing him).

But the judge was generous with a Novice team, and altogether we only lost 4 points on Pongu's mistakes. So we _would_ have had a 96, which would also have been good enough for first place in the class, if I hadn't screwed up the Figure 8 and gotten lost going around the cones. Our re-try on that exercise knocked us down to 93 and put us squarely in the middle of the pack. 

(As an aside, I was amused to discover that none of the 11 Rally Novice A teams that day were actually "true" first-time-in-the-ring Novice A teams. Not one. Every handler, and most dogs, in that group had multiple titles in some other venue -- agility, freestyle, hunting tests, herding, etc. -- but nothing that counted for AKC Rally/obedience purposes.)

Anyway the important thing is that Pongu held it together in an extremely difficult environment for him and got an okay-ish score, which would have been a pretty good score if not for me, so I was happy with Saturday's results.










I was also really _really _impressed with a lot of the teams trialing that day, and also Sunday. Many of the regional powerhouse teams in obedience were at that trial -- I've never seen so many OTCH and soon-to-be OTCH teams in one place before. It was seriously awesome to watch them in action (and check off their legendary kennel names, because I'm a nerd like that). Just amazing teamwork.

Sunday we went to Verona High School for the Essex County Obedience Training Club's trial. This one was almost as big as the other in terms of the entry numbers (over 200 teams entered between obedience and Rally), but because they could only fit three dog rings into each high-school gymnasium, it was split into two different rooms and thus wasn't quite as overwhelming for scaredypants dog.

Pongu was still a nutjob, but a little better than he was on Saturday. Again, that surprised me and made me happy. I figured he would be tired from Saturday and off his game on Sunday, but I guess the fact that he only had to do one run on the previous day -- and it was a short run; an AKC Novice course is about half the length of a Level 2 or 3 World Cynosport course -- meant he wasn't too terribly worn out after all.

We finished our second run with a score of 98 and a first-place finish out of 11 dogs (almost exactly the same 11 as on Saturday; I think maybe two of them were different). I didn't check but I'm pretty sure our point losses were on heeling errors; we had a bunch of those, since again Pongu's heeling was a mess when he got all stressy. But hey, he stuck with me, so I can't complain.










And that concludes our first weekend in AKC competition. Tantalizingly close to two first-place finishes, but oh well, I have only myself to blame for screwing that up. The important thing is that _Pongu_ almost got them under very, very difficult circumstances for a fearful dog.










It's going to be a while before we can finish his Rally Novice title, alas, because there aren't any upcoming trials in the next couple of months that let you enter with a mutt puppy. PUREBREDS ONLY (pfft).

The main thing that surprised me was that Pongu did so well in those venues. Compared to what I expect from him elsewhere, his performances were not very good, but the fact that he could do anything at _all_ means that we have a better starting point than I'd expected, and now that I know this, we can work upward from there.

Also, it didn't make one bit of difference that I couldn't bring cookies into the AKC ring. I wasn't sure what to expect there, since I hadn't actually practiced or proofed for that at all (another glaring oversight!), but it turned out to have no effect whatsoever.

I think what _would_ have made a difference would have been if I hadn't been able to talk throughout the run; Pongu took a lot more strength from verbal encouragement than he would have gotten from cookies. If I ever want to take him into the AKC obedience ring, I'll have to spend a lot of time thinning down the reinforcement rate on praise.

But for now, I'm content with where we are. AKC is not our primary venue and won't be anytime soon, but at least now I know we can do it.


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

Congratulations on your AKC debut. 

Have you checked out the search function on the AKC website? I saw several trials coming up in NJ that accept All Americans, but I'm not sure about how far they are from you. American Kennel Club - Event and Awards Search

I'm going to be having the same problem finding tracking tests, once I get Ilka certified.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

I didn't want to enter the ones at the Wildwood Convention Center because (a) they're in _Wildwood_; and (b) the words "Convention Center" made me panic on sight. Convention centers and conformation shows are not a good combination with scaredybutt dog.

But then I went ahead and entered the Jan. 31st one this afternoon anyway because it hadn't closed yet and (let's hear it again!) I'm an idiot. Still, who knows, Pongu _might_ be able to semi-sorta-kinda handle it. He was not in good form at the other AKC shows for sure, but he did better than I expected, and he can't improve if we don't practice. Plus I think if I actually bother teaching Pongu the AKC Novice exercises in the two weeks we'll have before that trial, we'll do better next time (all else being equal, that is, which it probably won't be).

If he's a complete disaster on arrival I can always scratch and just go watch the other stuff that's going on. I've never been to one of those big huge multi-day clusters before, so it should be educational. (Also, I will admit, I'm looking to do some shopping and am hoping they have some nice vendor booths.)

So... there's me talking myself into throwing away a Friday and some as-yet-undetermined amount of money. 

Tracking is going to be so hard to do with a mutt puppy! Good luck. I really don't know much about tracking at all, but from what I hear it's just about impossible to get into a tracking trial with a mutt. I'd love to know how it goes.


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

If you get there, he's a mess, and you do decide to scratch, it is loads of fun to just wander through the vendors. Most larger shows will have several. 

I really wish I had more opportunities to show at other venues. Down here, it is mainly AKC, with the odd UKC or ASCA event. 

I don't know if you're on Facebook, but there are several groups devoted to obedience and rally there. There are also some yahoo groups about it. 

And you'd think the world was ending, the way that some of the tracking people are reacting to mixed breeds being accepted for tracking. Some clubs are willing to open TD tests to them, but not TDX or VST tests. There was the same fuss made when they were approved for agility, obedience and rally events, and nowadays, probably two-thirds to three-quarters of events are open to them, so it will eventually get better, I'm sure. 


