DOCNA Agility Trial 1/7/12 Ash's Unsuccessful Beginners Standard Run

Ash's Beginners Standard Round 1 run from the Desert Dawgs Jan 7-8 2012 trial in Marana, AZ. This was obviously quite a bad run, but I'm just posting it to show it to people to get tips for dealing with our issues apparent in the video.

I knew this run was going to be bad from the beginning, when rather than sitting and waiting for his cue to go, he scratches like crazy and loses focus. His looking around on the dog walk is him avoiding having to come down. Other people asked me after the run, "What was he distracted by? Was there a dog he was looking at?" but I'm pretty sure his looking around is avoidance and/or stress, not distraction. So, next he runs past the weaves, back weaves, and misses a jump after the teeter, and I try to just keep going to the tunnel, since he's avoiding the jumps, and he eventually comes back, but takes the A-frame instead. The course actually was supposed to be the tunnel, then A-frame, so I just send him back over A-frame to finish up.

So, if any agility handlers watch this, any tips you have are welcome. Any help is greatly appreciated--with handling errors you noticed, how to help with dog's stress/lack of focus, or how to deal with a stubborn dog. The part in the video where he just stands there and won't come back is pretty typical--he doesn't like to be told that he's wrong, and if I correct him, he'll get mad at me and refuse to come back. I've struggled greatly with how to deal with this.

I should also mention that although this wasn't a great run, he's come a long was since our first trial a year ago. At our first trial, he was so overwhelmed he would only take 3 or 4 obstacles and then decide he was leaving the ring. So, compared to then, this is a great run. (And we did have several good runs in this trial, including a second video I'm going to post.)

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• agility trial
• docna
• dog agility
• agility
• dogs
• trial
• desert dawgs

[kristen58]

After watching the video again, I can really tell that it was my fault he skipped jump #8. I was too far away and I didn't push him out to it. It really does look like I'm directing him to #9. Oops.