Posted on September 6, 2008 - by Doxie

Dog Training - Final Test, Part 1

After weeks and months of training the time for the final test was here! We had been doing well on the training sessions the last couple of weeks and I thought we were ready for the test. I was very nervous all day long, and there is a slight chance that Aurora noticed this!

We were the third ones up, we didn’t watch the first dog, but unfortunately he failed. The second dog did a great job and passed with flying colours. Then it was our turn:

1. Greeting and teeth inspection: 10 points! (Out of 10 - perfect! A great start )

2. Walk on a leash: 6,5 points (she was a bit slow and I had to pull the leash a few times to get her to follow at the right pace…but we passed!)

3. The heel: 0 point! (We failed this exercise which means that we failed the test. Aurora was more than two dog lengths away from me; I was not able to keep her attention during this exercise today, there were lots of more interesting things to check out!)

After watching this video I can see that I need to practice more! I made some beginner errors here, just watch that long first step after stop - the dog is already far behind me when I’m at my second step!

The rest of the exercises we did just for the practice :

4. Down from stop: 7 points (I had to give the Heel Command twice to get her moving, and she was laying down looking to the side)

5. The Come command: 6,5 points (I had to call twice, she was slow to sit down and she was sitting down a bit to the side. However, she was very fast running towards me. Not sure why we only got 6,5 points on this exercise!)

6. The Stand: 8 points (can’t remember what the problem was here, probably a double Heel command)

7. Down and stay for 2 minutes: 8,5 points (double command to make her lay down and to get her to sit up.)

8. Referee’s total impression: 8 points

Total: 109,5 point (pretty good … but we still failed )

There were 5 dogs taking the test this day and only two passed the test. It seemed like the dogs found it a bit strange that there weren’t any others dogs around when they did the exercises. When we practice there’s always other dogs nearby.

We decided that we would make another try in a couple of weeks. After all, Aurora can do these exercises very well on a good day!