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

I'm on the click-comp-obed Yahoo group and in the Fenzi Alumni Rally/OB FB group, but other than that I've stayed off the mailing lists and out of the groups because sometimes they feel unpleasantly political to me and I'd rather just stay out of it.

If I had specific training questions it might be different, but pretty much every single one of my training and performance problems boils down to "my dog is crazy and needs more practice to improve his skills and confidence" and I already know how to deal with that, it's just a matter of putting the time in, eating a bunch more NQs, and _doing_ it.

So mainly all I do in groups is encourage and support other people, which I feel most comfortable doing in those specific groups. There's not a lot of reason for me to branch out to other ones at the moment. I might feel differently about it later, that's just where I am today.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Weekend update:

We entered two Rally trials on Jan. 25/26 in Andover, NJ.

I ended up scratching from Saturday's trial because the weather forecast called for 2 to 4 inches of snow and it's a 2 1/2-hour drive for me each way to reach that particular venue, and I'm a terrible driver at the best of times, so all in all it just sounded like more stress and risk than I really wanted to undertake.

So I emailed in a cancellation notice for Saturday and instead we stayed home and played in the snow, which did indeed materialize as forecast.



















On Sunday, however, Pongu and I went to the trial.

Aaand we did... not very well. 209/199 (blown bonus, sigh)/201 for the first set, 204 (BRUTALLY bad L1 run)/200/NQ (broken Stay) on the second set. One QQQ, so not a total waste of a day, but our performances surely were not what I'd hoped for. After that trial I felt like we just hadn't made any progress at all in the last couple of months.

We have _so_ much that needs work that sometimes I wonder what I'm even doing trying to trial right now. Pongu and I have major problems in everything from precision to proofing to ring confidence. Blargh.

I was not surprised when we NQ'ed that last L3 run, btw. The course setup had the dog holding a Stay in one corner of the facility while the handler walked all the way across the room to the opposite corner. It was the longest-distance Stay I've ever seen at a Rally trial, and Pongu has trouble with his Stays at the best of times. He'll break when there isn't more than 15 to 25 feet of space between us, so I knew there was _no_ way he'd be able to handle a full room's distance in that venue on that day, with the space heaters and ceiling fans going full blast.

And yep, scaredybutt broke his Stay and came crying back to me before I'd gotten halfway across the room. Welp. Add that back to the infinite list of Things That Need Work.

So it was not among our better days, overall. BUT I scored some awesome dog treats at the vendor booth (dehydrated bunny ears, alligator jerky treats, _and_ crunchy duck feet!), and then this afternoon I got some nice pictures from forum member phgsd, who happened to be at that trial.



















I was delighted to get these pictures because wow, what a lovely surprise!, and also because ahaa we look almost like a functional team in those still shots. Shame the rest of the run didn't look that good. 

But he really does try, my little Pongupants. He tries very hard. These pictures remind me of that, and therefore I cherish them. We'll practice more and hope to do better next time. <3


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## Kaimeju (Feb 2, 2013)

I love that you do eye contact when heeling with him. Some people don't look at their dogs and think it is more aesthetically pleasing, but I like the eye contact. It really emphasizes how much he trusts you and how hard you are working to encourage him.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

I'm actually trying very hard to break that habit. 

Sustained eye contact is a form of reassurance and reinforcement for Pongu, and he works better when he has it, but in AKC obedience you can/will get penalized for it, depending on the judge, and so I'm sloooowwwly moving away from it.

But I agree. It's harder for me to feel that connection with my dog if I can't look at him, so I'll always be active in Rally (where it's not only permitted but encouraged) and will continue to sneak peeks at him in obedience.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Today Pongu finished his AKC Rally Novice title with a first-place finish in a class of 9 dogs and a perfect score of 100 at the Sand & Sea Kennel Club's trial in Wildwood NJ.










Going in, I was not overly optimistic about this trial, because it was part of a big multi-day conformation cluster in a convention center and I was all "hoo boy, scaredydog is not gonna like that one." But it was our last chance to finish Pongu's RN before spring, and I really didn't want to wait that long because I just don't have that much patience in my life.

And indeed Pongu did not like the convention center. He didn't like the conformation dogs' big noisy RVs, he didn't like their hair dryers, he didn't like the vacuums that their staff used to clean up loose hair from under their grooming tables, he basically did not like anything about the entire scenario at all. It was a shaky drooly sheddy dandruff wonderland of disaster and for a minute I seriously thought about scratching him and just going shopping instead.

But I figured I'd at least take him into the trial room and see how he did in there first. And once we got into the obedience room (which was in one of the convention center ballrooms and set off from the main event), where it was considerably quieter, he calmed down enough that I was like "COOL WE'RE GOING IN" and so we went in.

I actually practiced the AKC signs before the trial this time. It helped. We got three of the only-in-AKC signs on this run, but HAHA this time Pongu knew how to do them and they did not trip us up.










Sadly this trial didn't offer title ribbons, so we finished the day with just two little flats. Oh well.

If I hadn't screwed Pongu up on his first run, he would have completed his RN with a string of three consecutive first-place finishes. Oh well x 2. I'll add that to my list of deathbed regrets.

Afterwards Pongu ran around the beaches (which allow dogs in winter) and steadfastly refused to play with Ariella the pittie mix, who is Crookytail's friend but not Pongu's friend because Pongu is a giant nerdlinger and has no friends.










And that concludes our run in AKC Rally Novice A. I will never ever get to have another Rally Novice A dog again for the rest of my life. That's it. You only get one. After this, every dog has to start in Novice B.

Your Novice A dog is special. I'm glad I got to share this moment with Pongu. <3


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## MyHans-someBoy (Feb 23, 2013)

Pongu, you rock!

It must be a little nerve wracking for you to work so hard, get there and find he just doesn't seem like he can deal with it. He's so lucky to have someone with so much patience!

