Welcome to DSK Dog Star, a periodic column devoted to recognizing and celebrating outstanding performances within the DSK community.
In this inaugural column, the Dog Star honor goes to Sadie’s Cut to the Chase UD GO NAP,
a magnificent Golden Retriever owned and trained by Pam Meyer. This past fall, Chase put on quite a show, earning his Utility Dog title in just four attempts, and adding another obedience title the day he claimed his UD. Here’s Chase’s story…
Pam took Chase home during Labor Day weekend, 2006, but
she nearly didn’t get him at all. She had another pup on hold,
but at the last minute, he became unavailable. With a house full
of new puppy toys and enthusiasm to match, Pam felt like the
bottom had just dropped out. Fortunately, she had friends in the
obedience world, and she put out a puppy SOS. Valerie Taylor,
a member of the DSK community, knew of a Golden Retriever
pup who was available and passed the information along to
Pam. The very next morning, Pam was on her way to pick up
her new furry friend.
Like most Goldens, the seven-week-old pup had energy to burn. Pam took advantage of that enthusiasm by playing games that helped build basic skills. This was Pam’s fourth Golden, and she already had a plan mapped out for him. Chase started puppy class at four months and his first novice class at six.
But Pam hadn’t yet been introduced to DSK, and once Chase got into his novice work, Pam realized she needed to find more advanced training for him. Her friend Joanne Bockhorn trained her own Golden, Nike, at DSK, and Joanne suggested that Pam
come over and take a look. Pam made the move immediately. Chase’s first work
at DSK was with Jeannine Kerr, and then eventually Chase moved into Kim’s classes. Chase also benefited enormously from a course on heeling that was held at the DSK facility and taught by Lynn Bauer, under the auspices of the Mound City Obedience Training Club.
Pam was candid in sharing with Kim the aspirations she had for Chase. Pam had been training her dogs in obedience for upwards of 25 years, but she’d never set her sights this high. She wanted Chase to earn an OTCH, the highest title awarded in AKC obedience. After watching Pam and Chase work for a while, Kim said she thought the goal was realistic.
Dream dog
Chase’s first AKC competition came in spring 2008, and he earned his CD in style, making just three trips into the ring and placing every time. His CDX followed in March 2009, and again he placed each time he competed.
The next stop was the Utility ring, and here Pam knew she’d set a steep course. She’d entered Chase in the Utility competition at the Golden Retriever National Specialty show in late October. This meant that she and Chase had only seven months to perfect and polish all his Utility skills.
“I pushed Chase – and myself – harder than I’ve ever pushed before,” Pam admits. “I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t thought he could handle it. But Chase is my dream dog. He’s the best obedience dog I’ve ever owned. I thought he would do just fine.”
Pam’s faith in her dog was justified. His first appearance in the Utility ring came a couple of weeks before the National, at the fall 2009 Mound City Obedience Training Club trial. Chase stepped into the Utility ring for the first time under the watchful eye of Judge Nancy Simmons. Roughly seven minutes later, Ms. Simmons announced that Chase had qualified, leaving Pam thrilled and deeply stirred. “I was practically hyperventilating, just overcome with emotion,” Pam says.
Noting her strained expression, the judge asked if she was okay. Pam managed to force out the words, “This is our first time in Utility.” Judge Simmons, seeming taken aback, responded, “Do you mean this is your first time in Utility, or your first time to qualify in Utility?” Pam said it was Chase’s first time overall. The judge then assured Pam that Chase had given a standout performance. He finished with a score of 194.5, good enough for first place.
An unscheduled detour
The next day, Chase qualified again before Judge Diane Allen, placing second this time. This left him only one leg short of his UD, and Pam was hoping against hope that he’d finish the title at the Golden Retriever National’s one-day obedience event two weeks hence.
Sadly for Pam, Chase mapped out a slight detour at the National, failing for the only time to qualify in Utility, with an NQ on one of his go-outs. Given how long she’d been anticipating this trial, Pam was surprised to note that she was disappointed but not devastated. “It’s part of the sport,” Pam says. “You have to accept what happens and move on.”
Pam and Chase didn’t go home from the National empty handed, though. Chase also competed in the one-day agility trial, and though it was only the second time he’d ever competed in agility, he won first place in both
FAST and Jumpers with Weaves, completing the
Jumpers course in only half of standard course
time. (Chase had begun agility classes with Kim
the previous summer.)
But there was still that unfinished business
with his UD. So on December 4, 2009, Chase
returned to the Utility ring, garnering his third and
final Utility Dog leg in the Gateway Sporting Dog
Association’s trial at the Belle Clair Fairgrounds.
Working before Judge Virginia Kinion, Chase
gave a performance that was hardly his best.
In the second Scent Discrimination exercise, he chose the proper dumbbell, started back with it, then dropped it and returned to the cluster of articles for more discriminating sniffs. Shortly, though, confident that his original judgment had been correct, Chase darted back and grabbed the proper dumbbell, then returned it to Pam, who, remarkably, had not collapsed under the strain of watching.
There was still more to come. Immediately after leaving the Utility ring, Pam and Chase stepped right back in for the Graduate Open competition, where Chase garnered a second first-place finish. And in Graduate Open, as he’d done in Novice and Open, Chase secured the new title in only three tries.
After Pam accepted Chase’s ribbons during the Graduate Open ring ceremony, the judge took a moment to acknowledge Chase’s achievement to the crowd. “It’s not every day,” she remarked with a smile, “that you finish two titles in five minutes.”
Fun and work, work and fun
The road to a Utility Dog title is seldom as smooth as the one Chase blazed. Pam believes Chase was born to be an obedience dog, but the two put in an enormous
amount of work to develop that potential. They heel for two miles every morning, then train for another half hour later in the day. Pam and Chase train every day, without fail, through good weather and bad. And about a week before each trial, Pam tosses the jumps, gates, stanchions, and other gear in the car and heads out with Chase for run-throughs at different locations.
Of course, it helps to build good training habits if you don’t view training as work, but as enjoyable time spent with your dog. “I think obedience is the most fun activity in the world for a dog lover,” Pam says, adding, “Chase
loves it when he sees his training equipment come out. I try very hard to make it fun for him.” She’s seen dogs who were pushed too hard burn out, and she determined early on to make sure that didn’t happen to Chase.
The smartest thing
Bringing Chase to train at DSK was one of the smartest things she’s ever done, Pam believes. At each level of training, there was a hurdle to overcome, a skill he struggled with, and each time Kim found a way to help him succeed. In Novice training, like lots of friendly, high-energy dogs, he had difficulty mastering the Stand for Exam. “Chase loves everybody,” Pam says. “He didn’t want to stand still; he wanted to greet everyone he met.”
In training for Open, Chase had, shall we say, an excess of enthusiasm on the Drop on Recall. “He’d come in like an Indy 500 race car,” Pam says. “I didn’t think that dog would ever drop.”
Finally, in teaching Directed Jumping for the Utility ring, Pam had trouble getting Chase to focus on which jump to take. “He loves to jump so much,” she explains, “that after the go-out, he’d be so eager to go, he’d just pick a jump randomly.” In this case, as in the others, Kim shared techniques that quickly resolved the issue.
“There are so many incredible dogs and trainers at Kim’s,” Pam says, “and I’ve learned from all of them. I really love training at Kim’s.”
