| Subject: WUSV/ CROSS FROM LOGWOOODS |
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Date Posted: 10:52:07 03/03/09 Tue
Pierre W's Article on the WUSV
Posted on March 2, 2009 at 06:03:38 by Tracey
Thank you so much everyone for all your kind good wishes and congratulations by SMS and by mail and with flowers. To everybody who did not yet receive any answer to their Mail, I must ask you to send them again because my Mail-box was full already on Saturday.
World Champion in the world’s biggest contest for working dogs.
It is a strange and wonderful feeling and at the same time an enormous relief
First of all I want to thank my wife, Maria, for her understanding and support for my crazy venture.
Thank you also to everyone who has helped me with my training, to my personal Sponsors and to my Employer as well as to the Sponsors of the WM-team.
A special thank you to the training team in Såtenäs, Knickarp, Malmö and to the Elite group of Dog handlers from Denmark, Norway, Croatia and Belgium who trained with us during spring and summer. As you can see, the result was excellent.
I don’t know how to express my emotions. Words and sentences seem so inadequate in a moment like this. However I would like to write a few lines about the road to and the execution of the competition at the World Championships.
Fifteen years ago I started to plan my attempt to become World Champion.
Three times I was pretty close. Since 1999 I have participated in the World Championships and thereby reached the following positions: 18, 5, 13, 5, 16, 2, and 1.
There has been Moments where I, for different reasons was close to giving up, but something made me go on. Some of my competitors may, not knowing it, have made the fire in me burn higher. That is how I function, the stronger the Opponent the stronger my will to win. Some of you may have seen what was written on the “motivation notes” that I put up in my house in Digrid.
Some of you may even remember that three years ago I wrote that in my opinion Rosso was the best German shepherd in the world. During WM.2007 he proved it to be true.
It is a grate honour to be chosen to represent ones country in a World Championship and a great achievement to reach a good position. The second time you are nominated with the same dog it is not so easy to deliver an equally good result. The pressure on Rosso and me was immense by this year's World Championships. Everyone whom I met during the last year has at some occasion said ”You are going to win” or “Hallo Champ” or “I bet money on you” or something like that.
Today I can reveal that this resulted in a great deal of pressure. Fortunately my 12 year wrestling career has taught me to deal with Pressure and Stress. Also my time as a Soldier and Career Officer has given me the ability to concentrate and think and to ignore irrelevant things.
Behind the Achievement to become World Champion lies thousands of hours of training and preparation.
As participant in competitions you can’t diverge. Every act you perform, every thought you think must have the objective to improve what is bad in training. I live with dog, think of dog and try to imagine the dog’s situation. At the same time one has to think about everything that hasn’t directly to do with the Training of the Dog, for instance to judge the Character of the Competition Area (Length, Height, Echo, Acoustic and so forth) how high is the Grass? (What if you stumble?) Transportation, Analysis of how the judges might think, Material that may be used in Tests and so on and so forth.
Besides being a family member, an Officer, Entrepreneur, Member of the Board. Home owner and Dog trainer I have invested a lot of time analysing everything around the events.
Nobody can tell me that there isn’t time. If you really want something there will be time. However, one has to really believe in what one is doing and of course that one has the means and the material necessary.
I have good conditions. I have my dog Rosso and I can say that he possesses features that I have never seen before. He is a very demanding individual with a lot of heart and a strong will which of course in many situations has to be subdued. The dog is under constant pressure because he has to be good.
To be under pressure and at the same time be receptive to dressage and showing Power and Oomph is an unusual combination that you can try out on your dogs. It is no difficulty to show a dog who behaves like Mike Tyson, most dogs do if they haven’t been bred properly. The difficulty lies therein to show a dog that can combine the behaviour of Tyson with the analytic ability of Einstein.
In several Championships Rosso has shown an enormous ability to cope with different situations and environments while keeping standards high. Don’t forget that Rosso has participated in three Swedish Championships and three World Championships and during the same period undergone dressage and dressage tests. Rosso surely is unique in the world.
At the Championships this year we had drawn the worst possible lot.
Day one: Obedience, Day two: Protection and Day three: Tracking.
There was no resting time between the disciplines and the referees were too inexperienced. Already on Saturday it seemed almost impossible to become World Champion, because a whole day of competition was waiting for us on Sunday. The odds were not on our side.
Thursday, the first competition day. B97 p.
Before the obedience test I had some problems setting the dog and during the Swedish Championship he had been too aggressive. Recently I had gone back to basic training and in my notes I could see similarities to the problems I was now facing. However, I was careful to keep what was good and not destroying anything, which was really a tightrope walk.
Everything we had been practicing during two months worked perfectly, what was earlier bad improved at the same time as the good things remained good. Rosso was however a bit too energetic; twice he almost got on the field on his own. Talk about being ready to act!
Friday, the second competition day. C 97 p
Protection work and we were on edge.
I knew that if I did a normal SG I would win, because Rosso has never lost a track, not even in training. So, with a certain amount of security and a lot of pressure I went into the protection competition with Rosso.
There was no room for superfluous subtlety. I knew that the dog always goes for a full bite and I know that he always lets loose correctly and starts a clear bark which could give me a high score.
I also knew that if the dog is too free he can be aggressive during the program and go out of hand, which could rend me a disqualification and zero points.
I did not want to risk that. Ergo, order had to be established.
The dog has done an excellent protection program with only three points deduction. Everything was according to plan.
Saturday, the third competition day. A 100 p.
Can you imagine my situation? I had a big lead before the tracking competition. The results thus far
indicated that it was very difficult indeed to achieve a good result. For the first time in my career I was really stressed. My mouth was dry and my legs were not really stable. The whole thing did not improve when I heard from the trail layer that there was a great deal more spectators than on the previous days.
From afar the tracks looked advantageous, but standing nearby one could see that the vegetation was very scarce and that there were big spots with open and very compacted soil. In addition there was a strong wind. Rosso had never trained on this kind of ground.
We had tried out several difficult grounds, dry dirt, Tarmac, concrete, coarse sand but never something like this.
The last minutes before start went incredibly slow. Basically time stood still and I only wanted the competition to be over. However Rosso was tracking in a way that impressed even me. I could see how difficult it was for him and I could see how he was observing everything and how he didn’t leave anything to chance. In the second angle he stopped and had to work extra hard because the track setter had set a very sharp angle. Rosso had to work his way centimetre by centimetre forward in order to find the track. This work and Ross’s analysis and the way he dealt with the difficulties Impressed the very competent Finnish referee, Keijo Kodis, and he rewarded Rosso 100 p.
It was an enormous relief to reach the Goal and of course for me it was a dream to finish with a result like that. But I wasn’t world Champion yet. Among others there was a competitor from Denmark, Mr John Jabina, with his dog Jabina Dighte, who could muck things up for me. They had reached 95 p in obedience and I knew that there aren’t many dogs in the world that can do a better protection work than this bitch. I had seen Dighte in training and knew that she had the capacity to win a world championship.
Then there was bitch in heat from the Ukraine which had not yet started but had the potential of being a serious competitor. However, I also knew that my 294 points would be difficult to beat, but I did not want to take anything out in advance.
The Ukrainian bitch did not make it and I could celebrate the victory already on Saturday evening.
Now our family, the training group and other near and dear people feels an enormous relief. The World Championship title in Sweden for the first time. Let’s hope that it will not be the last time.
Of course I deliberate if Rosso is going to defend his title in the US or if one of his sons should take over. We’ll see
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