Glad he was able to overcome his fears and do so well. In that last picture it looks like he is relaxing and reflecting on his big day, in his own quiet, low key way... 


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

MyHans-someBoy said:


> It must be a little nerve wracking for you to work so hard, get there and find he just doesn't seem like he can deal with it.


It is a perpetual source of frustration, yes. I wouldn't say it's "nerve wracking" anymore (although it _was,_ back when I was worried about what our friends and instructors and the Whole Entire World, who were _clearly_ watching and judging!, would think when they saw us crash and burn), but it never entirely stops sucking. I'm just resigned to it now. 

I genuinely don't have any idea what it is like to compete with a dog who's sane, steady, and reliably ready to go. On our best days I get _maybe_ 75% of the dog I see in training -- and that's if it's a quiet day in a low-pressure trial at a venue Pongu has seen many times before. More often the needle spins between 30 to 60%.

But, you know, Pongu used to be able to give me only 0 to 1%, so he's getting better. At this past trial we met up with a friend we hadn't seen in many months (Ariella's owner) and she was amazed that Pongu would now begrudgingly permit her to touch him, because he never used to do that before. Even at the dog park, where he was much more relaxed than he was at that convention center, he would just run away from her (and he knows her! He has known her for years) and hide behind me.

It gives me hope. While it often doesn't feel like it day to day, or even month to month, we _are_ getting better at this stuff. Slowly. SLOWLY.


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## MyHans-someBoy (Feb 23, 2013)

Merciel said:


> It is a perpetual source of frustration, yes. I wouldn't say it's "nerve wracking" anymore (although it _was,_ back when I was worried about what our friends and instructors and the Whole Entire World, who were _clearly_ watching and judging!, would think when they saw us crash and burn), but it never entirely stops sucking. I'm just resigned to it now.
> 
> I genuinely don't have any idea what it is like to compete with a dog who's sane, steady, and reliably ready to go. On our best days I get _maybe_ 75% of the dog I see in training -- and that's if it's a quiet day in a low-pressure trial at a venue Pongu has seen many times before. More often the needle spins between 30 to 60%.
> 
> ...





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## MyHans-someBoy (Feb 23, 2013)

Oops! Haven't gotten used to the new "version" of this forum on my phone yet!

Forgive me if it has been discussed elsewhere in this thread...but I am curious if there is any thing you do before going to these competitions that helps at all to relax Pongu? Any little routines, exercises or anything else really help calm his fear?





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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Yes and no. I don't have a specific set routine. I will ask him to do some warm-up exercises so I can get a gauge of whether he's able to function at all, but it's nothing complicated -- just some heeling with a couple of turns and stops, maybe a moving Down, _maaaaybe_ a very brief, short-distance Stay of like 6' or so if the trial venue is conducive to it (most aren't). This is usually enough for me to figure out if Pongu is going to be even marginally functional in the ring.

Some people like to amp their dogs up with jumps and high nose touches before a run, and occasionally I'll do that to let Pongu burn off a little anxiety stress, but in general he does better if we just do some simple heeling patterns before we go in. I think it calms him to be asked to do something he knows how to do and has a long reinforcement history of success in.

Sometimes we have to go in and out of the trial venue a few times before our run. Go into the venue, let him look around (and stress like woah) for a few minutes, go back to the car to decompress, rinse and repeat. Sometimes this helps, other times it doesn't seem to make any difference.

When we're at the start line I will ask him for a Sit in Heel and eye contact before we start moving forward. That moment of eye contact seems to connect him to the concept of "okay, now it is go time." I used to not be able to get it, and whenever I couldn't get that start line eye contact, I knew we were in for a bumpy ride and probable NQ. Now I can almost always get it, but it's not always as fast or happy as I'd like. Pongu's attitude on the start line is a pretty reliable indicator of what level of performance I can expect on the upcoming run, though.

Between runs, if the venue allows for it, I'll let him run around like a maniac outside to burn off stress. Again, this depends on where we're trialing -- this is not possible in lots of places. But when it _is_ possible, it seems to help.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Merciel said:


> Today Pongu finished his AKC Rally Novice title with a first-place finish in a class of 9 dogs and a perfect score of 100 at the Sand & Sea Kennel Club's trial in Wildwood NJ.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Congratulations on your Rally novice A dog!!! It sounds like a good day all in all.

I had three Rally Novice A dogs. Rally B isn't nearly as lucrative, but it gets better again when you go advanced and excellent. Some poor people can't do Rally Novice A at all, because they managed to get an obedience title on a dog once upon a time. But I kind of liked having the real green handlers and greed dogs in a class of their own. I think in some ways we were better than the B-dogs and handlers because, we were so nervous that we trained those dogs until they could do the course with the leash looped around their ear (Babs did this in one of her runs, the leash fell and looped around her ear, and as it was totally loose, I just left it there. 

I took first with Babs and qualified with Jenna on the first day of the show. 

I took second with Babs and third with Rush on the second day. 

And on the third day, I had a super run with both Babs and Arwen. My score was 90 with Arwen and 89 with Babs. I was floored. I could not believe it, I thought we had a high ninety or a hundred with both of them. So I actually asked the judge about it. 

She told me she loved the dogs, the dogs are great, she wanted to give them a new handler. I was rocked. She then told me that I stepped back 1 step, then 2 steps, and then 2 steps again. BOTH runs. 10 points off. Arwen would have had a 100 and Babsy a 99 if my steps were correct. Poop! She did this to the majority of the class though so Arwen still got 4th place, and the crazy lady that I had used to train with did not qualify at all in B -- she was furious. Yeah, I stayed there and watched the whole B-class screw that up too. The couple that watched the A-class and got that correct, got the placements. 

Arwen and Rushie both had two legs already. So I finished 3 dogs that weekend, all in Novice A. 

