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Travvy Got His RN!March 07, 2010 Today Travvy and I went to our third Rally trial -- and finished our Rally Novice (RN) title! We had a wonderful run on a challenging course that was so twist-and-turny that people were calling it a "dramamine course." It also had 16 stations; the usual top for Novice is 15. Woo woo! Our score was 93 (out of 100), which was good enough for third in the Novice A class. There were only seven entered in the Novice A class, however, and three of them didn't qualify. A qualifying score is 70 or above. We got our second leg with a 73 -- 10 lost points were due to handler error. On our first leg we got a 88, but the judge was, shall we say, "generous" across the board. Each of our runs has been significantly better than the last, and this one was really good. So the adage goes that "getting there is half the fun." Here it was half the challenge. Thursday night we had class at Karen's training facility. It was dark, I was rushing, and I drove over a stone border at the edge of the parking lot. Oops. Driving home the steering felt a little funky, and when I looked at Uhura in the light of the next morning, the left front wheel didn't look quite straight. Like I might have done some front-end damage, and no way was I going to go off-island and hit 495 in a truck with shaky steering and maybe worse. I was bummed. A) This was a stupid thing to do, and B) I was seriously psyched for this trial because we were so ready. But my dog friends rallied around (so to speak) -- Katy volunteered to take me and Travvy in her car on my reservation. The weather was perfect -- after days of gloom we're in the middle of a sustained promise that spring really is coming. We were a caravan of two on the 7 o'clock boat, Karen and Julia in Karen's truck with Nolan, Karen's Aussie, and Xochi, Julia's golden; Katy and me with Travvy in Katy's Subaru. We made a pit stop near the Falmouth Ice Arena -- these guys have been to more trials and shows than I have, and they know the drill. This offers plenty of space to walk the dogs, who hadn't had time to do their serious business at home, not to mention coffee, muffins, etc., for the people and gas for the vehicles. (For the non-islanders among you: the price of gas is so high on Martha's Vineyard -- it's around $3.40/gallon at the moment -- that if you're driving off, you let your tank get as low as you dare and then fill up on the other side. One of the last things you do on the way home, if you aren't breaking land speed records to catch a boat you're late for, is stop to top off the tank before you cross Vineyard Sound.) Karen has walkie-talkies for off-island travel. She handed one to me, showed me what buttons to push, and we were off. With the back seat down, Travvy's crate fit nicely into the Subaru, and Travvy rode very happily in his crate. At the show, we left the (crated) dogs in the vehicles most of the time; it's still cool enough that even on a sunny day heat doesn't build up in a car if the windows are open enough. This meant that I got to watch many of the Advanced and Novice runs, which I didn't get to do in September because I had my hands full with Travvy. I think that my next vehicle won't be a pickup: these days transporting Travvy is more important than transporting hay and shavings. I still do plenty of the latter, but the tradeoffs are moving in the opposite direction. A small wagon would serve me better, especially if it had four-wheel drive. The trial, sponsored by the Labrador Retriever Club of Greater Boston, was held at the MasterPeace dog training facility in Franklin. It was just off 495 and very easy to get to. This is good, because we're going to another trial there two weeks from today, Uhura Mazda willing. The space was probably once a warehouse, not too huge but with a very high ceiling. The entire floor was covered with heavy mats; the ring, delineated on two sides by the building's exterior walls and on the other two by baby gates, occupied between a quarter and a third of the floor space. People bring their own chairs, and some bring their dog crates inside. Given the ideal weather and the limited indoor space, others left dogs and crates in their vehicles. I brought Travvy in for a while, sans crate but with his green mat (one of Allie's mostly worn-out saddle pads), to get him used to the space and the presence of other dogs. He was amazingly good, excited for sure but mostly attentive and even relaxed. Good sign. Whew. Still, you never know what's going to happen in the ring. The course started with the usual sit at the Start sign. The judge asks, "Are you ready?" and you say yes, and off you go. The first sign, a left turn, was dead ahead, and immediately followed by the spiral: three cones in a row. Handler and dog first circle all three, then the first two, then the first one -- we call it "the paperclip." It's a good test of heeling (which this particular judge puts a premium on) and the attention that handler and dog are paying to each other. Because it came so early in the course, we had virtually no time to warm up or get into gear. Trav did really well. We probably lost a point for a quick sniff at the floor, but by the time we came off the spiral we were in sync. Next was a moving side step, then more cones, this time four in a row: this means you weave through them instead of going around them, another good heeling test. This time through was a "weave twice" or serpentine, meaning you weave through once, go round the last cone, and then weave back. Next was a halt 1-2-3 -- you halt and dog sits, then you take a step forward, halt and sit; two steps forward, halt and sit; and three steps forward, halt and sit. The tricky thing for the dog is to sit straight -- they tend to swing their hind ends out a little more with each subsequent sit -- and for the handler it's to halt and don't move your feet. We did it really well. Then we turned right and proceeded to "halt, walk around dog." Here Trav's sit was clearly crooked, with his tail brushing the fence. We definitely lost a point or two there, but he sat still and I didn't step on his tail, so we did OK. Then came the dramamine-advised part of the course: a 270-degree left turn, followed by a 360-degree circle right, followed by a left about turn in the corner -- this is a fun and stylish-looking maneuver in which the handler turns to the left and the dog comes around to the right, returning to heel position -- followed by a 270-degree left turn. Since this was in the corner and the course was tight, the challenge here, especially with a big dog, was to leave enough space to turn. We managed it very nicely if I do say so myself. (During the walk-through, I walked this sequence three times.) Then we went through the four cones again, this time from the opposite end, in a "weave once," followed by a right turn, a halt and sit, a left turn, and a "slow," which means you and your dog have to slow visibly from your normal pace, ideally at the same time. The next sign was Finish. I was so happy with our run that I was getting weepy. I did manage to avoid hugging Travvy till we got back to our friends on the sidelines. Karen, Julia, and Katy were all so happy for us -- they were all in our first Rally class last spring, and they know how far we've come! -- and Julia had even got our run on video. My reservation was for the five o'clock. Karen's was for later. When we arrived in Woods Hole, Katy's Subaru right behind Karen's Tundra, the 3:45 was still loading. Karen was directed to lane 7, Katy to lane 1. Hmm. Karen was in the standby line, we were in the line for vehicles with five o'clock reservations -- and it looked like Karen was going to make it onto the nearly full boat and we weren't. We said, more or less, "We're with them." The guys managed to shoehorn us in. When I opened the Subaru's hatch door, to refill Travvy's bone with peanut butter and kibble and grab my wallet, the ferry's back door was closing and we were so close I thought it was going to take my butt or the car's back door off. We then adjourned to the lunchroom, where the passengers (Julia and me) treated the drivers (Karen and Katy) to beer and we sat around a little bar table, watched the videos Julia had made of my run and Karen's, and rehashed the course, the trial, the performances, and our most excellent luck of making it onto this boat. Just out of the slip at Woods Hole, the shoreline started moving in a clockwise direction. Huh? The Island Home is a double-ender and doesn't need to turn around after leaving port. Had the SSA designed a dramamine Rally course for ferryboats, replete with 270- and 360-degree turns? Was it the beer? Turned out they were doing some test maneuver and all was well. Katy dropped us and our stuff at our house, and after getting it all inside, Travvy and I went off to feed the horses. Great day, all around.
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