14 Čvc Archer’s IGP 2 Series, Part 1: Overview

There is no way around it: Spring is trial time. I barely had time to recover from the intense experience that was preparing my clients for their trial, and it was already high time to start working with Archer in preparation for his IGP 2. In this article series, I want to describe our trial preparation, and then I will let Archer himself tell you how the trial went.

Only four weeks‘ time

We had four weeks after my clients’ trial. Of course, we trained before that, but I really had my hands full, so I had to squeeze the intense trial preparation phase into just four weeks. It was not ideal, but I knew my Arch was more or less ready with primarily only minor issues we had to work on.

One of those four weeks I spent at our training camp. You might have seen some photos and videos from it over on my Instagram page. That was fortunate because, at camp, I usually only work with clients for half a day. The other half is dedicated to protection and tracking with different trainers, so I am free to work with Archer. We also had the opportunity to train protection almost every day at camp, which helped immensely.

Setbacks and misfortunes

During the month of our trial preparation, we had a number of issues and unfortunate events. It was the first hot days of Spring/Summer. Arch, even though he is a crazy little energy bundle, has his issues when the weather changes from pretty cold to very hot for the first time in the year. He is just not used to the hot temperatures after the long winter. I had to adjust our sessions accordingly and train later in the evening.

Apart from that, my car was robbed two times during this period. I lost some training equipment I needed, including my tracking line and my training jacket. Good riddance, mister thief. I wonder what you are going to do with that stuff. The jacket stinks of treats and was many years old, and the tracking line is literally just a long piece of rope. What the hell? Oh well.

We also had some problems finding good terrains for tracking. The trial track was to be on grass, so we had to train accordingly. I live in a big city, so grass is much harder to come by than fields or dirt. I had to drive for like an hour to get to some decent grass to track in. The training camp helped us out a bit again with plentiful meadows all around it.

We also struggled with protection sessions. This year, we weren’t able to train nearly as much as I would like, and I was feeling like we were trying to catch up quickly before the trial. Working on protection almost every day at camp was a life saver.

Last week before the trial

We let nothing stop us and really worked hard, and I was beginning to see that it was paying off. Arch was really stepping up his game, and our sessions got better and better. I was really happy with the progress, and then it was the last week before the trial—the crucial one where you have to make sure you prepare your dog to be in top-notch condition on trial day, physically and mentally ready to take on the trial.

For most dogs, this means plenty of rest, maybe some easy last-minute sessions, some walks, and general relaxation. Unfortunately, for Archer, it means double shift: the entire last week, we were training two disciplines a day. It was tracking and obedience most of the time, where I would take him tracking in the morning and then do some obedience in the evening after I was finished with my client’s training, but we also had two protection sessions thrown in there as well.

This sounds crazy—and believe me, it is—but I know this is what Arch needs, what he thrives on. During the course of the week, I could see him calming down and getting more focused, and the sessions kept improving every day.

The very last training sessions

We drove to the field two days in advance and stayed there so we could train where the trial would take place. I knew I had to trick him into making some mistakes in his last protection session so that I could correct him and he would then be more alert during the trial. That tactic was successful, and I was very happy with our last protection session. It also helps that we have amazing helpers in our group who always know how to approach every problem.

The last track was to be very similar. I knew I had to make it very hard and let him make some mistakes. He would then be more aware of these possible flaws the next day and be extra careful during the trial track. So, I went out of my way to find a very dry meadow. It was very windy the day before the trial, and I purposefully made a track I knew had numerous things Archer usually has problems with.

Confidently, I let him track, and what do you know? He did everything perfectly. Everything. Not a single mistake. That little asshole didn’t give me an opportunity to correct him and just worked like it was an easy puppy track. I can’t describe to you how nervous this made me, knowing he would be overconfident on the trial track the next day. But, alas, there was nothing I could do about it now.

Our last obedience session went reasonably well; I just tried to calm Arch down and not let him get into his overexcited crazy mindset. This worked out reasonably well, so I crawled in my sleeping bag that night and, as I always do, went through my obedience and protection routines in my head until I fell asleep.

In the next article of this series, I will go over our training in detail and describe everything we were working on. After that, you can look forward to Archer giving you his view of the trial. Stay tuned and be mindful!