But they were special -- that breaking in to showing.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

selzer said:


> Arwen and Rushie both had two legs already. So I finished 3 dogs that weekend, all in Novice A.
> 
> But they were special -- that breaking in to showing.


Oh, that's true, I had forgotten that people sometimes start showing more than one dog at once. It kind of blows my mind thinking about that, because I have so many problems with _one_ dog, I can't even fathom trialing three at the same time. Madness!

But yeah, it is special with that first dog. Or dogs. 

In other news, Pongu had a pretty good World Cynosport trial yesterday. It wasn't perfect, but I had more of my dog with me in the ring than I typically do. Most of our mistakes (and we had mistakes aplenty!) were the same ones that I see in training, and it was a peculiar relief to see glitches related to under-training rather than crazy stressing.

208/206 (one re-cue and a heeling fault)/203 (don't remember what those were, but I think we had a couple of re-cues and some forward creep on the Stand/Down/Sit/Recall?) for the first set, NQ (my fault -- missed a sign)/209/209 on the second set. Good Fronts on both the off-set jump and Recall Over Jump; those continue to be problems for us, so I was really happy with Pongu's straight, close Fronts on those exercises.

This trial venue was part of a large office park that was mostly deserted on a Sunday, so I let Pongu charge around off-leash between runs to blow off steam and keep his spirits up over the course of a long day. It helped.










Pongu landed in the ribbons on every run where we Q'ed, which is the first time we've pulled off that particular feat in the Championship division. I am pretty sure we would have placed in that Level 1 run where I NQ'ed us, too, but thanks to Total Handler Fail we will never know. OH WELL.










We only got 3rd through 5th because there were some stellar teams at that trial and pretty much if you did not get a perfect 210, you were not getting first or second in anything. Sometimes not third, either!

But I am still really pleased with our performance overall. No jump refusals! No broken Stays! It was the least stressy set of runs I have ever gotten out of Pongu, and also his speed seemed to be somewhat improved -- we were usually first or second by time for our score, and normally we're slower than that. _And_ this was on Sunday when Pongu had been through a pretty stressful trial on Friday, so I was happy with his resilience and stamina, too.

Between that trial and the Wildwood one, I'm feeling pretty good about crazypants dog right now. We have many things that need work and I'm glad we're taking a month off starting next weekend to try and fix some of those issues. But hey!, maybe we are making some progress here after all.


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

I've just noticed a title that Pongu has that I can't identify. What is TDCH? Also, what does Crookytail's NTD mean?


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

LeoRose said:


> I've just noticed a title that Pongu has that I can't identify. What is TDCH? Also, what does Crookytail's NTD mean?


Those are Trick Dog titles. Pongu's TDCH stands for Trick Dog Champion, the highest title in the sequence, while Crooky's NTD is Novice Title Dog, the lowest (and, alas, probably the furthest he'll ever get with it). 

I'm glad you asked, because it's probably good to get all that background stuff in one place (to the extent that this huge sprawling thread still counts as "one place").

We did Trick Dog: Trick Dog Title early last year, because a friend and training client had asked about it in the context of sports she could do without putting her dog in a ring environment (which, at that time, her dog was not ready to handle). And I thought: hmm, that sounds good for a fearful dog too!

I really liked the program and strongly advocate Trick Dog as a way to do some structured training with a fearful dog who may not yet have the courage to go into the trial ring -- or a reactive dog, a young dog, etc. We always say that trick training is a great way to build that bond and trust (and it is!), so this just gives you more direction in where to go with that. It's also a great stepping stone between pet dog training and formal competition work. The title progression gives a sense of accomplishment to your work, and at the higher levels, it's a pretty good challenge.

Also, if you've only ever trained for specific sports (as we had been doing up until then), it's interesting to step back and get a broader view of the foundational skills you _aren't_ touching because they aren't immediately necessary to whatever sport you're doing. There's always something -- and having it in the no-pressure context of Trick Dog broadens your range of innovative solutions when you run into your next training roadblock.


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

Thanks. I've heard someone mention trick dog training before, but didn't realize if was a formal program. Guess I need to find some books, and get cracking.


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## Kayos and Havoc (Oct 17, 2002)

Catching up with Pongo! Sounds like you guys have done very well all things considered.

Congrats on the RN, well done! 

My scaredy dog got her first AKC Novice Agility leg a few weeks ago. It was nice and not really expected. The scaredy dogs can still be successful and have fun.


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## Msmaria (Mar 2, 2013)

I cant tell you how much I love reading your stories about you and Pongo. Having a dogs thats afraid of a few things , reading your posts really keep me inspired. You have done an amazing job with him.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Kayos and Havoc said:


> My scaredy dog got her first AKC Novice Agility leg a few weeks ago. It was nice and not really expected. The scaredy dogs can still be successful and have fun.


Oh nice, congratulations!

I haven't even considered trying to do agility with Pongu (well, okay, I _have_ considered it, but never for longer than about two minutes). Our ordeal with the bar jumps last year was so awful that I just don't even want to THINK about tunnels or teeters or weave poles. Oh god the horror.

...so instead I'm taking a shot at it with goofy ol' dunderhead Crookytail. He has fun. He is slow and clumsy and not smart, but he tries real hard and he is delighted to finally be asked to do something, so we'll keep at it for as long as my patience endures. All my friends tell me it's best to learn with a slow dog as your first agility dog, so I've definitely got _that_ going for me. 


@ Msmaria -- thanks! It is my hope that listening to me whine and flail piteously will somehow, in some perverse way, help people in a similar situation.

I think this thread may be headed for a conclusion in a couple of months, though. I'm sending in another batch of trial registrations this week and that should take us through April, when I hope to finish Pongu's ARCHMX.

And then the thread will have finished its original goal.

So, two more months maybe and we're done. I hope?


