Ware Obedience Results

I had a fun time yesterday in Gilbertville, MA doing AKC obedience.  It was a bit hectic working out of the car in Novice B with Wyatt and Patriot.  The place was nice but tiny.  There was no real room to crate or warm up so I worked out of the car.  The novice entry was small so I had to hurry to switch dogs and warm up.  I had to find an extra handler for Patriot for Novice sits and downs too.  They both dig well for the regular exercises though Wyatt's healing has been better.  He froze on the recall though, a first for novice.  I have 3 theories about thing freezing issue. 

1)  He is confused about what to do because of the jumps he may be confusing open and utility and not be sure about to do.  This was most likely ruled out yesterday since there was nothing in the ring for novice. 

2)  The judge standing behind him with an arm raised makes him nervous.  This seems more likely because he did fine in open with a judge who is a former teacher of ours.  Though I have tried in class before to crowd him and put pressure on, I need to have everyone in class, especially tall people, stand close to him with their arm raised. 

3)  General stress that is just going to take time.  I did make sure I was loud and clear in open.  I don't want to scare him or be different but it did seem to work being very loud and clear.  It's hard to do while still sounding positive, in my experience. 

I was thrilled that he came.  I did not think he would since he did not come in novice.  I also did not issue a second command in novice.  He always comes on the second command but I don't want to inadvertantly train a second command. 

Wyatt went down on the long sit about 30 seconds through so we did not get our first leg but I was happy overall.  It was our closest to a Q in quite a while. 

Patriot did really well in novice.  I am working on his drop on recall so I can enter him in open too.  He is not as smart or good when things go well, but he is much more confident and predicable once he gets it.  He ended up first with a 190.5, even winning the runoff for first.