Last week, approximately 400 Newfoundland Dogs descended upon the town of Frankenmuth, MI for the annual big show. It is a week packed with events to showcase all of the wonderful traits of my favorite breed. There is so much to see and do and I’d like to highlight some of the special and unique events that occur in addition to the conformation ring packed with beautiful Newfoundlands.
The beginning of the week is dedicated to the working events which include the Draft Test as well as Competition Obedience and Rally Obedience. Winn and I participated in all three this year so we were very busy!
The first event of the week is the Draft Test. We were up bright and early Monday morning. I packed the wagon with her crate, a chair, weights for her cart and miscellaneous other things I thought we would need. Winn pulled her cart and I pulled the wagon down to the test area to join the other teams checking in and lining up their gear.
We started training about two months ago. I didn’t expect to pass (we didn’t), but with every test or trial we enter, I always learn new things for the next time. This was the first test for me and I did learn a lot. In training, I focused primarily on maneuvering, which we did really well, but there are a lot of details that are included in a passing score that we learned while we worked our way through the exercises. The judges were very supportive and gave me lots of feedback. Hopefully with our next test we will be closer to getting that Draft Dog title!
The fun part of entering these events is the camaraderie we develop with the other people that are also there. I had just as much fun (maybe more because it was less stressful) cheering for their success as I did participating. One of our friends entered with a team (two Newfies harnessed together). She didn’t pass either, but she gave it a valiant effort and of course I loved seeing another brown team. She was first and we were last, creating brown newfie book ends for this test.
The very first group to hit the conformation ring are beginner puppies. Puppies 4-6 months old bounding around the ring with pure puppy glee are my favorite. I don’t think there is much else to say except PUPPIES!
The final event in the obedience ring is Team Obedience. Take it from me, trying to get through the Obedience exercises with one dog is very challenging, Team Obedience includes four dogs and their handlers. Completing all of the exercises perfectly with all of teams takes a special kind of training. I love watching this and everyone gave it their very best effort. You never know what will happen, even with the very best trained dog and we’ve all learned to go out there and have fun. What will be, will be.
Junior handlers have their own competition within the show. Juniors are the future of all sports, and they participate in many events throughout the week side by side with all of the other handlers and their dogs. I saw them in the obedience ring and the conformation ring as well as lending a helping hand to other handlers as they were preparing for their own events. There was a pool party, a scavenger hunt and other fun activities for them during their downtime. I enjoyed seeing them coming and going and was especially excited to see them all in the big ring for their Junior Handler event.
As you can see, there is lot going on throughout the week. I need several posts to cover it all, so you can look forward to reading about the Rescue Parade, the Living Legends celebration, Brace class, Stud class and so much more!
This was a two-day test, we had entered both days and had two chances to make it happen. Saturday morning was incredibly foggy and we were delayed getting started but then it turned out to be a beautiful weekend. Each day was considered its own test but I’ll recap each exercise including both days.
On Saturday, Winn surprised me with Take A Line. She grabbed it from my hand and then turned and started to march out of the ring with it. Fortunately, I was able to grab her and steer her back to the water, but that was a fail. Our training partners offered to stay late with us and put a long line on her to practice it at the end of the day and I took them up on their offer. They wanted to stay and practice jumping off of the boat with their boy so once everybody was packing up and leaving for the day, the three of us were back in the water and I’m so glad we stayed. Winn tried to do the same thing two more times but with a gentle tug from the line she got right in the water and then seemed to forget about trying to leave the beach. The next 3 attempts went exactly as they should. On Sunday, her Take A Line was perfect and she passed that exercise!
Swim With Handler was our big finish both days. We didn’t get a new Water Dog title this year but we came as close as I could have hoped for. Next year we will reinforce everything we learned this summer and train for the senior test as well. I loved being in the water with Winn and she continues to amaze me with her abilities.
When we arrived, she went right down to our regular spot, waded right in and was ready to go after her toys. What a relief!
We played with different toys for a while and I mixed in her bumper and life jacket just for fun. She wasn’t reluctant at all to go after anything I threw out for her so I was pretty confident the horsefly fear had been tucked away and as long as another one didn’t show up while we were testing, we should be fine.
If I couldn’t get her to pull the boat all the way in before dropping the bumper, we would still have a chance if she picked the bumper back up and pulled some more. It’s not a very efficient way of doing it, but I would be allowed to keep directing her to pick it up and pull as many times as necessary until the boat was beached. The telling sign is that the boat comes to a stop and the line is still taught. If the boat drifts in and the line is slack, she needs to keep pulling until there is tension in the line, then the exercise is finished. I decided to focus on that. My first choice was to have her keep coming toward me in one smooth motion, but I wanted to have a back up plan so that we would still have a chance of passing.
Finally we were ready to get back to practice with our training group and we met up on Labor Day. Technically Winn still wouldn’t be cleared to mix with other dogs for another three days but I would keep her away while the boys practiced and then bring her down after they had done everything they wanted to do. We always set up crates and keep the dogs separated when we practice since we act as each others’ stewards but I didn’t want her to be a distraction. This was an important practice for all of us and we all wanted to do our best. Our next test was scheduled for that Saturday and this was our first practice with the boat in over a month (she was completely confused during the test in Indiana which was the last time she had tried the exercise).