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Preliminary rankings are out for 2013 and I'm proud to say that Pongu is _provisionally_ ranked #9 nationally among all dogs in World Cynosport Rally, #1 in his division (ARCHEX), and #1 for mixed-breed dogs in all divisions.

I didn't really expect to crack the Top 20 at all (because of WCRL's point structure, where dogs competing in lower divisions are not eligible for full points, we were at a significant disadvantage for much of the year), let alone land that high. I'm pretty pleased with this result. And I also definitely did _not_ expect to be ranked first in our division. I figured Top 5 but not #1!

Final results should come out in late March, and it is entirely possible that there'll be some reshuffling, but in the meantime we're number one!! (sorta), and I am extremely proud of my crazy little scaredypants dog.

He's still a completely nonfunctional nutcase (we're on vacation right now and Pongu has, as ever, been a disaster), but at least he can do this one thing decently well. Sometimes.

HOORAY (preliminarily).


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## Msmaria (Mar 2, 2013)

Congratulations to you and Pongo. What whining? Lol thanks to you I had joined a Rally O class with my somewhat fearful dog, I say somewhat fearful because he doesnt like to be patted on the head and has barked and ran from strangely dressed people like the tax liberty lady on the corner holding a sign. Upon graduation this month we came in no 2 out of 8 in the class lol. I think youve done a great job with Pongo hes a lucky guy.


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## Kaun (Aug 23, 2013)

Congratulations on the rankings! That's amazing, especially with a fearful dog like him. I hope it won't change much after the final results come out


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Revised rankings came out earlier this week and we dropped from 9th to 10th in the overall national standings (BY ONE POINT, sigh), but I would be absolutely shocked if we lost our #1 place in the ARCHEX division. Pongu has a huge point margin over the second-place dog and I can't see that changing so much that we lose our spot there.

Yesterday we emerged from our monthlong break with a WCRL trial in Nazareth PA. I _meant_ to spend our time off working on various issues that plague us in Rally competition, but instead I mostly ended up working on Utility scent articles because of... absolutely no good reason, since we're nowhere near trialing in Utility in any venue. And when we weren't doing that, we were working on the broad jump (which doesn't exist in WCRL) or breaking down aspects of the drop on recall (which _does_ exist, but only shows up occasionally in Level 3).

So I wasn't really sure what to expect from Pongu in the Rally ring when we went back. This hasn't been his favorite venue in the past (although _I _like it a bunch, because it's next to a dollar store where I frequently find awesome training props and across from a supermarket that has the best guilty-pleasure donut case on Earth), which doubled my trepidation.

But he did fine. In fact, he did better than fine.

Pongu started the day stressy and squeaky and dandruffy, as usual, and it was a long day (single ring double trial = we got up at 5 am and didn't finish our last run until a little after 5 pm), so by the end he was running out of steam.

But in between, he was miraculously, totally relaxed for a couple of those runs, and he _stayed_ relaxed for the entire run. Pongu was happy and smiley and eager to work in a trial environment. I have _never_ been able to get that from him before, and it made me indescribably happy to actually be working with 100% of my dog. That NEVER happens. Never! But it happened that afternoon, and he pulled perfect scores on those three runs.

Final tally: 207 (repeated cue)/210/NQ (difficult off-set jump on a Level 3 course; I would have been really impressed if Pongu had managed to hit that one, since it involved veering out and then back in at really sharp angles and was tricky for a dog to differentiate from a straight recall with a booby trap jump) on the first set. 210/210/206 on the second set (repeated cue, crooked Sit). Picked up one more QQQ, so we now have four to go for ARCHMX.










We took High Scoring Rescue Dog in both trials and landed in the ribbons on every run where we qualified, which made me happy because there were some great teams at this trial. Both of our second places were to Edith the border collie, who is a _rockstar_ and extremely difficult to beat (when she doesn't beat you on score, she'll beat you on time), and our third place was to two dogs being run by a multi-OTCH/MACH handler, so it's hard for me to feel too disappointed about that one either.

But the most important thing is that for much of that day, my fearful dog _wasn't fearful_. He was just happy to play this game with me in the ring.

And while the magic of that moment quickly faded, and crazypants dog went back to being crazy, the memory of it is still with me.

We did it once, we can do it again.


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## glowingtoadfly (Feb 28, 2014)

Love this thread.


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

Yay, Pongu!


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Yesterday we drove out to New Jersey for an AKC Rally double trial being hosted by the Lower Camden County Dog Training Club. This was Pongu's first shot at Rally Advanced, and I was a little nervous about going in, because it meant the leash would come off! in an AKC venue! and that might lead to stress and disaster.

Well, it kinda did, although not exactly in the way I was expecting.

This was our first time at the Total Turf venue. It turned out to be quite nice: clean, well-maintained artifical turf in a large field that allowed for fairly spacious rings (by AKC standards), plenty of crating space, and convenient benches for spectators. There was a nifty little cafe turning out better-than-average dog show food (which you might _think _is faint praise... until it's 5 pm and 38 degrees out and you haven't had a hot meal since your pre-dawn coffee at 6 am) and loads of free parking. Judging by the turnout -- 176 obedience teams and over 80 Rally entries per trial -- lots of other people liked it too.

Alas, Pongu was not one of them. Gone was the happy dog I had at our last two shows. In his place was the stressy, shaky, bug-eyed maniac I know so well from all our other trials. _Sigh_.

AKC shows, or at least the AKC shows we've been doing, are a _lot_ bigger than World Cynosport Rally trials. If it were just the Rally part split off from the main event, they'd be roughly equivalent (actually, in that case, the WCRL trials would almost always be bigger), but of course that is not how it works in AKC. So the venues are very big and very crowded and scaredybutt dog gets very scared.

