Green Dog Trial Preparations

What do you wish you'd done more of/less of/changed after you brought out your novice/green dog for the first time?!

Gabby and Siri (and Frodo) are super green dogs and will be trialing for the first time in less than a month. We've done a lot of prep work on the actual behaviors we'll need for the trial, but I'm curious if anyone has input on the OTHER stuff? It's been a while since I've been to a trial!

I'm planning to crate in the car, especially for the first trial, to eliminate the stress of crating in a strange place AND trialing for the first time!

And, go!

I guess the things that stand out to me the most is don't overface your dog on the first trial. Prepare well beyond the level at which you're competing, & keep the day SHORT. Also, get your dog used to sleeping in the crate. I did loads of crate games, but I still don't have a dog who will voluntarily relax and doze in a crate.

Crate training. Pretty much the ONLY issue we had in our first trial was that Summer would not settle in her crate in such a stimulating environment. It affected her energy level and by the end of the second day she was pooped out from barking and jumping all day for 2 days straight.

I also think I would have only entered one day or only a half day for the first time. 2 full days was a lot.

Our last trial went much much much better than the others simply because she's now settling in her crate. Hallelujah!

Mira's transition to trialing was so smooth it was almost cheating. Any kind of trialing.

With Kim and Web the big things were chilling in crates during down time, watching other dogs run, having people up in their grill while working, and dealing with me getting a little stressy.

Frodo (Mr. Special) will be crated in the car, we are doing ONE TIME in the ring, and then he's going back to the car. Because special Mo.

I have Gabby and Siri entered in three runs. However, I'm prepared to feed whenever I need to and/or leave the ring early if we need to (and I don't feel one bit bad because, vouchers). The beauty of WCRL and being able to feed in the ring!

The transition from outside of the ring to inside of the ring. Seriously. I never practiced this with Luce because it just never ever occurred to me, and I got nailed "tight leash" points somewhere along the line when we hadn't even started the course.

The very first trial I went to, Romeo had kind of a hard time realizing Oh, okay, we are to work and do obedience stuff..when we first went in the ring he was sniffing around and going to the end of the leash. The second run was better once he settled in. There wasn't much space to practice in, in the building though. The next trial at a different venue, there was a whole large area you could warm-up in, two rings over. We sporadically went over a few things in that space, but right before our runs, I was 'warming up', and had him heel right into the ring when it was our turn.

Really?? At the rally events I've been to (WCRL) they had electronic..bars? that you walked through at the beginning and end, and you weren't judged until you walked through the bars.

Thread hijacking, muahaha. I haven't been to too many trials, but how were the other competitors with this? AKC or WCRL? Romeo was crying in the crate (there was a crate room), and people came and had me take him out. So Romeo spent the whole weekend leashed to me. I put him back in at one point, was keeping an ear out, another dog was barking in the crate-and they told me it was him and he needed to come out of the crate room. Someone else came up to me afterwards and said "Oh, it wasn't him, but everyone likes to blame the cattle dogs". So weird.
Someone had a malamute who was vocalizing occasionally and she would run in and take him out.

Thank you for this! I've added in (fake) "ring entrances" to our daily practice. We've been setting up, walking forward, halting, and waiting. Bailey had a big problem with this, that I somehow forgot!