First all-Russia competition among Guide Dogs and their handlers "Two: Me and my Handler"

On June 9-11, a competition among vision impaired people and their guide dogs "Two: me and my handler" took place in Malino (Moscow Region). Competition of this type has been held for the first time. Its program was significantly different from traditional competitions among vision impaired people and their guide dogs. This one was more entertaining, which is important for attracting attention to Guide Dogs since their day-to-day work is not very noticeable.

All-Russia Organization for the Blind (the "AROB") was the organizer of the competition. We would like to thank them for the great organization of the competition, which didn't have a single problem.

Our Center staff was invited to be a jury. Besides, we organized and handled the thrid part of the competition.

There were 17 participants with 16 guide dogs (The family of Tatiana and Andrey Usachovs compete with their one guide dog, German shepherd Ritza. It is great that not only Moscovites participated but also people from other Russian cities.

The competition was help at a AROB's recreational center "Zdorovie". Huge territory, small buildings hiding in the thing greens of bushes and trees, tidy paths leading to the club, canteen, living premises. There is forest around and a nice lake near by. Plus a smell of lilies in bloom and birds singing in the trees. It would be diffucult to find a more suitable and nice place. We spent three days there with two days taken by the competition itself.

First day: arrival and registration of participants. The day of meeting new people and old friends, as many participants know each other for a long time. Here you see the unbreakable trio playing jokes with each other, as always: Lesia Raeva with her husband and Nikolay Steblin.

Ten year old Lord is walking with dignity alongside. He'd be happy to have a snooze after a long trip but it is impossible for him to leave his friends. He just ignores their offer to "lie here on the grass". Ober is twice as young and very vivacious. He manges to run away on the path, come back and, after circling aroung his owner, run away again.

Sergey Tikhonov and Sergey Grishin are talking quietly on the grass. They work together, lots of things to discuss. Their dogs are walking nearby. Red Labrador Yasha is young and trying to play with Patrick who is not happy with his exessive familiarity. No fighting, of course, but Yasha needs a lesson! He roars to immediately calm Yasha down.

But here Yasha sees beautiful Fanny and runs to say hellj. But Fanny is working with her owner and can not be disturbed!

So, Yasha is patiently waiting for Fanny to be released to run around. Soon there is a big company of playing dogs and their owners talking. The main subject – the competition. Everybody is excited but also worried about their performance.

The tomorrow comes. It is drizzling. Good that today's part of the competition is inside. The atmosphere there is great. Music is playing. After the opening the sortition starts. There are toys on the floor with numbers attached to them. Every pair is invited separately and the dog has to chose a toy together with its number. Some dogs think for a long time before they pick a toy feeling lost with all the choice, others quickly grab the first toy they see and don't mind taking another one. At last, all the numbers are selected, the competition starts.

The first competition «Me and my owner live happily together». The pairs show their home work. They have to show something original, which is not part of the standard guide dog training.

To be honest, most participants showed themselves real dog traniers. Nina Baruzdina from Rybinsk with her German Shepherd Hilda showed lots of tricks: jums over a stick and through a ring, "playing ball" with a baloon, giving various objects, including coins dropped "by accident".

Nadezhda Semyonova and her Labrador Fanny were just as good. Their masterpiece – Fanny sits still holding a lit candle on her head.

Andrey Usachov and his German Shepherd Ritsa showed how they cook scrambled eggs. Ritsa was carefully picking eggs from a packet and passed them one by one to Andrey, who broke the eggs into a bowl to show that the eggs were real.

Nikolay Daibov with his Labrador Peter have been very expressive. They showed a cascade of various jumps to finish their program. Sporty owner – sporty dog.

Ober showed his talent singing with Nikolay Steblin that played bayan. Really singing, it is impossible to call it howling. Many participants had musical elements in their performance. Sergey Grishin, for example, played saxophone, while Yasha was barking excitingly with him, after which his son and Yasha danced a tango. Vladimir Minkov from Nizhny Novgorod with his Labrador Nero performed using Vladimir's song that his daughter was singing on tape.

Everyone showed something different. It was great! And touching, and fun. And, what's important, very interesting.

The second competiton – intellectual – «Me and my owner know everything». The participants were offered to answer three questions related to dogs. Maybe our pairs didn't know "everything" but they answered many difficult questions correctly. Although there were some silly mistakes too.

The third competition – Guide Dog work on a route – «Me and my owner can walk around all the obstacles». This was the test of how dogs were trained and how their owners could manage them, as well as how the guide dogs and their owners understand each other.

The route took on average 15 minutes and was approximately like any working route. It had obstacles of all types. Big ones and narrow passes that require stopping. Obstacles on the right, on the left, in the center of the road, that have to be walked around. The most difficult ones for the dogs – the hanging tree branches. There were road forks where the dogs should not have turned as they were shown the route up front.

The main difficulty was that the dogs had learned the territory in two days and knew all the road. Therefore, they had been tempted to turn to the road that they knew well (to a lake, for example), which could over come their sence of duty. There were even some extra distructions. Two happy stray dogs waited for the participants at one of the most difficult parts of the route.

The evening before the competition we showed the rout to each participant and his/her dog. They later trained independently. During the training there were no obstacles on the route, they were put there immediately before the competition. That was a logical surprise, the working dog must be prepared for anything unexpected. The participants knew that there will be obstacles and they were worried if their dogs will manage, because in the the city they encounter more borders and stairs than woird constructions made of wood and other material.

The competition was marked by 20 points. Penalty points were given for mistakes. More of them for bad ones. It is not too bad if the dog stopped in front of an obstacle that it had to walk around. What's bad is when a dog is trying to ooze out thorugh a narrow passage, that puts its owner at risk to be hit. Many people think that a guide dog works like a machine without any mistakes. Of course, it's not true. It's just in comparison to the great help to the dog's owner, these mistakes are not that important.

But we are very strict at the competition, where the "classical" performance is a must. If the dog walked over an obstacle – it's a mistake, penalty points! In real life, what's important is the final result. It's enough for the dog to stop before the obstacle and the blind person is worned and does not trip over. That means that the dog did what it was supposed to do.

I must say that the dogs showed to be real professionals. Most of them walked the route very well with mininum penalty points. It is also important that the owners could control their dogs very well and used their skills to find their way. The winner in this competition was our veteran Scottish Shepherd Lord with his owner Lesya Rayeva. They got 20 points. The following pairs performed with minimal half a penalty point: Labrador Agat (Vera Veselova, Pskov), German Shepherd Terry (Gennady Syshenko, St.-Petersbourg) and mongrel Ober (Nikolay Steblin, Moscow).

Based on the results of all three competitions:

2nd place – Nikolay Steblin and Ober – 2nd prize – 5 thousand Rubles

1st place - Andrey Usachov and Ritsa – 1st prize – 7 thousand Rubles

3rd place – Nadezhda Semyonova and Fanny – 3rd prize – 3 thousand Rubles

Encouragement prizes (1 thousand Rubles) were given to:

• Gennady Syshenko and Terry – «The Best Technical Work with the Dog»
  
• Nikolay Daibov and Pit – «The Most Spectacular Pair»
  
• Nina Baruzdina and Hilda – «The Best Home Work»
  
• Vera Veselova and Agat – «Best Presentation of the Show Card»
  
• Tamara Pankova and Lilu – «The Most Sporty Pair»
  
• Vladimir Minkov and Nero – «The Most Artistic and Friendly Family»
  
• Special Prize from our Center was given to Lesya Raeva and Lord – «The Best Understanding Between the Person and the Dog».
  

We hope tha the first all-Russia Competition among the Guide Dogs and their Handlers is not going to be the last one.