Nightmare Trial Tales - Page 1

In the spirit of "Most Embarrassing Moments" I got to thinking of all the awful things that have happened to me in trials over the years. I'm sure many of you have endured something absolutely horrible happen to you. Care to share some Trial Nightmares?

My second trial was really bad. I'm personally not to good in front of a crowd. Taking my female just to get a BH on her it was horrible. There were six clubs there with video camera's you name it. I froze up. I was actually tripping over grass, yeah grass. It was finally over and the judge (Bless his heart) passed us!! It will forever be ingraved in my head!!

I was so nervous in my first Schh trial during the obedience I was concentrating on the routine so much I almost forgot the sit it was only when a good friend of mine during the crowd test sneezed "sitz" that I remembered - I looked at the judge and he just wagged his finger at me - it was horrible. LOL

OK. I'll start: It was a suffocatingly hot morning in the CA San Joaquin Valley. I had entered my Onyx in another FH, confident that with all the hot weather tracking, and his history of V scores in the FH, we'd "ace it" and take home a big, shiney High-in-Something trophy. The tracking field was to die for: a walnut orchard with finely disked dirt you could probably see you tracks in two weeks later. GREAT! There were a lot of SchH entries in the trial and a lot of spectators. This club was known for putting on great events. I had drawn the last FH track, so I had plenty of time to hang out and watch the other competitors, talk and do curbside critiques of the other handlers and their dogs with my dog-friends under the shade of the walnut trees at the edge of the orchard nearest the parking area. At one point, while watching the last SchH 3 dog get a little lost on the track, crouching under the low branches of the trees, I noticed someone had inadvertantly dropped an article, probably left after a quick practice track. "Hey guys, anybody recognize this article?" "Its yours, Shelley, came the response from a club member just walking up to join us." "No, I did my practice track over there, with wood dowels and carpet." "Ahem... No Shelley, its yours." ...and it was. It was the last article on an FH track I had been tromping all over all morning. It looked like someone had held a rodeo in the soft, now-dry-as desert dirt. MY FH track! We passed with a respectable score, despite having "a little trouble" (such a sweet, tactful judge...) but went home without the covetted High FH trophy.

On the day of our IPO3 trial, it was pretty rainy and yucky but we have trialed in bad weather before, no biggie... or so I thought. Just as they finished laying the SchH/IPO3 tracks it began POURING rain. I mean this was not rain, this was buckets and buckets. It rained like this non stop the entire hour we waited for the track to age. It came time to run the track, of course mine was the first track which was at the bottom of the field. We had to cross a ditch which had three foot deep running gushing water to get to our track, the entire track was under at least inches of water with several small "rivers" running across our track! It was a sloppy horrible mess. Poor Libby had to squint her eyes just to see where she was going, I was drenched even with rain gear on, but she kept working and finally found the end of the track. Only to find out that the last article WASHED away! LOL It was not pretty but she did not give up and kept working the track, so we passed with a decent score. I just trialed her daughter this past October for her SchH1. We laid the track and went back to get our dogs. We did the temperament test and then were waiting for the judge to tell us he was ready. Just then a DEER not only ran across my track but stopped right on it and stood there looking at the crowd. My sister yelled over to me and told me that there was a deer standing on my track. I just wanted to pack up and go home that minute! I thought we were done for sure! The deer stood there for a good minute then ran across the other leg and into the woods. Lovely! Thankfully she has the same hunt drive and tracking ability her mother has and worked through the track pulling off a 94!

Well...it was years ago during a AKC novice obedience routine with my first GSD, who was a lovable old girl that had her occasional stubborn moments--usually on trial day, and probably because I got so nervouse (and still do). We were marching along and I was looking straight ahead, thinking things were going very well. I made a turn, and then I suddenly realized my girl wasn't with me. I stopped and looked around for her. She was out of the ring, and trotting determinedly up the dirt road towards the car! She'd had enough of all the marching nonsense and wanted to go home. I asked the judge if I could be excused? He rolled his eyes in exasperation, and said emphaticly, "Yes!" Very, very embarressing! LOL! I'm afraid it wasn't a very good trial for that judge. The next dog in the ring, an 18 month old youngster, decided to go on a mad, joyful dash out of the ring and all around the show site with his owner, the stewards and several other folks in pursuit. All the dogs in both Novice classes broke their long downs. And high in trial winner was a smart-working black female who unfortunately had big splashes of white on her chest, on all four feet and the tip of her tail! Being at that trial that day was kind of like being in a James Thurber short story.