Well the first rally trial for my 2 dogs was this last weekend.

I wrote about their experiences (mostly good!) on facebook already so I won't go into full detail here.

(Loot and Ginny's runs here. And Grace's more difficult runs here)

But I want to explore a bit more on what trial results actually do, and do not, tell you. And how do you know whether you should keep trialing or not.

Those first trials can be deceiving. It's a really common story with those taking my Ring Confidence classes that their dog seemed to start out really well in their first shows. But then things start to get worse over just a handful of trials until their dog is going from bright and excited right outside of the ring, to immediately disconnected as soon as they enter the ring. Struggling to simply set up on the start line let alone respond to the rest of the run.

I experienced this with my first dog in obedience trials where he started out scoring incredibly high, but very quickly got worse and worse until we were barely qualifying in novice.

In our first shows, our dogs may pick up on something being different in the atmosphere. But they often don't know yet what is really going on.

Many dogs are still pretty optimistic that this is practice and you might leap into a fun game at any moment, or whip out those treats. It tends to get worse the more you trial IF there are a lot of pieces that are unfamiliar to them. This will be extra pronounced in most organizations because you don't have that food on you.

My current dogs had extra prep that most dogs don't get; such as knowing how to wait outside the ring, knowing a judge would be inviting us in and greeting us, some work on formal setups, etc. So even though the atmosphere was charged and the layout was different, they weren't fully clued in yet as to it being a "trial."

Vs my first dog when he didn't know my silence and formality meant he was doing well! He saw that plus the lack of cookies as a sign he was wrong. And a whole bunch of other pieces were missing too, but overall I lucked out to have a confident dog who went on to trial quite well once I filled in those missing holes.

So while I am thrilled with how well Loot and Ginny did at their first rally trial, I also know that I still have a lot of work to do. Especially with Ginny, I know that if I trial too soon then she will be pouncing on any of those differences between practice and trial. (Psst, ring experience is a myth!)

Looking more specifically at each of their 2 runs, the pieces I want to focus on are as follows:

Taking Ginny to different locations and working on our ready-to-work routine. She did well, but I suspect it would have been harder in a place she had never been.
More work with rewards at a distance for Ginny. Especially with more of the formal ring entrance work before it.
More people pressure/distractions outside the ring for both dogs. Ginny was briefly distracted by the steward walking by when coming out of her "squish" and Loot was very distracted by people before I was able to get him into his waiting position!
My ready response to the judge with Loot. I didn't need that here, but in our practice before the show he was anticipating and standing up on my response!
More emphasis on Loot training with a toy reward and teaching him how to be precise when a bit extra aroused. I thought he would stress down, and he really went UP in a trial!

Notice that none of those are on the actual skills tested on the rally course! All fit into that ring confidence category.

I didn't see any red flag signs from their first trial that we need to really step back and put a longer hold on trialing. But I do want to make sure that their next trials are at least as good if not better!

Can a dog get better by simply entering trials over and over again to show them those pieces? Sure! But I don't see it often, especially in sports like obedience and rally. Typically the dogs who do are dogs who are confident, young and immature when they first start, and have a lot of natural motivation for the activity itself.

Loot's first run:

and Ginny's first run!

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