OB280: Novice Smart: Preparing for the Dog's First Trial

Acclimating and Warming Up Your Dog

 Arriving at the Trial

This first part is mostly a review of the acclimation lecture. After you arrive at a trial you will decide where best to setup your stuff so that your dog can fully relax. That might be just on the edge of the action so your dog can hear the commotion going on around him but not see it, or it might be safely tucked away in your car.

Hopefully, you have arrived at the trial with lots of time before your actual run. I begin by walking my dog around the trial grounds and encouraging them to sniff the ground, the ring gates*, really anything in the environment that isn't invading the space of another human or dog. (*No sniffing the gates if a dog is working in it already!) I might look at my dog and smile or talk to them at times, but overall I’m not giving them direct focus as I don’t want that direct focus back.

I might have treats in my pocket but I don’t bring them out unless needed to manage a chaotic area. I'm not wanting to reward focus at this point, instead I want them to soak up the environment. But if your dog is reactive, easy over aroused, or maybe you have another reason, then use your treats as you are accustomed to doing!

Your stressed up dog and over eager to work dog may also need forced acclimation time as he will say he is ready to start before he really is capable of fully focusing and thinking! With this type of dog you may think about using a snuffle mat or doing a cookie scatter in various places. Be careful not to reward just direct focus on you as your dog may fail to scope out the environment if he is only thinking about rewards.

I usually put my dog back in the crate without doing any work after this initial walk through of the trial grounds.

Dog super hyped or extra stressy?

Consider taking your dog on a long sniffing walk outside the trial grounds. Sniffing is the biggest stress reliever for most dogs!

And/or do a small game of fetch. The goal is not to tire out your dog!

Some dogs will get more hyped up with a game of fetch as their arousal levels increase. Remember that arousal and stress are closely related! But other dogs might actually use that small energy outlet to lower their stress levels and allow them to become more level headed. My toller Vito is the first dog- while he would love to play fetch it only increases his obsession level and while he wouldn’t look stressed during the game, he would be more likely to stress UP and fixate on people if I let him do it at a trial. However, I have found Zumi really benefits from being allowed to do some victory laps with her toy before showing! Be careful that if you’re at an AKC trial, you either need to be off trial grounds or keep your dog on leash.

Pre- Warm up Warm up

Well before your run, you will bring your dog out of their crate again for another acclimation walk. This time you will hopefully find that after several minutes (5min? 15min?) of being out and sniffing, you’re seeing signs that they are getting a little bored and might want to work. Perfect.

Go into your engagement routine. For my dogs, that means standing still, out of the way of traffic, and just giving my dog as much leash as to not be in the way of anyone. I look at my dog and wait. When my dog can offer that sustained focus on me (2sec) I start my sequence. As discussed earlier, my personal sequence is:

Backing up, saying “are you ready?!” and looking for my dogs to offer jumping up on me/in the air. IF I get that, I then ask my dog to do some simple work. If I don’t get that, I cue my dog to go sniff again and give them some more time before starting the sequence again.

What work should you do at a trial?

EASY work!!! This is not the time to drill your dog. I actually avoid practicing almost any of the obedience exercises as focus + attitude are what is going to get me success in the trial, not last minute cramming. Your dog isn't suddenly going to become better at heeling or doing their down cue. And if your dog normally struggles with a particular move or exercise, then rehearsing it the day of a trial can even create more stress around the issue. What if you practice that move and your dog fails?! That can be a huge blow to your dog's confidence!

I might do a tiny bit of heeling, paying attention to focus and energy over precision, but that’s about it!

Otherwise I like tricks the dog loves!

Or review of the cookie stashing games! “see, here’s your cookies!!” Let the dog watch you set them down and move away from it just a few feet. Cue running to the reward together.

My goal of this pre warm up-warm up is to make sure my dog is capable of offering their ready to work sequence and feels comfortable in the trial environment. It can also provide me valuable feedback of whether the dog is really stressing (up or down) and needs their arousal lowered, or whether their motivation is actually low and they need more energy.

I keep it short, under 5 minutes.

Then back to sniffing, maybe a short walk outside to decompress, then back in their crate to relax.

If you got to the trial super early, you might do this mini warm up and back to the crate one more time before you need to warm up for real.

Here is Zumi during her pre-warmup. This is sometime between arriving at the site earlier in the day and doing her sniffing walk, and now I have her out to “work.” If I had to guess I say it was roughly 25-30min before her time in the ring. I start with letting her sniff. Since she had already been out sniffing a bunch, she did do some looking at me pretty early after being brought out, but I still told her to “go sniff” as I know she still really needed it. (Note there were no dogs in the crates where we were standing so I wasn’t worried about bothering anyone. Be careful not to let your dog sniff too close to dogs in crates!)

At about the 1min mark I ask if her she’s ready to work and her signal is boinging up and going into heel position. Note that with most dogs they will sniff much longer than a minute! Unfortunately, people block my camera so you can’t see my first 2 rewards. My 3rd and final rep is shown where I put her in a squish, release her to setup in heel, and then cue “cookies” to get the treat bag I put on a chair nearby.

