World Cynosport Rally July Trial Molly and Zorro

Last Saturday was Zorro's debut in WCRL Level 1! I felt solid to enter him in Level 1. The only area he is weak in is his stands and we put extra training time into that. Also, Molly came along to play in Veterans. I have a soft goal for Molly to be nationally ranked in the RLV category for 2019, so we will play until she is one Q short of the Rally Veteran Championship title (because that would put her into the Championship category and we aren't going to be playing that much WCRL this year.) Ps. Einey did get nationally ranked in the Veterans Championship category in 2014.

Anyway! This was a two ring trial so definitely a new experience for Zorro. I groaned when I saw our course map, as the Moving Stand walk around was the bonus. I had not prepared Zorro one little bit for that exercise. Oopsie! Other than that mister man did a really nice job. I am thrilled with his enjoyment of heeling. He does hesitate on his left finish, we are working on "You don't always get a treat at front." and he says, "Are you suuuuure?" And we got a sit on the stand exercise later on the couse. (That's ten points off for stand issues, ouch.) 198/210 on this one.

Trial 2 was a bit better for Zorro, although we still got a sit on the Moving Stand bonus (yes, it was the bonus sign again!!) This time he did his Sit-Stand sign without sitting again. I thiiiiink this one was a 202/210. Five points off for the sit on the moving stand and then we had a sit on the 270 during heeling. But, really good work for my baby boy!

I am making a commitment to myself and Zorro to stop letting the "new rules" surprise me. They are not new rules anymore. I was very disappointed in myself that I let that Moving Stand sneak up on me. My young dog could have had far nicer scores his first time out if his owner had trained him. :)

To be honest, I do like the format of using a list of Level 2 signs as Bonus for Level 1, and so on. I think that it encourages teams to train for the next level more than the old format did. I found the news update that included which bonus signs could be used in Level 1 (I could not find it in the rule book but that's user error, I'm sure.) and we have been enjoying working on them. We can practice rally-o inside in the AC since it is too hot to practice agility out there anyway! We are currently putting priority on his understanding of "Stand stays are rewarding, too! Sits aren't the only cool thing to do."

Molly had a blast, especially on the first Trial! Her usual lagging vs exploding and no in between when it comes to Rally. We also had to do one of the "new" signs where I took a left 180 turn and Molly had to spin or something and get on my right side. I don't know if we did it right but Molly sure did seem to enjoy it!