Well, I'm super new at this, and you all probably know this already, but I just learned something valuable. If you go to the AKC event search website, https://webapps.akc.org/event-search/#/search
You can not only find out about future obedience and rally trials in your area, but you can peek back in time. It's magic.
Choose your state, Companion Events, and find a trial you are interested in attending.
Click on "View Complete Event Details". You'll be directed to the event details, which tells you the trial secretary, date, judges, all that stuff.
But, there's more.
Lower left side, click on "Get Club Info"
This is where the magic happens. Scroll down the page and look for "Past Events." It'll be gray. Click on that. You will be taken back in time and you'll discover how many dogs entered their last trials.
Where I just trialed, 81 dogs entered in Rally last year. There was also an obedience trial going on at the same time that day in the same building. 161 obedience dogs entered as well.
The trial we went to this past weekend was just like that, entry after entry, after entry, four rings with lots of activity. 240+ dogs moving everywhere. A small space crowded with people. Do I like that environment? Not really.
I have sensory deficits from 24 back to back cycles of moderately high dose chemotherapy. One week of chemo, two weeks stop, that's a cycle. Repeat 24 times. This was A LOT of chemo, so much my oncologist worried about, "First Do No Harm." Going bald was the easy part. The hard part is chemo brain, or chemotherapy-related-cognitive-dysfunction.
My word finding ability works extremely well when I write. I have a magnificent thesaurus in my head. My word finding ability when I talk is appalling. I call the dishwasher the oven. I call the oven the washing machine. I mess up words and it makes me just crazy. If someone asks me a question, I hunt through a filing cabinet and can't find the right answer. If I was writing, it would be fluid. Speech eludes me and I find it intensely frustrating. Writing and speech are in different parts of the brain. Speech is damaged, writing works.
Chemo brain also makes it very hard for me to tune out stimuli. It's like trying to pay attention to a TV show while three radios are playing different stations at the same time, at different volumes. Chemo broke my internal filters. Put me and Noelle in a room with 240 dogs, and their assorted people, doing different things at the same time and my brain blew up. After this weekend's trial, I was seriously wondering how I can continue doing this. I'm overstimulated and can't turn it off.
By checking out past entries on the AKC website, I quickly found trials with 14 rally dogs and 20 obedience dogs. I found lots of trials with one judge for both obedience and rally. Small trial = less noise and chaos. I'll be looking for small trials because they are easier on me. If it's easier on me, it'll be easier on Noelle, too.
Just something I found helpful. Thought I'd pass it on.
You can not only find out about future obedience and rally trials in your area, but you can peek back in time. It's magic.
Choose your state, Companion Events, and find a trial you are interested in attending.
Click on "View Complete Event Details". You'll be directed to the event details, which tells you the trial secretary, date, judges, all that stuff.
But, there's more.
Lower left side, click on "Get Club Info"
This is where the magic happens. Scroll down the page and look for "Past Events." It'll be gray. Click on that. You will be taken back in time and you'll discover how many dogs entered their last trials.
Where I just trialed, 81 dogs entered in Rally last year. There was also an obedience trial going on at the same time that day in the same building. 161 obedience dogs entered as well.
The trial we went to this past weekend was just like that, entry after entry, after entry, four rings with lots of activity. 240+ dogs moving everywhere. A small space crowded with people. Do I like that environment? Not really.
I have sensory deficits from 24 back to back cycles of moderately high dose chemotherapy. One week of chemo, two weeks stop, that's a cycle. Repeat 24 times. This was A LOT of chemo, so much my oncologist worried about, "First Do No Harm." Going bald was the easy part. The hard part is chemo brain, or chemotherapy-related-cognitive-dysfunction.
My word finding ability works extremely well when I write. I have a magnificent thesaurus in my head. My word finding ability when I talk is appalling. I call the dishwasher the oven. I call the oven the washing machine. I mess up words and it makes me just crazy. If someone asks me a question, I hunt through a filing cabinet and can't find the right answer. If I was writing, it would be fluid. Speech eludes me and I find it intensely frustrating. Writing and speech are in different parts of the brain. Speech is damaged, writing works.
Chemo brain also makes it very hard for me to tune out stimuli. It's like trying to pay attention to a TV show while three radios are playing different stations at the same time, at different volumes. Chemo broke my internal filters. Put me and Noelle in a room with 240 dogs, and their assorted people, doing different things at the same time and my brain blew up. After this weekend's trial, I was seriously wondering how I can continue doing this. I'm overstimulated and can't turn it off.
By checking out past entries on the AKC website, I quickly found trials with 14 rally dogs and 20 obedience dogs. I found lots of trials with one judge for both obedience and rally. Small trial = less noise and chaos. I'll be looking for small trials because they are easier on me. If it's easier on me, it'll be easier on Noelle, too.
Just something I found helpful. Thought I'd pass it on.
