First obedience show of the year for Solei last Saturday, and Elton's first ever!

I'd never been to this show before, but I've been to the venue before for conformation - and I thought it was right up Solei's street, which was really the reason for entering. As I'm sure I've mentioned before, Solei's major problem with obedience is he worries about the chair bumping on grass - which leads to working wide and lagging. This show is held on concrete, in a hall.

Solei was entered in Pre-Beginners and Beginners, I was intending to compete with him in both classes. Elton was in the same two classes, but I was intending to train Beginners and work Pre-Beginners - turning it into a training round if it went very wrong! Elton was also doing conformation.

Very inconsiderately they couldn't have been more awkwardly positioned, with Papillon breed judging in an annexe of the main hall, and the obedience in a seperate building on the opposite side of the main (very large) hall! I spent all day running backwards and forwards between the two.

I decided to work Solei's Pre-Beginners round early, as it fitted in nicely before Elton's breed class and gave me chance to give Solei a rest before I did Beginners. He was absolutely fantastic <3 this is the Solei I get to see in training, that nobody else ever usually does because of bumpy grass!

There were a couple of slight lapses of concentration, but given I've done very little work with him for the last six months - because of how disasterous he'd gone by the end of last season - it was to be expected! We only had one slight "ooo er" moment when the judge moved from standing beside me to behind him during his recall and he jumped slightly off to one side (looking over his shoulder) and forgot to sit. On the whole he was fantastic.

Next I decided to train Elton's Beginner round, because he was really not concentrating. It was all new and exciting and he just was everywhere but with me. He was pretty atrocious but the judge said she saw some lovely snippets of what he was capable of, and she thinks he could be very good if I keep working on it :-) Which was great because I've always thought so, and it was nice to have a judge say the same!

I considered doing Solei's Beginners round, but time was pushing on and I didn't think I had time to get there and back in time for Elton. Then they announced the stay times :-P

Wouldn't you know it...I only enter one dog in one breed class, and I get a perfect clash between that and Pre-Beginner stays! They were at 11:30am, meanwhile Elton's breed class ended up going in just before 11:25am. Having realised what was going to happen, I'd already spoken to the steward and he said it was fine for me to join the class as soon as I could, but if the judge had already been over all the dogs he couldn't guarantee they'd wait.

So I took Elton in and stood him, hoping there would be time for the judge to have her initial look and maybe even go over him - but the judge and steward were deep in conversation (probably discussing me lol) and I realised there wasn't time. So I pulled him out, and rushed down to the stay ring, did stays with both boys, legged it back to the breed - and made it back with 1 dog left to be seen! Threw him on the table, triangle, up and down, and then tried to get his concentration to stand at the end (which was still AWOL).

He made the cut (class of 17, so she shortlisted) and then placed 4th :-) I was pleased given the circumstances, though a bit frustrated as I think he could have done better - (understandably) he wasn't very settled, and at some point between his Beginners round and coming back to the Paps something had happened to his ear - I have no idea what as he was fine until and during Beginners, but by the time he went in the ring he was shaking his head, scratching like made and holding his ear strangely as well - not a good look on a Phalene (if you didn't know it looked like one of his ears was incorrectly set), so he was lucky to get away with it really.

His ear was fine again a short time later, so go figure?!

As far as stays went, it was my first time doing stays with two dogs. They looked so fetching doing their stays together lol. Solei passed with flying colours, Elton was fine in his sit but broke his down nearly three quarters of the way through to go and say hello to another Papillon :-P I was very embarrassed, he caused chaos! As I'm sure you can imagine I was beyond stressed at 11:30am lol and very anxious for the stays to be over, so I don't know if he picked up on that at all.

It was just chaotic from then on, by that point everyone else had worked and they wanted me in both rings at once lol So I did Solei's Beginner round (again, very good. Did the retrieve! Albeit not with a dumbbell and it could have been cleaner at the end), immediately followed by Elton's Pre-Beginners (and he pulled himself together for me...it was a bit dodgy to start with but his concentration improved as we went on (reflected in that he lost more on HoL than HF)) and then Solei's Beginners stays!

Then I was able to stop and breathe :-)

End result, was that Solei  had 3rd in Beginners and won Pre-Beginners!! By a considerable margin - he lost 5 1/2, the 2nd placed dog lost 10 1/2 or 10 3/4 (can't remember). Elton actually would have been 2nd to Solei in Pre-Beginners, had he not broken his down stay! Aragh.

He was on 6 1/4, so comfortably in 2nd and could have afforded to lose up to 4 marks on his stay...but he dropped 6 1/2, which was very galling - would have been amazing to have father & son in 1st & 2nd, never gonna happen again! That put him down into 6th, so he was still placed - just.

So, so proud of them both :-) And I think Elton proved a point - you know how some people insist dogs won't show if you teach them to sit..etc? Well his day went - Beginners round (NFC), breed class and stood for 5 minutes, stays, back to breed & showed him, Pre-Beginners round! And he showed when he was meant to be showing and did obedience when he was meant to be doing obedience :-) I knew he could handle both, but I wasn't sure about bouncing backwards and forwards like that!

The only sad bit is that now I can never compete in Pre-Beginners at a limited show again, and that's the level I really enjoy and feel comfortable with.