Why Do You Compete?

[Tapua]

Why obedience? Because it is good for me and I think it is good for the dog. My primary focus is on breeding good mentally stable and intelligent Labs and I believe all dogs should know their boundaries at home and in town. I train at home and I see the process of building the dog/human bond. Plus IMHO obedience has more credability for breeding dogs because it is a testament to their temperament and trainability. :)My guys get very excited when I have the lead & martingale in my hand and push each other out of the way to put their heads in the collar they 'get dressed' to train.

My nearest obedience club is 89km away so not a regular option. Though I must say the people who are at the trials are fantastic and I enjoy their company at trails. I have found show people a bit precious. Obedience trails are fun & I only have to put up with a trails a few times a year. Its a judgement of my relationsip with my dog & my dogs abiltiy. Not like showing where I used to drag my bored butt to dog shows and the judgement may be about the quality of the dog but may also be about who is on the end of the lead.

I am a lame trialer - if I think whichever is good enough to trial I will do enough work to get a pass in CCD or CD.

So I have 1 Border CollieX Croftie got his CD in 5 trials with score of 178, 186 and a fantastic 196. I just qualified our Lab girl Tua yesterday in CCD. 3 trail 3 passes first at the Lab National lame scores of 78/100 & 86/100 but yesterday she gained 90/100.Go Tua I was going to stop at CCD with her but I might keep going. I have a young 22month old Lab bitch who has potential for obedience so she will get my focus now. She is a keen worker and good retriever so I might try CDX with her.

Edited August 28, 2010 by Tapua

[Chezy]

I do it because it's fun and I love it, he seems to love it and i have found when i have been out of action[injured] he becomes naughty, so just playing and walks etc don't cut it for him. He seems more focused and behaved when we train and trial , not that you'd think that when he has a loopy nutso agility run rofl . I love the trialing because I am travelling all over and spending time with ppl that are like minded

[Staranais]

With my last dog, I mostly trialled since I love to train him, and training with no goal wasn't as much fun as having something to work towards. But also, since I'd been told by more than one trainer I should PTS due to his aggression, having his 1st place ribbons hanging on my wall made me (and still makes me!) enormously proud. We never competed at the higher levels, but still, it was an objective measure of how far he'd come in his behaviour.

I may or may not trial my current girl (depends how the SAR thing works out). If I do trial her, it will be to make training more fun (give us something to work towards) and to earn titles for her.

[Zug Zug]

I need something to aim for or I start getting bored in our training, and also just start training less and less because my motivation drops away.

Zamba doesn't care if we compete or if we just 'do stuff'. But if we're not competing, I start getting slack and then she starts getting NAUGHTY!!!

So it's better all round if we have something to aim for and work towards. Also it helps me ensure she is working to me, rather than manipulating me into working for her.

[Starkehre]

My chosen breed gets a lot of bad publicity. So I feel it is my responsibility to be out amongst others with different breeds campaigning to show the public how my breed has integrated well into the community.

As far as herding is concerned (just one of the sports we enjoy) Rottweilers are perhaps the oldest herding/droving breed. It is an honour to this wonderful breed to be able to demonstrate that they have not lost their original bred instinct.

My dogs love it

I enjoy collecting titles

It keeps me motivated and challenged

My breed is bred to work therefore has a healthier body and mind by being kept in continuous training for these disciplines

[leopuppy04]

I compete because I love it. I like the challenge and I love having to constantly find ways to improve my handling skills.

Most of all it's important for my dogs to have fun. If they don't have fun, neither do I! I can have the biggest smile on my face and my dog has just made a huge blunder (read: bringing back his TOY instead of the seekback!), but they've had a blast all the way through.

I love the challenge of trying to keep it constantly fun for the dogs!

