Holding My Breath

Here we go, Moto's Rally Novice debut tomorrow! For it being just rally, I'm rally, rally nervous. Sorry for the pun. We've worked very hard on conditioning and it's paid off but Moto is not completely over his nervousness in new areas. He does recover much faster though. What is unfortunate is thunderstorms are due to roll into the area tomorrow. If it's thundering loudly and it affects Moto, I will pull him as I don't want him to think the ring is a scary place. The Rally Novice class is HUGE! 17 dogs. We won't focus on doing the exercises fast; rather, we'll focus on doing them as best as we can and most importantly, it's up to me to make sure he has a good time and learns Ring Time is Special Time. He needs to feel I'm proud of him and we're a team and let's go have fun. Ultimately my mental picture was something like doggie dressage but that's just not going to happen. My picture now that I hope to bring to the ring is a smiling, confident dog that will do all the exercises and we can celebrate together when we leave the ring. I've packed some super-yummy baked chicken for the weekend.
I hope my next post is a happy one, going over all the fun we had! I'll enjoy the weekend nonetheless as it will be fun watching the other classes and competitors. We have two fun matches to do - one tonight which is fantastic, a great way to get Moto used to the environment he will be showing in. I look forward to hanging out with my show buddies too.
Here we go.....!