# showing in Utility/long rambling whine



## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

Just sort of musing here...
Man, this utility stuff is hard. We've shown 6 times. We have 1 UD leg. 
Now I admit, I'm showing him before he's *really* ready. But I only show him in Utility at shows where I'm showing in breed, to get the most out of my money. (Gotta make every cent count these days). I figure I've already paid the gas and parking fee ($6 per day this past weekend for parking, sad...) so I might as well just consider it a fun match and get him a little bit of ring experience in different places. Most of the fun matches we could go to are really far away, so by the time I figure in gas money if I just went to a fun match, it really doesn't cost me any more to enter him in a show instead. If he Q's, great. If not, no big deal.
ANYWAY
This utility stuff is hard. It amazes me how many different things can "break". 
For a while I thought he'd never figure out the articles. Then all of a sudden he had an "ah ha" moment and now we practice with 18 unscented articles down and the 1 scented one. He does a terrific job.
Then he decided to do the worst go-outs you've ever seen, even though he was doing pretty respectible ones before that. That seems to be fixed, at least for now. Although yesterday he took down a ring gate (leash got caught on it, my bad...) so we'll see if that caused a problem. Probably not with him, but we'll see.
One of his latest was deciding he doesn't need me at all for the signals exercise. As soon as I'd get to the other end of the ring and turned to face him, he would do the entire signal exercise before I moved an inch. I think we've got that fixed, although he's still anticipating the down at least half the time. (you can hear his little doggie brain grinding..."She's going to tell me to go down, I'll make her REAL happy and do it before she has to tell me to....") Um no, that's an NQ buddy.....
So yesterday, on the directed jumping, he trotted happily to the bar jump, then came to a dead stop and stood there looking over the bar at me. Why?? Who knows??? He normally loves to jump. He did it twice. Go figure. I could only guess that he saw me mail the show entry for this coming weekend, and that's why he decided to refuse jumps.
Geez this utility stuff is HARD!!!! 
Ok, done whining.


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## AmberSunrise (Apr 1, 2009)

Yes, Utility is hard!! But when you get that title, it is truly an accomplishment  Even the training for trialling is so much more than most handlers and dogs ever get to try - I think the Utility dog and handler are truly a team.

I went to a seminar a few weeks ago on What the Judge is looking for and I think he said there are ~256 ways to fail in Utility; some of my mentors and trainers call it the Futility class. And your dog stays green in this class so long ......


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

I think we've found 202 of them so far 



Sunrise said:


> Yes, Utility is hard!! But when you get that title, it is truly an accomplishment  Even the training for trialling is so much more than most handlers and dogs ever get to try - I think the Utility dog and handler are truly a team.
> 
> I went to a seminar a few weeks ago on What the Judge is looking for and I think he said there are ~256 ways to fail in Utility; some of my mentors and trainers call it the Futility class. And your dog stays green in this class so long ......


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## Sawyer4me (Jul 25, 2009)

I sypathize and understand 100%. My previous golden, Fonzie had his CDX before he turned 2. Then when it was time for utiliy his brain fell right out of his head every time we walked in the ring.  Once on the signal excercise instead of standing he put his head on the ground and left his butt sky high, think of a reversed sitting position, I left and the judge waited like 2 minutes, he stayed that way the whole time, so she had me return to him and redo the whole excercise. She had no idea how to judge it. He wasn't standing, he wasn't down, he wasn't sitting, but he sure did stay. We redid the exercise and he got it spot on. Unfortunately he failed the articles. Imagine the judges surprise when she found out that Fonzie's little headstand was an actual pose that we had a command for


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

Sawyer4me said:


> I sypathize and understand 100%. My previous golden, Fonzie had his CDX before he turned 2. Then when it was time for utiliy his brain fell right out of his head every time we walked in the ring.  Once on the signal excercise instead of standing he put his head on the ground and left his butt sky high, think of a reversed sitting position, I left and the judge waited like 2 minutes, he stayed that way the whole time, so she had me return to him and redo the whole excercise. She had no idea how to judge it. He wasn't standing, he wasn't down, he wasn't sitting, but he sure did stay. We redid the exercise and he got it spot on. Unfortunately he failed the articles. Imagine the judges surprise when she found out that Fonzie's little headstand was an actual pose that we had a command for


Oh too cute! Fisher did this once in practice and I laughed so hard I couldn't correct him, for what? Being cute? Oh that was so funny.
Utility is SO HARD -- it is ALWAYS something, even with an experienced dog -- don't give up, you know you can do it.
If it's any solace Fisher took 12 trials to get his first UD leg. 16 tries to get the title.


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

Yeah, Tito got his CDX at 18 months...so I am a bit spoiled, he's not quite 2-1/2 now, so I do know he's very young to be showing in utility because of the confidence level required. I've never trained a dog past a CD before (and that was 10 years ago) so this is all so new to me.
Loved the story! How did you teach that position? It's actually one I'd like to teach the Tito Monster. I saw someone do that in a ring once when the dog NQ'd. The handler said "shame on you" and the dog assumed that position, and put his front paws over his eyes. It was the funniest thing I've probably EVER seen. I figure I should teach it to Tito because we'd be using it a LOT!




Sawyer4me said:


> I sypathize and understand 100%. My previous golden, Fonzie had his CDX before he turned 2. Then when it was time for utiliy his brain fell right out of his head every time we walked in the ring.  Once on the signal excercise instead of standing he put his head on the ground and left his butt sky high, think of a reversed sitting position, I left and the judge waited like 2 minutes, he stayed that way the whole time, so she had me return to him and redo the whole excercise. She had no idea how to judge it. He wasn't standing, he wasn't down, he wasn't sitting, but he sure did stay. We redid the exercise and he got it spot on. Unfortunately he failed the articles. Imagine the judges surprise when she found out that Fonzie's little headstand was an actual pose that we had a command for


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## sammydog (Aug 23, 2008)

I am sure Tito is going to pull it together. And then one day you will look back and love to tell these stories! Good luck at your next show!


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

Ah thanks, I'm really not frustrated with him, honestly quite the opposite. I'm thrilled with how quickly he's learned the stuff and proud that we can even go into a utility ring already. 
What I guess I'm amazed at is how many different ways there are to screw up in Utility!!! Seems like every time you practice it, they do something they've NEVER DONE before!!! Just when you think they have the (fill in the blank) perfect, they figure out a way to do it wrong that you never dreamed of!!! Like jumping OVER the jump on the way out to the article pile......or some such 




sammydog said:


> I am sure Tito is going to pull it together. And then one day you will look back and love to tell these stories! Good luck at your next show!


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

A story from training this morning....
A gal I train with was showing in Utility. The judge, another woman, asked her, "are you ready?" 
She said, "no! my bra is unhooked!! Can you stand there for a minute while I fix it??" and proceeded to have the judge stand in front of her so no one could see her adjusting her front hook bra. The judge apparently laughed and said, "now if I could just pull my underwear out of my butt..."
That story was just too good not to share!!!!


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## Mighty Casey and Samson's Mom (Jul 16, 2008)

I just got my afternoon chuckles from these stories...I am sure that Casey (and *I*, since many of our ring disasters are of my making) will be able to start a thread like this someday too. To date, his most comical trial antic was (on an about turn) to leave me to pluck a kleenex out of the table steward's pocket. (He LOVES to eat kleenex). He did catch up to me and manage to qualify. Good luck to you--I can only imagine at this point how difficult utility will be!! I too have a clever boy who wants to please by anticipating my every thought--we need a special "psychic" class for these guys!!


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