I'm not out there to win, but hey - who doesn't like winning. I also want to be the best that we can be (dogs and myself!). It's just a fun outlet for me and my dogs to have fun together and challenge ourselves

Edited August 30, 2010 by leopuppy04

[FHRP]

I compete to assess my dog against a standard in a controlled environment. I enjoy training my dogs new things and having a standard to aim for always helps with motivation. I enjoy the titles and awards we get from competition and my current closest friends are people I have met through dog training and our common interest in competition. My dogs certainly don't care if they never compete. They enjoy the time spent with me training. No one would question the enjoyment my youngest dog gets at any sort of training or competition event, his enthusiasm is obvious. I did compete with my younger Vizsla in a sport that towards the end of his career he no longer seemed to enjoy. I did persevere with him in the end because of the many hours we had spent training and he was just too close to that final win needed to give up. That was done for me.

I compete in many sports and Obedience trialing I enjoy the least. I do enjoy training the new exercises, but find competition a bit boring. Polo is the first dog I have continued to compete in the Open class with after he has titled and only because he does actually seem to enjoy the obedience ring. In the other sports I trial in, part of the enjoyment is seeing what each judge will throw at us, it's always different and often things I would never have thought to train specifically for!

[Vickie]

I LOVE competing!

I think my dogs love it more than they love training. I'm pretty sure this is b/c of the extra adrenalin burst I have when I'm at a trial. I am always trying to simulate it at home, but never quite get the same level out of my dogs as I get at a trial.

I love testing our training by competing

I love achieving different levels

I love see new challenges that I haven't worked on yet

I love learning from other handlers & watching the best there is strut their stuff

I love the camaraderie

I love that my daughter & I get to pack up & head off for the weekend

I love the way trials, the places we go & the people we meet have enriched her life

I love the late night bonfires

I love going to places that I would otherwise never have been

I love meeting people I would otherwise never have met

Mostly...I just love those 30 odd seconds where although I am surrounded by people & dogs, it is just me & my dog in the ring, running for our lives. Nothing beats that feeling

[Agility Dogs]

I do agree that I think there is a human component that drive competition, obviously the dogs don't care about high scores or coming first etc!

I think this depends on the sport and the dog. We have a number of dogs at flyball who love to race and love to win. My boy in particular looks over to the other lane to see if he has beaten the other dog! It is very funny to watch - he will try harder and harder until he beats the other dog, then he celebrates. I am not joking!

Interestingly he lopes at training and gets beaten by dogs that are a full second slower than he is. When he sees orange bunting though it is GAME ON.

I'm sure there are other sports where the dogs are similar, but aside from this I don't think the dogs have a preference between competition and training - competition is more a human thing IMO.

ETA - I compete because I love to test my dogs and our relationship against others. It takes our relationship to a whole new level and tests its limits then gives us something to work on at training which strengthens it further. It is also a good ego boost - titles are a great way to satisfy human needs.

Edited August 31, 2010 by Agility Dogs

[SmoothieGirl]

Vickie I love your post!

I enjoy the interaction with my dog, learning together, perfecting things, stuffing things up and having a laugh, spending quality time together and meeting/talking to other dog minded people which is completely different from my job. My little girl has an ever increasing work ethic and I can tell she enjoys what we do because:

Herding - You just have to see her near sheep, she loves them. Her constant aim of getting them in a tight neat bunch and her bounce and speed of collecting up those that break away. If she's not in the paddock with them she has to be crated or she just barks and barks to say she wants back in with them.

Obedience - We train most mornings, just for 5-15 mins and she seems to get a kick out of it. I mix it up and she gets right into it, especially now we are working consistently with remote rewards. At club while waiting for the stragglers to get to the line up or hand in our cards she will often bark at me basically trying to communicate her eagerness to 'get on with it.'

Agility - We have only done one clinic so far and she was a natural. How do I know she likes it? Well when standing next to various obstacles listening to the instructor about the next obstacle she kept putting herself through the tunnel and over the apex. My first indication of this was the tug on the end of the lead and the dog in the tunnel or up near my head height looking at me. Why oh why would she do that if she didn't like it?

As long as she enjoys it, we will keep doing it, but I think I would only ever persist in a discipline that a dog shows some enthusiasm for. If the next dog doesn't like something, I will just redirect the energies to other things it did like. Well apart from basic obedience, every dog should have that, I just might not aim for a CCD title. But hopefully this won't be the case and I'll add another canine workaholic to the family.