Novice Obedience Question

Smudge said:
You don't just get your CD the first time you pass. If I remember right you have to pass three different Novice trials each with a different judge to get your CD. Of course as you advance the tasks become much harder (and there are some jumps, I think. But I think it is in Obedience Utility). I am not sure what Novice B deals with. I am sure Justicemom could tell more about it when she comes on. Her dogs do good in Obedience.

Obedience is fun, but it is like agility - you don't get an E for effort and pass. :biggrin2::lol: When I started I was not sure what obedience would consist of. I thought we'll do some sits, downs, recall, and that would be it.

Wrong. :wink2:
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I did see the need for 3. Kinda like agility too. ;)

So why do ppl keep telling me it's easy to get a CD? Sheesh!! I know with Koji it wouldn't be. Maybe with Miko, but we'd have to do more training and not sure if he wants to learn. He seems to be "stuck" in his ways.

And what?! No E for Effort? Sheesh. I think we should all get that and then pass. Don't you? hehehe.

Maybe I should go to a local obedience show and check it out. My agility classmate does obedience and has invited me to a practice. That could work too.
 
Definitely go to a local show and check it out.
What about rally competition? It's supposed to be a little easier than obedience.
 
There are no set commands in novice. You may use whatever you like, in whatever language you like. I use "lie down" for the drop on recall (in open), and "don't move!" for the stays. I got one CD leg doing only hand signals on the heeling.
 
You have to earn three qualifying scores to get a CD. You will be asking for the down from a sit.
I personally thought earning a CD was very easy. Athena and I earned scores in the high 90s, winning all three classes to get her CD title.
 
Well getting a CD is easy compared to getting a CDX or UD.:wink2:

Novice obedience really tests the basic commands a dog would know. Heeling(very formal) , sit ,down, stay, finish, stand. The are 6 exercises

1.heel on leash an 8 figure
2. stand for exam
3. heel free(off leash)-same pattern as 1 but no leash and no figure 8
4. recall
5. 1 minute sit stay
6. 3 minute down stay

You start with 200 points and then must keep 170 of those points and half in each exercise to qualify. Do that 3 times and you have your CD.

You can use whatever command you want as long as you only say it once.

The hard part about obedience is you only get one command. No extra talking. Extra commands can be 3 points to an NQ depending on when you need to give them.
Heeling is tighter than Rally and the dog must sit when you stop with no extra commands.You lose points for forging, lagging, bumping, being wide, slow sits and extra commands. A no sit is 3 pts.

The stand of exam can be hard for some dogs. 1 pt per foot moved to NQ of dog doesn't stay for exam.

The recall is very formal. You leave the dog in a sit and go across the ring, turn ,with your arms and hands at your side, you call the dog once. Any movement on your part with your arms is points off. The dog must come all the way in front of you close enough so you can touch it and sit. When the judge tells you you ask the dog to finish with either voice or hand signal(can not do both). A no sit is 3pts, going straight to heel is 5pts, stopp too far out is a NQ, giving a second command is an NQ, using both hand and voice to call is an NQ, hand voice to finish is 3pts.

Sit stays- NQ if dog lays downs or doesn't stay.
Down stay -NQ for sitting When you put the dog into the down you can have them standing or sitting but you must wait for the judge to tell you to down.

There are many other things you can lose points.

I have Diva ready to go for Novice but I'm still working on her heeling and her fronts are hit and miss. I personally train for the high scores(upper 190's) but that is my goal. Jazz got her UKC and ASCA CD and her scores were in the mid 180 to low 170. I think she got her last leg with a 170.5. My personal best novice score is a 198.5 with Justice. I lost 1 of those points he lost .5 :lol: A class or good mentor is really needed to help learn ring protocols. It would be really hard for someone to get a CD without a class or mentor. I really do think with training any dog with a reasonable temperment can get a CD. It's just harder for some. Rally is definitely an easier option at first Definitely go to a show and check it out.:smile2:
 
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HopeShelties said:
You have to earn three qualifying scores to get a CD. You will be asking for the down from a sit.
I personally thought earning a CD was very easy. Athena and I earned scores in the high 90s, winning all three classes to get her CD title.
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I think it would be easy for most shelties, but Smudge is very, very skittish. It took the whole 6 weeks for him to come out of his shell and sit in front of the other people there. That was with me taking him out three times a week outside of class. He did excellent figure eights with the cones, but I think we are still light years away from doing them with people. In class they only used cones.

Last night we had a bad episode. I put in a new drink bucket and took his crate bowl out. Smudge has never drank from his crate bowl so when I bought Fluffy a drink bucket I bought Smudge one, too.

Smudge went into his crate, sniffed the bucket, tucked his tail under him, and got the triggerfish away. I liked to have never convinced him the bucket was ok. :dead:
 
wow obedience sounds tough. Definitely going to wait till Bailey is a little older. We'll stick with Rally and agility for now.
 
Also, I wonder why the people at my obedience class are such sticklers for words we use if it doesn't matter in competition. :confused2: Maybe it is because they are used to saying the same thing in every class and they want everybody to use the same words so there is no confusion? :confused2:
 
Smudge said:
Also, I wonder why the people at my obedience class are such sticklers for words we use if it doesn't matter in competition. :confused2: Maybe it is because they are used to saying the same thing in every class and they want everybody to use the same words so there is no confusion? :confused2:
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I think alot of it is tradition. My instructor doesn't care what I say as long as it is the same. I use heel for my left finish almost everyone else I know says swing. Drives my breeder crazy. :lol: reason I did that is the first time I said heel Justice ran over to heel position and sat there. OK works for me.:smile2: I kept using it because I not going to have our commands for different dogs.

Here are some commands I've heard over the years.
Sit - always sit
Down- Down, drop, platz, lay, lay down
Heel- Heel ,strut, walk, lets go, fuss
Stay- stay ,freeze, don't move
Finish- heel ,swing, around ,flip
Stand- stand,
Retrieve-fetch, get it ,take it, fetch it
Broadjump-hup, stretch ,big hup, bounce, over
Retrieve over high-hup, go hup, or just the above retrieve commands
Go outs- go out, go back, zoom ,blast off, bang, zip , get it, touch, many others very creative here
Articles-find it ,find mine, search, seek
Directed jumping- hup, jump, bar, high
Gloves- 1,2,3, fetch, get it
 
I'd suggest then that you start taking Smudge to some dog shows now, and get him used to the environment. Use this as practice time, so when he is ready to compete, he will be used to being there, and comfortable working in such a stimulating environment. It is what I do with all of my young dogs so it is not a big deal (though they start going at 4 months). It makes a big difference. When I do start competing them, they see no big deal in being there, and so long as I've got them well prepared, they can go right on through the levels, and we don't end up wasting a lot of time/money on the dog just getting used to being at a show and dealing with it.
What I use for finish is get back :)
 
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