The Mock BH - We passed!

It wasn't extremely pretty - but we passed! (insert happy dance here)
The BH is a temperament test that is rated either pass or fail. First you go through a pattern obedience session, on and off leash, and you need to accumulate a certain % of points to be allowed to continue and take the traffic part of the test.
Here's a summary of what went well, and what did not go so well:

Good Things:

• Kane did not break the long down while Nobi and Julie were doing their routine. I so badly wanted to turn around and look at him, but he was fine. Sean said he flinched a little when Julie did the recall with Nobi, but he stayed put.
• We did not mess up any of the pattern - we did the correct turns at the right time and the correct number of steps for each section.
• Did I mention that Kane did not break the long down?
• Kane also did not break the long down.
• I was extremely happy to see that Kane did not break the long down.

Checking in - I already lost his attention...

The not so good things:

• Nerves. I have them.
• The judge asked for a microchip scanner, which of course I did not bring (it IS the handler's responsibility). He told me that this is needed for a real trial, just so that I know, but it made me (more) nervous nonetheless.
• In turn, my nervousness transferred to Kane and he sniffed the starting point flag (rookie mistake on my part - set up at least 2 feet from the flag!)
• During the entire first leg of the pattern (50 steps straight heeling) Kane was next to me, but NOT heeling (see picture below). He was looking around for the bad guys that were making me nervous.
  

Oups, that's not exactly heeling.

Oh, we're heeling? Hey, I know how to do that!!!

Forged heeling.

• The heeling was extremely forged at times, and even more so when Kane was off-leash. Proper heeling means his front shoulder is aligned with my hip. He's about two steps ahead of me in the picture above.
  

Group Heeling Exercise.

• During the group heeling exercise, I did not pay attention to who was in the group and I stopped next to a tall, new man (bad move). Kane leaned over to sniff his pants (obviously "breaking" the heel eye-contact). I made a correction which is so NOT allowed. It's better to do a second command.
  

Kane (left) being good while Nobi (right)
does the down out of motion exercise. Good Boys!

The recall was nice. Actually it was perfect. :-)

I don't have any pics of the traffic portion because my photographer had to ride the bicycle around us. :-) Kane paid no attention to car, biker or the jogger. Then the judge had me bring him in under the carport (our shade) where there were lots of people, chairs and noise. He had me put Kane in a sit next to a group of people, shake hands with them and talk with them. Then I put Kane in a down position and walked away outside of the carport. They talked for a few more minutes and then the judge said to call my dog. I did, and my little boy took the shortest route to get to me, which involved a huge leap over the chairs, and almost over my mom who was sitting in one of the chairs. It was awesome!

Now I have a great big list of things to work on in obedience, especially correct heel position, my nerves, on and off leash obedience and distractions. We've already started.

I'm thinking about doing the real BH on July 18-19 when there is a trial down at Myrtle Beach, but we'll see. We are dog-sitting for another GSD, Sebastian, that weekend, and I'm not sure if that will bring too much stress in addition to the travel etc.

We're Ready!

Thanks to some good friends' advice and an excellent obedience practice on Saturday morning, I was able to get rid of my nerves and Kane and I will be entering the MOCK trial this coming Saturday for the BH. We will be doing the BH with Nobi and his handler Julie, which is the team we have been practicing with the most.
I wanted to do the long down exactly as in trial, so it was only done with a fur-saver collar. Up until now, we have always used a long line and the e-collar. I also made sure that I walked about 30 paces away and kept my back turned (most of) the entire time.

I'm happy to report that Kane was a model long down dog. Julie and Nobi put him to the test, running close, catching the ball nearby and Nobi even did one of his signature victory laps near Kane and Kane did not move. :-) Yeay!

The mock trial doesn't count, but we are still putting the final touches on a few things such as off-leash heeling, about turns, sit and down out of motion and pace changes. I'm memorizing the BH pattern that we have to do, first on leash and then off leash.

Our club, Piedmont Schutzhund Club, now has a logo, courtesy of yours truly. Nice, isn't it? :-) Website coming soon!

This past weekend was spent cleaning up the training field, adding crush and run to the entrance, tearing down the old lattice in the blinds, painting posts and putting up new lattice, weed whacking, putting the roof on the carport (the "gondola" as we call it). Mike and Jack have built a brand new A frame and fixed up the jump. Everything looks brand, spanking new.

On Saturday, I was also asked to hold one of the Konfederate Kennel bulldogs during puppy tugtime. This is done with the beginner dogs, usually as a group, to get the dogs as excited as possible. My pretty brindle guy, Mandingo, did awesome and almost knocked me off my feet a few times. It was fun to go back to this stage for a few minutes! Be a tree, Lena. Be a tree.

Oh, and Kane had an excellent protection session as well. We are running 3-4 blinds intermittently stopping and not stopping. Now we just have to keep at it for a little while, but Kane is doing great. I can tell that the obedience is having an effect on his outs as well.