The Myth of Indoor Rally Trials 3-20-09

Post date: Mar 21, 2009 1:22:24 AM

Indoor Rally trials are great because your dog doesn't sniff and you're pretty much guaranteed to Q. That's why my friend and I entered the San Mateo Dog Show Rally trial in Vallejo today, on a week day no less. She would get the last legs she needed for her dog's CD and RE, and I would get Trevor's second Exc leg. Oh, and Rowan was entered too. I entered him as my practice dog--he already has his RE, and goD knows I'm not crazy enough to go for his RAE.

When we arrived, our good fortune only improved. It was the simplest Excellent course I had ever seen. No back up, no offset figure 8, no broad jump. If only the judge could hand us our ribbon so that we didn't have to wait around and actually do the course!

My friend went first. That's when I noticed an unfortunate feature of the course: the honor dog was lying right by the serpentine that was the first station. My friend's dog left her to sniff the honor dog's butt. When she came bounding back, she knocked over a sign. Thus their run ended before it had even properly begun.

That was sobering. So when the judge asked for a volunteer to go out of sequence, I volunteered my practice dog, Rowan. That would give me more of a gap between dogs, since Rowan and Trevor were only a few dogs apart in the original run order. Rowan and I went into the ring without any warm up. I realized my mistake at station 2, where he misconstrued my "stand" hand signal and leapt wildly into the air:

He landed at a crazy angle to me, vibrating with enthusiasm. "I did good, Mom!" I was in a quandary. Did that demented leap count as a stand? Should we do the "sit" that was the final part of the exercise, or should we start over? I decided to do the "sit" and move on. I just wanted to get it over with. There were a few glimmers of sanity and cohesion on the rest of the course, but not many. Miraculously Rowan squeaked by with a 70, getting a Q by one point. Oh crap, did that mean we had to hang around for Rowan's Advanced run?

Finally it was Trevor's turn. I didn't make the same mistake with him that I did with Rowan--we had been practicing around the ring all day to make sure that we were extra perfect. Even more perfect than we were at our last Rally trial, where Trevor got a 94. Who knows, maybe it would be our day to finally get 100!

I'd like to blame gophers for what happened next. But unless they snuck into the exhibit hall and rubbed their bodies all over the mats, it probably wasn't their fault. Not that I would put it past them.

Trevor entered the ring and his head went down. And stayed down. Every once in a while he would look at me and do a perfect ballet flip into heel position. Then his head would go back down. But he was still in my general vicinity, and I was still hopeful we could pull off a Q.

My forensics team (Touki and Rowan) and I have viewed and reviewed the videotape, searching for clues. What happened over there on the far side of the ring? Why did Trevor suddenly drift sharply away from Mom? Did he refuse the panel jump because he was distracted by the giant ventilation flying saucer he suddenly noticed on the ceiling, or did he stare up at the flying saucer because he was trying to divert attention from the fact that he was refusing the panel jump? We haven't been able to reach a consensus. All we know is that once Trevor started looking up at the flying saucer and listening to the faint ventilation hum emanating from it, he was gone just as surely as if he had entered a gopher trance:

By that point he had refused the jump twice. He was in his own world, telepathically communicating with the aliens who lived in the ceiling. What could I do? I walked him off and put him in his crate.

It was Rowan's day to shine. We decided to stay for his Advanced round, and we did a real warm up. I forgot to "stay on the plate" for my pivot, as always, and lost some points. But Rowan was a good boy. He qualified handily, and thereby got his first RAE leg. Uh oh.