Open Obedience Class or The Good and The Bad.

I had an Open Obedience class start last night (open as in Open class with retrieves, etc). The only dog I have that's even close to ready for Open is Quinn, so I decided to take him, have him demo. the exercises and then send him home with my sister.

When we arrived he barked at a couple of dogs he saw in the parking lot, but I moved out to the street and got him calmed down. When we had a little space, I took him into the building and right into a ring. He did great--no barking. We started working in the big ring practicing Open stuff. Another trainer brought her very calm GSD in the ring to practice with us. Quinn looked at other dog and then absolutely ignored him. At one point, we both set up the dogs (about 25' away from each other) and walked to the other side of the ring. I called Quinn first, then she called her dog. Quinn did nothing, he didn't even look at her or her dog!

That was the good.

I then had the students for the class line up outside the ring and watch us do a routine. Quinn did great, until we got to the retrieve on the flat. There was a lady with a Malinois standing just outside the ring gate right opposite us. I threw the dumbbell short and Quinn hesitated to get it. I knew why, the Mal was intense and he wasn't comfortable. I suggested we go to the other end of the ring and try it again. I should have asked the woman to move her dog.

When we got to the other side Quinn didn't want to go to heel, (again, I should have listened to him). He went behind me and ran up to the ring gate barking and growling. I told him to knock it off and called him back. He did (yay!) and I did get him to retrieve on the flat, he wasn't really focused on the retrieve over the jump, but had gotten back into the swing of things as we did the Broad jump exercise.

When my sister took him out of the building he barked quite a bit, but I just told her to leave and not mess around. I probably pushed him too far, too fast. but overall I'm really proud of his behavior. I obviously need to really focus on what he's telling me, he knew the situations he couldn't handle and he let me know. Now I just need to not push him.