Provisional Judging - PWD - Water Work

I had my first 'Provisional' judging assignment over the weekend in Coon Rapids, MN.

It was a lot of fun! The only thing that would have made it better is if MORE Dogs had PASSED!!! I had 4 - Courier Entries, 2 - Working, 9 - Apprentice and I believe 7 -Junior Certificate. Winnie and Katie were the only ones to qualify out of Working Class, CONGRATULATIONS! Many of the others were SO CLOSE!

http://pwdca.org

I enjoy going to the MN Water Trials. The people are so supportive of each other and they clap after each performance, no matter the outcome! They are a laid back group and there's never a shortage of someone willing to jump in and help out.

The site is really nice too, although the water level isn't what it should be. They have been very dry this year. The up side is we had more sandy beach than last year. The down side is it's a challenge to get dogs to swimming depth when it's no very deep. That might not sound like a huge deal, but the whole point of a water trial is to have the dogs SWIM!!!! Imagine that!!

The club had a judge from Seattle, WA and she judged on Sunday. I judged on Monday.
For provisional you have to be 'supervised', so needless to say I was on my BEST behavior.
Or, I was most of the time!

I had a beautiful sunny day! The weather couldn't have been nicer. This of course resulted in a lot of 'public' traffic as the day progressed. This results in distractions not only for the dogs, but the judge as well! Can you say, FOCUS ESTER!!

Overall the public and the dog club did very well together. The ring area was about 50' wide and then another 25' or so taped off on either side of that. Most of the people and dogs were totally fine with all the distractions. Of course you must always have ONE! LOL

During a warm up of one of the "Apprentice Dogs" (this is the lowest titling class), a man decided to push the limits and swam right through out trial site. Now, I'm not sure what possessed him to do such a thing? If you saw a bunch of pop up tents, caution tape and markers set out in the water, would YOU swim right through the middle of it?

Water trial scoring is pass/fail. You either did it or you didn't. There is a time limit factored into each exercise. Weather conditions can be taken into account, but I didn't have to worry about that on Monday. Each Titling level has 5 exercises and the Junior Certificate level has 4. You're not required to get a certificate in order to move into the titling classes.

SUMMARY OF EXERCISES BY LEVEL

Junior Water Dog (JWD)
1. Retrieve Dummy from Shore 1 minute
2. Board Boat and Ride with Handler 30 seconds, 30 seconds
3. Call Dog from Shore to Boat 2 minutes
4. Measured Swim with Handler 2 minutes

Apprentice Water Dog (AWD)
1. Underwater Retrieve 1 minute
2. Retrieve Dummy from Shore 2 minutes
3. Dummy Carry, Boat Ride and Recall 30 secs, 60’ boat ride, 30 secs
4. Retrieve Floating Line from Shore 2 minutes
5. Measured Time and Distance Swim with Handler 20 seconds, 2 minutes

Working Water Dog (WWD)
1. Gear Bag Retrieve 1 minute
2. Retrieve Dummy from Boat 2 minutes
3. Retrieve Overboard Articles 3 minutes
4. Retrieve Dummy between Two Boats 1 minute
5. Blind Retrieve Of Floating Line from Boat 2 minutes

Courier Water Dog (CWD)
1. Courier Pouch Exchange 2 minutes
2. Blind Retrieve Of Floating Line: Boat to Shore 3 minutes
3. Directed Double Retrieve From Boat 3 minutes
4. Retrieve Fishing Net 3 minutes
5. Buoy Ball Placement 3 minutes

Courier Water Dog Excellent (CWDX)
Dog and handler will qualify two more times at the Courier Water Dog level.

Every level seems to have one exercise that's consistently more challenging than the others.

The measured swim was the 'bug a boo' for the majority of my JR and Apprentice dogs.
For Working it was the 3 articles overboard. This is where the water depth and really come into play. If you have a larger dog that can put his front feet on the boat and be touching down, he can decide to just "let me on already", vs. going back out to get the rest of the articles.
In Courier, it's either the retrieve line from shore or the Buoy Ball Drop.

Water work is fun and I enjoyed judging. Luckily, the time commitment isn't huge, as you have to have warm weather in order to have trials! So, you don't have any January assignments. Most of the water trials fall in the months of August and September.

HAPPY SWIMMING!!!!