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I know I know. We've been here before. Yesterday though at the rally trials at my club (and also recently at a couple of other trial locations) I have had things happen around me that really bother me because they were pretty easily avoided if people knew the value of a crate for their dog. And this just doesn't apply to dog shows, it will matter to anyone who travels to hotels with their dogs too.
The thing that most directly impacted Lily and me was a person with a dog of similar size to Lily waiting to go into the novice ring. There was no crate and the dog kept approaching and nosing at Lily's crate (a soft crate). She was pretty chill, but I was concerned that the dog was going to jump up and wreck the crate which would have really undone Lily for the last class we had to run. I nicely asked to person to keep her dog away from Lily (there was room), so she took the dog up on her lap where the dog continued to obsess about Lily and just generally was getting more and more charged up, so much so that as I took Lily out for our advanced run the dog jumped on Lily with a fair amount of reactivity as the woman said something about her dog having been dying to know who was in the crate. Thankfully I got Lily out of the way without any apparent consequence since she ran a nice course, but just what had this woman been thinking? I didn't pay any attention to her run, but I can't imagine it was pretty.
There were other novice handlers with no crates at our trials yesterday as well as at several other recent trials we've entered. None of these dogs were very organized at the start line and some of them just had horrible runs that I think could have been better if the dogs had been in better mental focus states when they went in the ring.
So there's the part related to showing, but for everyone we should remember that being away from home is hard for dogs even if the places they go are fun. I think one way to bring in stability and a sense of normalcy is to have crate training and the ability to relax in it as a core life skill. Even if you don't routinely have your dog use its crate in your home it should be something they can rely on as their safe space.
The thing that most directly impacted Lily and me was a person with a dog of similar size to Lily waiting to go into the novice ring. There was no crate and the dog kept approaching and nosing at Lily's crate (a soft crate). She was pretty chill, but I was concerned that the dog was going to jump up and wreck the crate which would have really undone Lily for the last class we had to run. I nicely asked to person to keep her dog away from Lily (there was room), so she took the dog up on her lap where the dog continued to obsess about Lily and just generally was getting more and more charged up, so much so that as I took Lily out for our advanced run the dog jumped on Lily with a fair amount of reactivity as the woman said something about her dog having been dying to know who was in the crate. Thankfully I got Lily out of the way without any apparent consequence since she ran a nice course, but just what had this woman been thinking? I didn't pay any attention to her run, but I can't imagine it was pretty.
There were other novice handlers with no crates at our trials yesterday as well as at several other recent trials we've entered. None of these dogs were very organized at the start line and some of them just had horrible runs that I think could have been better if the dogs had been in better mental focus states when they went in the ring.
So there's the part related to showing, but for everyone we should remember that being away from home is hard for dogs even if the places they go are fun. I think one way to bring in stability and a sense of normalcy is to have crate training and the ability to relax in it as a core life skill. Even if you don't routinely have your dog use its crate in your home it should be something they can rely on as their safe space.