# Trial season - how do you prepare?



## AmberSunrise (Apr 1, 2009)

With the upcoming obedience trial season coming up in my area, I was remembering how I used to prepare for trials and how I now prepare. Which led to wondering what other people do.

Back when I trained heavily I would take the week before a trial off from training and just do fun things like hiking with my dogs. This per my instructor but it was a very hard thing to do. When campaigning I would cluster shows so I could give a week off heading into the first set of shows.

With my current approach I might spend the week before lightly covering the exercises in the class(es) I will be trialing in and placing more of an emphasis on fronts & finishes but always with plenty of stress relieving play.

When I trained (okay here I really date myself) with my King having to jump at 30 inches, I generally trained him at 20-24 inches and would bump the height to 30 inches the morning of a trial, this of course after he had been trained that height.

Any comments on what you do for showing?


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

I don't have a set pattern I follow but I will say, when I was showing Fisher in obedience I took the opinion of "if they don't know it by now they won't know it tomorrow" so I tended to train lightly the day before and never the day of. 
Now with Slater I train just as normal the week of a trial and have trained the night before and morning of a trial to fix anything I didn't like in our ring performance...IT WORKS. 
The last Novice trials Slater was in, 3 days in a row at the Eukanuba/ODTC trials -- HUGE trial, very hectic, noisy, large classes -- not only that but every night after the show my friend and I went to a park and trained our dogs for an hour each night -- Slater performed best on the last day of the trial (3 days). I was so pleased with him!


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## Maxs Mom (Mar 22, 2008)

My dogs are always working on fitness and conditioning. When summer rolls around we kick into higher gear with agility trials and of course hunt tests. Obedience trials go to the back burner. 

I do try to maintain a training regime. I try to focus on agility twice a week, field work the same. I have obedience class once a week and try hard to get out and work some behaviors 4 other days. I don't have access to a ring so I work in front of my house. I pick just a couple things a day, I train obedience less than 20 min. Less is more. If I have an obedience trial I try to get to the trainers house on Friday to work in a ring. 

Weekends are pretty much set aside for tests, trials and if not doing either of those, I am at the field trainers. 

I do make sure my dogs get to be dogs. We take them to parks to run and play, and they love bike runs. 


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

I may be entering Bertie in his first rally trial in a bit.... 

Something I'm doing is really working on ring entrances....

With regular obedience... or novice at least, you generally get to walk to the next corner for the heeling. 

With rally though - it seems like you enter the ring and basically you are right at the start line and you better have your dog paying attention and scooching into a sit right there, because otherwise - you're going to be off to a bad start....  

And with Bertie because of the conformation stuff - he will walk into the ring and when I stop he's automatically stacking himself up proudly. Which isn't conducive to automatic sits or even easy sits on command....  

^ So that is what I'm working on right now. 

The other thing I'm already working on even though I don't plan on entering novice until much later in the year or over winter - ring exits. Because it seems like both my boys when they know they are done and we heading out of the ring - they put their heads forward and start pulling.


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

We practice lots of ring entries too and set ups and going from one exercise to the next. I HATE when they have you set up for the first exercise like 3 feet from the gate. Give us a little room to get into the ring!


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

K9-Design said:


> We practice lots of ring entries too and set ups and going from one exercise to the next. I HATE when they have you set up for the first exercise like 3 feet from the gate. Give us a little room to get into the ring!


 Some of the Open runs I've watched at one place (small rings) does seem to start people right at the gate opening. It seems you enter the ring and hand your leash off, turn right and there you have to get set up.


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

About half of my novice runs they had the heeling pattern start right at the gate. At first my thought was wouldn't it be nice if the judge would give teams more room to get comfortable in the ring and collect their dog for the start of the exercise? Then after watching enough Novice B classes I realized -- most of these teams can't make it from one exercise to the next without falling apart. The judge was doing them a favor....ugg


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

Open class I saw the most dogs have trouble with ever: it was the fourth trial of the weekend, so dogs were tired. It was walk in, remove your leash, then pivot right there in place for the drop on recall. I have never seen so many dogs fail the DOR in my life. When I went in the ring the judge said "whatever you do, please just pass the drop on recall!" I think like 4 teams passed out of a good sized open b class. It was crazy. And it doesn't sound like something that should cause that many dogs problems, especially experienced dogs, but it certainly did that day!


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## AmbikaGR (Dec 31, 2007)

I try to do nothing different whether we are showing the upcoming weekend or not. I routinely jump my dogs at a lower than trial height in training. Rarely jump full height other than a trial - even matches I tend to stay lower. 
As for lousy ring setups for a start. This winter at a big trial the open B class tarted right on the ring entrance with ROF. It was really amazing to see seasoned dogs fail the retrieve ROF. They all setup and looked as id they were expecting to heel so did not even look at the thrown dumbbell.


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## Maxs Mom (Mar 22, 2008)

Gabby's open trials she did dogs weren't jumping back on the ROH. I was SO nervous not knowing why. Goo sailed both directions. Of course her second and third trials she decided she wasn't jumping the broad jump. DOH! 

Broad jump appears fixed. Not trialing yet for open. Playing in grad open when I can. 


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## sammydog (Aug 23, 2008)

We trial in agility more weekends than not... So our week schedule is mostly the same. We usually don't train on Mondays, since I am usually tired and I figure the dogs should get a day off. If anything crops up during a show, we will focus on that the next week, or even in between days.


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