After the other dogs had all practiced I brought her back down for her turn with the boat. Our normally calm lake was pretty churned up with the wind and the storm and she wasn’t as confident as usual. She swam out short distances and did everything really well but when we moved out further to the test distance she didn’t want to swim out. I decided that we wouldn’t go to the test in Michigan on Saturday, our friends hadn’t signed up for that one and would be practicing that day instead. Our club’s test was the following weekend (at the same location where we have been practicing) and I really wanted us to be our best for that one since it was our last chance. It would be better for us to have a fun practice with our friends than try and do everything perfectly in a new location with the added nerves of being in a test.
I was glad I made that decision because when we went back on Saturday she did have a couple of issues that we worked through and by the end of practice she was doing Take A Line and Tow A Boat perfectly. I wasn’t concerned about the other exercises so we didn’t practice them, I just mixed in her favorite retrievals to break up “the work”, which for Winn isn’t work at all. She really loves being in the water and her energy level was great. She was swimming without her life jacket and was still really strong at the end of practice. We were as ready as we were going to be. She had mastered all six exercises in our first summer of training and I was so happy with all that she had learned. If we could pull it off in the test, that would be the cherry on top.
next post: test time once again!
For the Drop Retrieve, the stewards row out 50 feet with her life jacket and drop it on the far side of the boat. We have to wait for the boat to clear the area, then I point her to the life jacket and send her out to bring it back to shore. We stood on shore (she still refused to sit) and once I knew she had spotted it, I sent her out. It was all going really well until a HUGE horsefly appeared and started buzzing around her head. She started whipping her head right and left, up and down, trying to keep an eye on it and then she turned and charged straight toward me out of the water. I was able to grab her before she sprinted off of the beach (that’s an automatic fail and you must stop the test) but I could tell that she was freaked out. I wasn’t sure what I should do but the judge encouraged me to take her back out and have her try it again. I knew that was the right thing to do, I didn’t want her to now be afraid of the water so we went out together and when I was about waist deep she kept swimming on her own and retrieved her jacket. I met her back on shore and kept a good grip on her collar while we got ready for the next exercise.
Take a Line can be a difficult exercise for a lot of dogs but Winn has been solid with it all summer when we’ve practiced. I hoped that she would be confident with this one and we could get back on track but as we stood on shore I had a really hard time getting her attention and focus. The judge encouraged me to take our time, get her settled and let her know when we were ready. I gave Winn some rubs and talked in her ear, she wasn’t fully attentive but she was better so I signaled that we were ready. She didn’t want to take the line at first, but when she did, she turned and started heading away from the water. I grabbed her collar and then once again, headed into the water with her to get her going. Once I was next to her in the water, she seemed to register what she was supposed to do and she finished up on her own and I met her back on shore.
So far we had passed the first two exercises and failed the next two so we were not going to pass the test. You must pass all six exercises in one test to achieve the Water Dog title. We had two exercises left and I was thinking maybe we should just pull out since she was still nervous and looking for that terrible horsefly. I voiced that to the judge and she told me she would support whatever I decided but she encouraged me to keep going, Winn was doing well once she got in the water. In all of the exercises, once you let the judge know you are ready, you must have your hands off of your dog. You can’t touch them again until the exercise is finished and then you can grab their collar and gently lead them back to the set up point for the next exercise. If the dog leaves the beach, it’s an automatic fail and you have to leave the test. Since Winn wanted to bolt, I kept grabbing her so she wouldn’t leave the area. By putting my hands back on her, we failed the exercise, but we could still continue on with the test. It’s always a good idea to keep going even if you don’t pass an exercise because you don’t want your dog to think that’s how we do it. When she turned and left the water before completing her task (also a fail), I didn’t want her to think that was a good way to perform that exercise, instead I went with her and then she did what she knew to do and I met her back on shore and praised her that she had done a good job. Did I mention that I also had a severely sprained ankle? Chasing after Winn in the sand and the water without my full physical powers was painful, clumsy and not very efficient. I’m still amazed that I was able to catch her when she tried to run by me!
I was so relieved as I walked her back to the car. I got her settled in with her fan blowing on her, a fresh bowl of water and some of her favorite treats scattered around her and then I went to gather all of our stuff to get us packed up. I was sitting in the car with Winn, about ready to head home when the judge approached and knocked on the window. She wanted to let me know that she thought Winn was a very good working dog. She told me that the very best water dog she ever had approached the articles in the water in the same way that Winn had. She swims to the left of the article and then will turn towards the item to grab it before making another 1/4 turn back to shore. She said that’s not something that’s trained, it’s instinct. By doing that, she has less drag from the item as she turns to shore. I thanked the judge for her input, I couldn’t believe she searched us out, and she told me she looked forward to seeing us in future tests.
As the weeks passed, Winn was executing everything really well. When she was first learning Take A Line, we put a long line on her to help guide to the caller, then swim around them and back to shore. After only 2 or 3 times with the long line, she understood what she was supposed to do and after that I didn’t put the long line on again. She was great at retrieval, was starting to understand Tow A Boat and was perfect with the Basic Control exercises. I even found myself giving tips to others on heeling and recall!
Once I was pretty confident with our skills, I started getting more excited about entering a water test. There were several tests planned in our area, all on different weekends so I started filling out the paperwork and entered 4 different tests with the hope of getting into and competing in 2 or 3. In addition to our own club’s test which would be the last one of the summer, we got into one in Indiana and one in Michigan. I really hoped that we would have success in at least one of them.
next post: our first water test!
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