I train Indie at home with no other dogs around. We use a local public sports area, so there are plenty of other distractions such as commuters, refuse lorries, emergency vehicles and lots of trains from a nearby mainline train station, just no dogs. Indie loves dogs and displays an indecent amount of excitement to meet them all.

We mainly train obedience exercises and I really wanted to see how he would work in a busy show environment in close proximity with lots of other dogs and people. Instead of the formality of an official Kennel Club Obedience competition, I thought the best way to dip our toes in the water would be a Companion Dog Show. These offer obedience competitions run by Kennel Club rules but independent of the official shows.

As usual, there were none available in London, so we headed off to Essex via public transport. I packed water, food, treats, toys and a familiar mat for Indie’s comfort. For each stage of the day – the underground, the train, the show itself – my mantra was “if he doesn’t like it we can just go home”.

The weather was warm and sunny as we arrived at the show and booked in near the entrance. I found us a spot under some trees and settled down to observe my dog. I was stressed at this point but couldn’t tell from Indie’s panting whether he was stressed, excited or just hot.

After a rest I realised that his mood was not changing. He seemed neither more, nor less agitated than when we arrived, so we took a tour around the field. There were rings for the four levels of obedience on offer, an area where scent cloths were laid out for more advanced obedience, a fun Agility ring, a Rally Obedience area, stalls selling dog toys and food – all centred around the dog breed arenas. I tried another strategy to chill my dog out by having a go at some low-stakes activities. We did a round of the Agility and struggled through some Rally Obedience. I still have no clue whether we did okay or not.

Finally I became resigned to Indie not calming down and turning in a decent performance. I thought we may as well try a round of obedience since we were there and I had no expectations of him. I wish I could say his performance was stunning. It was adequate. I was proud of him for coping with the crowds and hordes of dogs. He seemed to actually enjoy his day out even though he never lifted out of a light stupor of overstimulation. I wanted to wait for the final result, but realised that a train was about to leave the station and the service only ran once an hour, so we made a run for it, met the train and went home.

I didn’t know if I’d ever find out how well we did in our rounds, but was thrilled to receive a very handsome rosette and a card in the post a week or so later.

The lesson I should have taken away from this is that if your dog is overstimulated in a new, busy environment, it is pretty unlikely that you will be able to get him to settle down and find some calm and focus. We attended another companion show before having a go at an official obedience trial and Indie slowly learned to settle down and take things in his stride. I did learn that these shows hand out some gorgeous rosettes. The cakes they sold weren’t bad either.

Whether or not these experiences have a positive outcome depends on the individual dog and exactly what happens on the day. Happily for us, Indie enjoyed his day out and shows it by trying to drag me into the train station every time we walked past it.

On Facebook, groups with names like Companion and Fun Dog Shows will list shows in your area. Obedienceuk.net lists schedules for obedience competitions and companion shows and costs £10 per year to join.