We didn't have much connection on our first run. On our second run, there wasn't much in the beginning, but about halfway through Pongu perked up and smiled at me and things got a bit better.

Despite that lack of connection, and despite the lack of cookies or leash or anything else, Pongu did pretty well. Both of our Rally runs had high jumps; going in, that had been the jump I most feared encountering, since Pongu had only seen high jumps twice before (once at an obedience run-through before our first CDSP trial last October, and once last week when the snow finally melted enough for us to prep for this trial), and both of those times he initially refused the jump before taking it on a later attempt.

At this trial, however, Pongu did those jumps _beautifully_. No hesitation. Nailed his jumps and came right back to Heel position on the other side. I was so proud of him.

Scores weren't bad, weren't great. Pongu scored 97 in both runs. All his deductions were on heeling errors (lagging or going wide) or slow Sits.

And then _I_ lost us 20 points in our first run by doing two exercises incorrectly. I failed to pause after the end of each exercise, because I was still in a WCRL mindset where you _never_ pause, unless it's for a cookie, because you want to shave that extra half second off your final time.

In AKC, that is a no-no. That is, in fact, 20 points' worth of no-nos. So we got hit for two IP penalties and our final score was a 77. Last place out of 14 dogs. BRUTAL.

I went back to the car and _cried_ after that class was pinned, because I was so upset that I had knocked Pongu out of the ribbons to LAST. FREAKING. PLACE.

And then I read some dog books on my Kindle and sat with my dog in the backseat of the car and had some nice hugs, and Pongu licked the whiny tears off my face and I thought: this is so stupid, that I'm upset about a number on a scoresheet when it doesn't _matter_ for anything. A Q is a Q. AKC doesn't tally points or placements for rankings in Rally. There isn't an Award of Excellence to be won with high scores in the A classes. So we didn't get a rosette, big deal. I'm already contemplating refusing any more rosettes in the future anyhow, why should I feel bad about not getting one today?

The important thing I learned today is that even when Pongu is stressy, even in a venue he doesn't like, even with no cookies or leash, he _will work with me._ And he will do it well enough to come in near the top of a competitive field, even when he's not in good form. That's important. That is huge. That is something that, a year ago, I would have sworn was impossible and would happily have sacrificed any number of small animals to obtain.

That afternoon, we went back in. Our connection was still staticky. Pongu still lost 3 points on lagging and wide turns and slow Sits. It wasn't a great run.

But I stayed out of his way, and our final score was the 97 that my dog really deserved, and that time he landed in the ribbons. Fourth place out of 13 dogs (lost third on time, but that's fine with me; I have always preferred the white rosettes to the yellow ones anyhow).


​

And even though I didn't really think it mattered, I won't lie: I was still happy that we got a rosette.

The walls of the cafe at Total Turf are painted with inspirational sports sayings. One of them -- the one that happened to catch my eye, by pure chance, when I went to the restroom after blowing that 20-point run -- was this:

"Winning will make you happy, but losing will make you wise."

And oh yes, that is true. Losing will make you wise. About why you're really in the ring, what your dog's performance really means...

...and, above all, how you will never ever (*&(#&$#$_ ever_ fail to pause on a Sit-Stand-Walkaround again.


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## Shade (Feb 20, 2012)

"Winning will make you happy, but losing will make you wise."
I have to say this really made me pause and think, thank you for sharing that gem  I know I've learned the most when my dog fails at something and it can be hard to see the light on bad days but it is always there.

Congratulations on overcoming  You have a very strong heart as does Pongu for battling through the adversity!


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

Have I mentioned the fact the Ilka and I had three excusals and an NQ for our first four RA scores? Leo and I managed to NQ in our first RN run (I think we had NQd _long_ before I did the figure 8 wrong). 

I think the fact that he can hold it together says a lot about how far he's come since you started.


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## Msmaria (Mar 2, 2013)

You and Pongo are always winners in my book. Most people can work with a great dog. To get this far with a nervy dog like Pongo takes even more commitment, time and trust. So congratulations to you both.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Thanks everybody. 



LeoRose said:


> I think the fact that he can hold it together says a lot about how far he's come since you started.


Oh yeah, absolutely. I am _so_ proud of my little guy. 

Just to reiterate, the reason I was so broken up about my dumb mistakes yesterday was because _Pongu did awesome!!!_ and I couldn't believe that I had screwed that up for him so badly.

For my dog to be able to do much of ANYTHING other than shut down and pee all over himself, and/or attempt to bolt desperately out of that venue, is a miracle in my mind. For him to be able to score in the high 90s on his first-ever try at Rally Advanced, and to do it twice back-to-back under different judges on the same day, is awesome. For him to be good enough that I'm actually slightly _disappointed_ by that performance -- for that to be a not-great run for us! -- is something I would never have been able to imagine when we started on this journey.

But he did all of that. He worked his heart out that day. And that meant so much to me, and then I dinged us for 20 points, and I thought "oh man I have let down my teammate!"

And then of course it eventually ("eventually" because I'm a moron) occurred to me that my dog does not actually care what place we get on the board. No matter how many times I proudly show them to him, he doesn't know the difference between a HIT rosette or a little green Q ribbon or no ribbon at all. The only thing Pongu knows is that either I'm happy with him or I'm not.

If I'm actually going to be a good partner, I must be better at keeping myself mindful of that. Bungling up 20 points doesn't matter (that much. I'm not ego-less enough to pretend like it _completely_ doesn't matter). Making sure my dog knows he did a good job and I'm proud of him? That does.


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## Msmaria (Mar 2, 2013)

I have to laugh because I know I would feel the same way you do about messing it up. But, isn't it great that they are dogs and could care less about ribbons awards and points. To him he's just spending this time with you and he's happy. It's so good you know this and in the end ( with our human ego aside ) its this that matters.


