Just some questions about the event(?) out of pure curiousity and interest......
The guy in the chair (Michelin man?) with the large suit on and what appears to be a sleeve on the ground what is the purpose of this exercise?
The dog does not have a leash on, and does a down in motion in the middle of the bottles. The decoy is a distracion, and some dogs can't handle that distraction and attack the decoy - there is a picture of one of the dogs failing the exercise for exactly that reason. The dog flattened Brian, knocked him right out of the chair! The decoy also throws the sleeve to entice the dog to break the down. In one trial I saw they knocked a garbage can over onto the dog to try to get them to break the down. the handler is about 20 yards away. At the higher levels the decoy stands up, further enticing the dog. it tests equipment fixation and obedience.
Also interested to know the purpose of the car exercise? What are the dogs supposed to do/be doing?
Car jacking. The dog is on leash, I can't remember if the harness is optional or not. the dog might be allowed to wear a flat collar. The decoy approaches with a hidden sleeve on and sweet talks the dog, and then threatens the dog. When the dog engages on the hidden sleeve the decoy bangs on the car with a jug of rocks or fires a gun to get the dog off. the dog is judged on the alert to the bad guy, the depth of the bite and the out.
Car jacking. The decoy is trying to get the dog to calm down. If I ever get my timing correct the picture will be mid-bark.
What the heck, what were the "tasks" be accomplished in each exercise? Excellent pictures, I enjoyed them though now wondering what it was that was going on.
Oh, there were tons of things. Attacks on the handler, sends under immense pressure (leaf blower, water, noise), multiple attackers with call offs and sends, another car jacking type senario, a courage test, obedience with a lot of distraction, a figure 8 with distraction and neutral bystanders, food refusal, a search, retreives over jumps, long sends with call offs over jumps, transports, bark and hold. You name it. All of the above are in different levels of the sport.
In PSA the obedience portion comes first. If you fail OB, you are not allowed to do bitework. The OB is individual tests, if you fail one, you fail OB. Meaning that if you fail the heeling, you cintinue the test but you can't 'make up' the points you lost in the heeling. You fail overall, but your score is an overall total for the rankings. In the higher levels you don't know what parts are scored so you have to excell in everything to earn the points. You can't be sloppy in one area and good in another to keep your score high.
Here are some more galleries - mostly pointy ear fuzz balls. (I mean that in the nicest way possible)
http://www.grastaleather.com/BillDjin/
http://www.grastaleather.com/BillyMickey/
http://www.grastaleather.com/DemetrioZjef/
http://www.grastaleather.com/DonParis/
http://www.grastaleather.com/EthanJager/
http://www.grastaleather.com/FridayDecoysMisc
http://www.grastaleather.com/GregJue/
http://www.grastaleather.com/JasonBas/
http://www.grastaleather.com/JenCurtis/
http://www.grastaleather.com/JonHeiko/
http://www.grastaleather.com/KirstenYippie
http://www.grastaleather.com/LaMontPorter/
http://www.grastaleather.com/LauraAndy
http://www.grastaleather.com/MarcusElmo/
http://www.grastaleather.com/MaynardRoy/
http://www.grastaleather.com/NeilDami/
http://www.grastaleather.com/PaulIsaac
http://www.grastaleather.com/RebeccaVito/
http://www.grastaleather.com/RobertSenna
http://www.grastaleather.com/SandraKim/
http://www.grastaleather.com/TimDemon/
http://www.grastaleather.com/TimSantos/
http://www.grastaleather.com/ToddCy/
http://www.grastaleather.com/TomBrownie
http://www.grastaleather.com/TomBullet/
http://www.grastaleather.com/TrudyNantan/