Actual Warm Up

Ok, now you’re down to your actual warm up. For most dogs you will get them out of their crate somewhere between 3 to 12 minutes before they actually go in the ring. This is a huge difference in time and unfortunately you just need practice to time it right. How long does the take in the different environments you’ve been going to? And hopefully your pre-warmups at this actual trial site helped aid you in that guess too. How long did the dog need from exiting their crate until they were ready to do their ready to work routine?? Adding just 2-4 minutes to that time is what I aim for so that my dog isn’t out too long, but yet I don’t feel stressed in thinking they aren’t going to be ready in time!!! (Vito is out for about 8-9min before his turn, Zumi about 3-4min in obedience/rally).

This is the time you calmly walk your dog from their crate to the area close to their ring. I might walk the dog as close to the ring as possible without disturbing the working dog so that my dog can see in to the judge, the stewards, etc. I let them sniff on my short leash and then I retreat a little bit further away so I can get that ready to work sequence.

My dog then tells me their ready, and I go into some different things I think can benefit the dog in those last several minutes before going in. I want to get my dogs in the right state of arousal so that they are able to focus on their task at hand. You will need to experiment with what your dog needs to hit that optimum state. You want your porridge heated just right!

Of course what your dog needs will be different than what my dog needs. I can't give you a recipe for the perfect warmup. Here are some ideas to think about.

Dog over aroused (remember this can be stressed down dogs too!):

1. Focus games-this could be small zen games where your dog resists moving towards a treat, chin rests, or even a few pivots on a perch if that helps to calm and focus your dog.
2. Calm massages- Let her look around and absorb everything again while you use touch to relax and connect with your dog. This may also include doing some calm stretches.
3. Sniffing- Sniffing can be a HUGE stress reliever in dogs. Consider scattering cookies onto a snuffle mat for your dog to search through or even hiding them under your legs and shirt as you sit on the floor and let your dog mob you.
4. Create a fixation to stare at- This sounds a little weird but some dogs do very well when encouraged to stare and obsess over a piece of food or a toy. You can use a cue like "look at it" to let them know you want them to stare. Typically, handlers cover up the food with their hand and then periodically "flick" it for the dog to chase a very short distance. This taps into their prey drive with the food "prey" suddenly emerging and fleeing away. Ball obsessed dogs again want to wait for that sudden intense movement from their prey being rolled ever so short. This fixation in a warmup can be used to keep a dog in drive without physically having to exert as much as well as preventing a more reactive dog from choosing to fixate on others warming up.

Dog lower in motivation:

Any of the above games might work for your dog! But you also have 2 other options:

1. Play- Get them moving! Jumping up, very small chase circles. Be careful that you are not overwhelming your dog with your energy, aim for just a scale above the energy your dog is giving you and then see if you can slowly ramp them up if they are on the low side. In obedience this is going to be hard as you are limited on space and barking is frowned upon!
2. Jackpot reminders- Show your dog that you are placing their reward at a distance while you then go back and ask for a tiny bit of easy work. Give your jackpot cue and then run to the reward with them (or get it and bring it back to them). I often do a mini squish-release to a short section of heeling and a setup- then jackpot and run to the reward.

Here is video of Vito practicing seeing me set down the reward, go into a squish, and then releasing to play before I go and get the reward. Since in a trial he will be on leash he will likely need to come with me to the reward instead of me cuing the sit like I do here in practice:

Waiting to go in the ring

I do the above warm up until roughly the last 30sec to 1 minute before going into the ring. So for my dog Vito, I might have had 5 minutes of letting him sniff and waiting for him to give me his ready to work sequence. Then another 3 minutes of warming up to that right arousal level. And then as the dog in front of me is finishing up their run I move to get ready for actually going into the ring.

That’s about 9 minutes total of being out of the crate for Vito. Zumi’s time is a several minutes shorter as I “force” about 1-2 minutes of sniffing, do about 2 minutes of warming up with some jackpot reminders, and then get her into a squish as the dog before us is exiting the ring.

If you to use food and toys to engage your dog in the warmup at a trial you need a plan for how you are going to get rid of the rewards before you enter the ring. Once again acknowledge your dog's intelligence and don't try to trick them by sneaking the reward to a friend or trying to pretend you're hiding some in your pocket. Instead, show your dog where you are putting their reward. Your dog should be comfortable leaving it from the work you have done in practice. Work on leaving the reward and going into a squish position outside of the ring.

We've already touched quite a bit on thinking about your environment when getting ready to enter the ring. Outdoor trials might allow you to wait a distance away from the ring and further from distractions while some indoor trials you barely have enough room to stand. During these last few seconds to perhaps up to 2 minutes, your dog will be waiting in a squish position and ready to explode out with energy and focus as you release her to enter the ring. You’ve practiced this!