A lot has happened since I last posted specifically about Stuck back in April of this year.
Stuck is now:
Int. Ch. UKC Ch. URO1 Athos Bellatrix CGCA CD BH AD IPO-VO IPO1
In May Stuck earned her URO1 with a score of 99pts and High in Trial.
In June Stuck earned her CD title. (195-188-196) She also got her CGC.
In September Stuck earned her IPO-VO (89-84-97) and got her AD certificate.
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| Photo by Grace Wang |
In October Stuck earned her International Championship thru IABCA, her CGCA, and her IPO1!
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| Photo by Grace Wang |
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| Photo by Grace Wang |
It's been a busy year and I have done a terrible job of documenting what we've been doing.
I love having a dog who can do all of the things. Because of her I've been able to try a lot of different venues, in 2018 we're going to try AKC conformation. My goal is to have an IPO3 dog with a triple conformation championship.
Yesterday we earned our IPO1. This is the first time I've ever put a real IPO title on a dog, I can't believe we did it! Our scores were 92-73-91.
I've posted about our tracking challenges before, I did a complete 360 and changed how we were tracking. I pulled food completely and started having Stuck track for balls that I bury. It has made a HUGE difference in her attitude towards tracking and yesterday really showed the fruits of our labor. I've been super committed to tracking my dogs, we track multiple days a week. That was the phase I was most worried about yesterday and she did great. It felt so awesome.
Obedience was a struggle. I am consistently told she is flat on the field... she looks good to me (at least she's happy) but she's not like a lot of the mals with super flashy OB and crazy drive. I'm going to try my best to see if I can improve the picture a little bit, but it might be something we always battle. I was the first one up and kind of rushed through retrieves(I've never done them in a trial before!), she didn't go over the jump so we lost 15pts that way. So the rest of our points were lost in the rest of our routine. Honestly, I was a little bummed by our OB score, but I'm over it. I had to remind myself that I was one of I believe 4 people out on the field who is NOT a professional dog trainer. I'm doing the best that I can within my ability, and I think we're doing pretty well considering. She did a freaking send out! We only practiced it twice at that field and that was 2 weeks ago. I thought that she would not do it at all and was preparing for the worst. BUT she did her send out!
In protection she was a bit naughty. She anticipated the call out and was kind of thrashy on the sleeve for the OUT. The best part of the routine for me honestly was her doing the blind search. I wasn't 100% sure she wouldn't try to skip blind 5, she didn't even hesitate. I was really happy with her protection score also.
I'm excited to train harder and try to refine our OB for our IPO2, my goal right now is to try for a spring trial, I think if we can put the time in we can make it happen. I am so completely thankful to be in such an awesome IPO club. Our training director and our helper put just as much time into our dogs and into helping us prep as they do their own dogs. The rest of the club is super supportive and always up for spotting or sharing tips/training ideas. I am so completely thankful for everyone who has helped me get to this point. Without this club I wouldn't even have Stuck. It's been an awesome journey and I am so looking forward to the future.
