Trying obedience

We went to a obedience fun match Tuesday night with Riva. We finished at 4/6 but I was pretty happy with our performance. Riva did everything he has been taught to do exactly as in training and even managed to pull through a couple of exercises he hasn't actually been taught. I guess I should teach him the stand command... now we managed the couple of exercises that included a stand on command with a verbal cue "wait" and a hand signal, which took some points off, but he did stop standing. I also messed up the recall so he broke the sit stay and came after me on the first try. The judge said the recall itself was perfect and we would have gotten full marks if it hadn't been for that first broken stay. And he broke the down stay just a second or two before the time was up *argh*, it was so close!

But his heeling is _just_awesome_ and he worked the whole time very happily and intensely despite the distractions and didn't get the least bit confused or unsure even when we did exercises differently than in training or something that we hadn't trained at all. And the judge was quite impressed at how he didn't break his contact at any point. I was a bit worried when we were waiting for our turn, though, my country boy did appear quite a bit distracted by all the dogs and people around the ring but when we went in and started to do our thing he was completely focused :-). It was kinda funny, he went so completely and quickly from just-hanging-around to all-work in just a second.

He is going to be a cool dog to trial when we get there :-).