As of November 29, 2009, Wall-e is old enough to trial, since he turned 18 months old on that date.
I've been asked quite a few times when Wall-e is going to start trialing :) The answer is...well, I don't really know! I do know that I'd like him to gain some more drive before trialing him. His focus is definitely good enough for a trial, though, he has awesome focus!! (maybe even too much, at times :) he needs a bit more obstacle focus)
He hasn't tried running a full course yet, although I'm sure that he could run a Starters Jumpers course clean and probably an Advanced Jumpers, too. His dog walk and A-frame training hasn't been completed yet, so it'll be a while before he could run any courses with contacts.
I like taking it slow with my dogs when it comes to trialing. I didn't trial Mika until she was 3 years old even though we'd been doing agility since she was 11 months. I might end up trialing Wall-e in 2011, when I'm 110% sure that he's ready!
~Nat
I couldn't agree with you more. So often you see people and dogs that just are not ready to be out there in a trial situation. Either their dog is not confident enough or hasn't generalized equipment enough or they haven't even finished proper contact or jump training and they want to trial "Just to see how he does!" OMG what an easy way for your dog to learn bad habits and become ring wise fast! With Niche he did tunnelers and touch n go for about 6 months, as I didn't feel that I had quite finished his jump training or his weaves and I didn't want to test those in a trial before I was confident with them. So he had like near 200pts in NADAC just in tunnelers and touch n go before he ever set foot in regular or jumpers. And when he finally did come out in those classes he started Qing right away and it worked very nicely. I also by that point had a dog who'd been to many trials in low stress only competing in 1 or 2 classes a day and so he was all ready to do 6 runs a day by that point. Definately the right decision.
ReplyDeletei agree- not all dogs are ready to trial at 18months. I always laugh when people seem to think it's this magic number that means you should trial your dog. Some dogs are ready, others aren't.
ReplyDeleteI am soooo totally with you!! I feel like by waiting until it all looks like you want it to look, especially since you can not fix things a lot in a real trial...is an investment in your whole trialing career. Some dogs just are ready out of the box and are ready at 18 months but if your dog isnt, pushing doesnt make them more ready. I get hot on that topic because I get a lot of crap because I do not trial my dog Lizzie, never mind that she would take off and do the zoomies around the field because of stress and there would be nothing I could do about it...LOL.
ReplyDeleteLike the others, I quite agree with you not to rush into trialing, especially when the contacts are not ready yet. I have made mistake with Saturn by rushing him to competing and after three winters, we are still stuck with contacts porblem! Also, it is good to let Wall-e out to gain some ring experience at young age. Jumpers are the best way to start. Most of all, when you are comfortable! Good Luck!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great comments, everyone! Good to hear that I'm making the right choice :)
ReplyDelete~Nat