February 23rd- 24th 2019

Our first Rally competition!

Just like our stock competitions, we went to watch a few rally competitions before entering in one. I was able to look at a few trial maps and watch some of the highest level dogs compete. Unfortunately for me they made it look super easy and I went into the weekend a little over confident.

I had been working with Poe on basic obedience since he was a puppy and had a little over a month to train for rally. We worked on a few signs and revamped our obedience and thought we were ready to rock through the weekend.

We were trying to be frugal and drove through the night to get to Myrtle Beach where the trial was hosted. That definitely made the day worse for everyone and we promised ourselves to never do that again. I was extra tense on top of being nervous all day and Poe was too. there were two trials the first day and we did pretty bad in both of them.

We did some easy training that night to help us get refocused and then went to bed early. The next day after some encouragement from our fellow competitors Poe and I were able to relax enough to get through our next two trials with our first qualifying score and first place award!

We learned a lot this weekend and left ready to train a little bit differently so we could be ready for round two.

Poe got one qualifying score this weekend and will only need two more in order to move out of the novice class.