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## Kaimeju (Feb 2, 2013)

I always learn so much from reading your posts. Do you have any plans to teach? Because you would be great at it.


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## Ponygrrrl (May 8, 2013)

I love love love this thread! I had originally started following it because of my scaredy-dog Booda, but I SO enjoy learning more about the competitions and about your relationship with your animals. I have always known that my dog has a better grasp on what are the truly important things in life, thanks for helping remind us all!


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Kaimeju said:


> Do you have any plans to teach? Because you would be great at it.


You're very kind to say so, but I am actually a pretty lousy teacher.

I used to do a little pet dog training and I also ran a couple of tricks and sport foundation classes (super fundamental stuff like basic impulse control, hand targeting, building attention in distracting environments, etc.). I wasn't particularly good at it, and to be honest I didn't have enough interest to _get_ particularly good at it.

Basically my problem -- which probably isn't too hard to guess just based on my posting style here -- was that I'd completely inundate people with information and they'd get overwhelmed and feel like it was too much to handle and shut down. But then whenever I _didn't_ do that, I'd feel like I was leaving out way too much information.

I never got very good at striking that balance, and anyway it didn't take long for me to figure out that I was way more interested in training and trialing my own dog(s, since at the time I still had delusions about Crookytail someday getting to have a sport career) than telling other people how to train theirs.

So no, I don't try to do that anymore.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

World Cynosport Rally's final rankings for 2013 are out, and Pongu is officially-for-sure the #10 WCRL dog in the nation and #1 ARCHEX dog (although you have to scroll down to page 12 to see the rankings for that division).

yaaaayyy crazypants

Hopefully he'll finish up his MX in the next couple of weeks and then I'll send this thread off to the land of Happily Ever After (lol).


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## LifeofRiley (Oct 20, 2011)

Congrats!!!!  

I continue to love all of the updates on your adventures with Pongu!


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

Yay for Pongu!! Y'all have put in a LOT of hard work.


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## Magwart (Jul 8, 2012)

You're an amazing team. 

Every time I see an update, I think back to your very first post on this thread -- and how you've consistently proven how _capable _Pongu is, despite all his foibles and quirks.

You once wrote: "He is now 3 years old, and much better than he was, but there's no cure for a fearful dog. There's _improvement_, but you never finish the journey. You never get a 'normal' dog."

Y'all have definitely reached an amazing conclusion to your journey. You may not feel how amazing it is because you've been living the daily frustration of hours of practices, runs that don't go as well as you hoped, and noticing every flaw. From where I'm sitting though, you have turned Pongu into the best of the best, a top national competitor -- proving that _even _a fearful dog can do it, with a dedicated, patient, resourceful handler. The fact that Pongu is willing to struggle to overcome his demons to succeed for you says _everything _about how much he loves you. It's inspiring!


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Thanks. Your post really touched me. 

It is funny, going back to the beginning of this thread, to see how completely defeated we were by jumps and Stays and omg that horrible Stand For Exam bogeyman. We haven't quite vanquished any of those things, to be sure, but I no longer believe that they're impossible. Today, failure on those exercises is the exception for our team, and what I _expect_ is success.

I very much hope to conclude the original mission of this thread in the next couple of weeks (it didn't happen last weekend because Pongu chewed a hole in his foot and forced us to scratch from our last Rally trial), but it won't be the end of crazypants's competition career.

I once thought this mountain was insurmountable. Now we're almost at the top, and I can see other, higher, more forbidding peaks beyond it. Maybe we'll be able to climb some of those and maybe we won't, but I believe in my dog enough to give them a try.


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

And now we come to the end.

On Saturday, Pongu and I went out to Washington, NJ, to enter a double trial. It was the day before his (fake) birthday, and for a while now my goal has been to finish his ARCHMX before Pongu turned 4, so I was really hoping to get it that day.

I'd had to scratch him from another trial a couple of weeks earlier because he chewed a hole in his foot, which was one of those glass-half-full scenarios because it meant we had to wait a little longer to finish his MX, but _also_ meant we'd have the chance to do it at a trial where a lot of our longtime Rally friends were also competing. And I really wanted to be able to share the moment with them, so I was secretly kind of glad about the way the timing worked out.

Somewhat anticlimactically, though, it ended up being one of our crappier performances. That venue was difficult for a lot of dogs because one side of the ring was comprised of large floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto a strip mall, with passersby gawking at the dogs and other dogs pottying on a grassy area outside. Sometimes those windows are covered, but they weren't on this particular day.

Also, it was extremely quiet inside the venue but quite loud outside, so many dogs (including Pongu) got distracted by the contrast in noise levels. ALSO also, _I_ was super tense, which kind of surprised me because I'm generally not that anxious about WCRL anymore, but I really REALLY wanted to get Pongu's MX that day and so it was like woah, flashback to ring nerves!

But Pongu got the job done. He picked up two sets of triple Qs, finishing his MX with an extra QQQ to spare for the day (because WCRL fixed a mistake in our score tally from last year, so we were credited with another QQQ that we earned but weren't given in 2013).

Our final run was a mess. Pongu was pretty nervous throughout that run (stress jumping on the start line, lots of stopping and staring while heeling, freezing up before the send on his retrieve and lifting his paw on the return, etc.) and we got dinged a bunch for crappy heeling, a crooked Sit, forward creeping on the Stand-Down-Sit-Recall, and two repeated cues. (On the plus side, his Fronts are getting better, and my instructor clued me in last week as to what I was doing wrong on our left turns, so those are on the road to improvement as well.)

So yeah that wasn't pretty and I am not proud of our score and I sure do wish we'd gotten a nicer finale for our championship quest... but it was good enough, and I guess "good enough" is pretty appropriate for us after all.

And lo, it is done. Pongu is the 25th mixed-breed dog ever in the history of the world, and the 168th dog overall, to earn the ARCHMX championship.










