It's Been a Nerve Wracking Morning!

When I got up this morning I saw that it was going to be a gorgeous Autumn day, not cloudy and wet like most of the week has been.  My heart sank a little ... now I had no excuse to not take Beryl to the CGC (Canine Good Citizen) Assessments being held at our local dog training club!  It would have been a waste of time if it had been wet as she would have been very miserable.

So I packed all our gear up and off we went.  I've been a nervous wreck since last night but I managed to take everything we needed.  We got there early enough for Beryl to have a good wander around and go to the toilet.  Then there was a lot of standing around waiting.  There were 5 dogs going for Foundation and we went 4th so I had a bit of an idea of what we had to do, although most of the steps were done in a little garden that you couldn't see inside from where the rest of us were waiting.

Our turn came and when I went to pick up my bag holding her food bowl and food in a sealed plastic container she stuck her head in the bag and started sniffing.  Hmm, I thought, that's odd.  Normally I have to coerce Beryl to eat her tea and just to be on the safe side I'd given her a small breakfast this morning which she doesn't usually have.

Anyway, we went down to the garden and did everything asked of us in there, let a stranger say hello and pat her, walk politely up and down steps, stand quietly while I talk to a stranger and her dog, not molest another stranger sitting on a bench eating biscuits while we talked.  I thought she did good with all that:)  Outside the garden I had to pick up a bag and go through a gate, shut the gate, walk a ways into that area then go back through the gate, without Beryl impeding me.  That was pretty good considering we hadn't really done it formally before.  Then I had to give Beryl a physical type examination like would be done at the vets, easy peasy.  And the assessor had to do the same thing, easy again.

After that came the 'wait for your food' test.  I'd brought along pretty much her usual type meal, cooked chicken mince with rice and gravy but hadn't added the secret ingredient, home made beef stock, which makes it yummy so she will eat it!  I don't know if it was because it was fresh cooked last night or what but boy, did she want some NOW!!  She ended up doing a beautiful sit and wait for 5 seconds but sheesh, she had me worried about this test and I thought it would be a piece of cake.  And she ate most of it when I told her she could!

The last exercise in this set was the recall.  And this did have me worried as I had to walk quite a distance away and turn and call her with about 20 acres of empty park behind me!!!  I could see Beryl tearing past me and running laps around us all:)  And I think she had ideas of doing that too but she slowed down enough when she got to me so I could grab her collar:)  Whew.

After that we had to walk through a 'quiet crowd' of maybe 8 or 9 people and then the people had to be a 'noisy crowd'.  I think Beryl enjoyed the noise the most:)

The last exercises were a couple of stays, the first one is with the dog tied up and the owners walk about 20 paces away and just talk or whatever for 5 minutes before returning to our dogs and the dogs mustn't jump on us or be excited when we return.  That was fine.  Next one we had to hand our dogs to a stranger to hold while we went out of sight for 4 minutes.  We hadn't really done this before, Beryl had only been tied up while I went out of sight.  And the last time we did that she did get excited and jump on me when I got back, lol!  But she was great.

Oh, so you're wondering if she got her CGC?  YES, my Princess now has a little title and is the 4th Greyhound in New Zealand to have it.  (All 5 dogs passed)  I was thinking she might be the 1st Greyhound to go for it and fail:)  But boy, am I glad it's over.  So was Beryl, this is what she did for half an hour after we got home

Frankie is very proud of his big sister:)

She didn't leave him much room on their couch though!

See the little smile:)  

You all know Lucy, Frankie and Beryl's BFF.  Well today she not only got her Bronze level but also her Silver!!  She's a legend:)  Again the first Greyhound in New Zealand to get them.

Go the little Ferret:)

So, that's been our excitement for the day, did you do anything exciting today?

And it's Saturday Pet Bloggers Hop time. Please join us in wandering around pet blogs and making new friends. The instructions can be found at all of the first three sites listed:)