Pongu's second set of runs was better, because after we got the MX I was back to being totally relaxed and he was more acclimatized to the environment. But those were just insurance runs -- the real work of the day was already done.

This is not the end of Pongu's trialing career. He has only just turned 4. We still have lots of adventures ahead, lots of new sports to try, lots of new challenges to face. He is still a scaredy dog and we will always have to battle with the bogeyman of his fear and anxiety. The radioactive spider ghosts in his brain will never completely go away.

But the story of this thread ends here. My fearful little crazypants pound puppy made it to the top of his sport, and became one of a small handful of mixed-breed dogs to achieve the highest championship in World Cynosport Rally. Whatever we do or don't accomplish in the days ahead, Pongu has already achieved more than I once believed possible for him.



















HOORAY. Mission accomplished, the end.


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## Msmaria (Mar 2, 2013)

Wow, awesome job you guys. I'm glad its not the end of his competitive career


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## LeoRose (Jan 10, 2013)

Y'all have come a long way. Good for both of you.


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


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## Cara Fusinato (May 29, 2011)

Massive congratulations!


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## glowingtoadfly (Feb 28, 2014)

Yay Pongu!


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## Merciel (Apr 25, 2013)

Thanks, everybody. 

*Epilogue:*

Since earning Pongu's MX last weekend, we've done another two trials. Again, I really do not intend to keep updating this thread with recaps of all the stuff we do (although if you're interested in that, you can always go see what we're up to on my dog blog), but because these two events both provided fairly remarkable demonstrations of Pongu's progress, I'll touch on them briefly here.

Last Sunday we went out to another WCRL trial in New Jersey because I'd entered it as insurance in case we didn't get Pongu's MX that Saturday. It was a new venue that I'd never visited before, and when we got there, it turned out that it was an agility facility housed in an old horse barn (which still smelled very much like horses, even to my nose) with a metal roof.

There were _tons_ of distractions at this venue. One wall of the barn abutted an active chicken coop, where hens squawked and a rooster crowed all day long. During the middle of the day (which meant during several dogs' runs, including two of Pongu's), the farmer went into that coop and started collecting eggs, which made even _more_ noises.

Another wall was adjacent to a fenced outdoor enclosure where the chickens, geese, guinea fowl, and other birds pecked freely for much of the day. There was also a sheep pen right next to the building. The dogs could smell and hear the birds and sheep through the walls (and there was a big double door that led straight from the ring to the chicken coop, so _that_ blew any number of dogs' minds), and it was really tough for many of them to focus as a result. Most of us don't have much opportunity to proof with barnyard animals in this area, and most of our dogs had never encountered such things.

Additionally, there was a train track not far away where trains ran and loudly blew their whistles every 15-20 minutes or so, and when we first got there, it rained on the barn's metal roof just as we entered. Also, one of the dogs peed in the ring on one of the early runs, and several other dogs got distracted sniffing at that.

So... lots and lots of environmental distractions. In some ways I think that was probably the toughest venue we've trialed in, and a year ago there is no way my dog would have been able to handle it. I would have had _no_ dog in the ring -- might as well have scratched the whole day instead of enduring meltdown after meltdown.

But in April 2014, Pongu is (shakily) capable of holding it together even under what were, for him, nearly impossible circumstances. His runs were not pretty, and he squeaked and froze and flinched his way across the course, but he performed. We Q'ed in all six of his runs, never scored below 200, placed in five out of the six, and took first place twice. Pongu's last run of the day _would_ have been a perfect 210 (and the only perfect score for any dog in any level that whole day) if not for handler error knocking him down to 207.










(As an aside, phgsd was at that trial too and her team did _awesome_. I loved watching them run -- both of her guys were such happy, adorable partners in the ring. They have the most perfect names, too.)


On Friday, we went to an AKC Rally trial at another new-to-us facility in southern NJ. This one was a smaller venue with just a single ring in a matted indoor facility, since the Rally portion of the trial had been split off from the obedience portion. Quiet, well-run, really pleasant and low-key. Even though Pongu had never been to that facility before and he generally is shaky in new environments, I felt pretty good about how he was handling it.

But then, as we were lined up outside the ring to await our turn, the working dog ran out of the ring and charged straight at Pongu. I have _never_ seen the working dog leave the ring to go after another dog before at any trial I've done, but it happened that day.

The incident was nothing serious -- I grabbed Pongu and other people quickly restrained the other dog; they exchanged a couple of snaps and snarls, but it wasn't anything even close to a real fight -- but of course in my head I was all "welp" because even though the incident was _not_ a big deal, scaredy dog + unfamiliar venue + _any_ kind of ringside drama = total disasteration, whee!!

But I was wrong. Pongu didn't seem bothered at all. He recovered pretty quickly and returned to his normal baseline level of insanity and we finished our run (and his Rally Advanced title) with a first-place score of 97/100.










Again, a year ago, it would have been impossible for Pongu to recover from a ringside snark exchange with a loose dog and, less than a minute later, put in a decent off-leash run in an unfamiliar venue. For a normal dog, that might be no big deal, but for _my_ dog, that is a huge and heartening sign of progress.

More than scores and titles and rankings, I hope that those two stories, in particular, might give some hope to people who are undergoing the work of rehabilitating their own fearful dogs. At those two trials, I saw real and concrete improvement in Pongu's resilience. He can handle things today that he couldn't have handled before. He can run almost like a real dog.


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## Magwart (Jul 8, 2012)

You really ought to write a book about this experience, to guide and inspire others who rescue such dogs. You are a wonderful writer, and Pongu deserves to be the poster dog for this kind of rehabilitation.


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## Sri (Apr 25, 2013)

You and Pongu are very inspiring. And yes, you write well. You are real and you break it down into simple steps.


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