Fear and agility

Gah I'm just so frustrated after this week.

A) Summer had a bad week. Just really not into it.

B) Mia had a bad week. Mia's always been a touch of a fearful and skittish dog. This week those issues were very evident. I can see she has the drive. We started stringing jumps today. I'd see her tensing in anticipation for them. And man she would just fly taking the jumps. That said she seems to scare very easily. She'll be rocking one minute and then another will seemingly go backwards. I'm just frustrated with it.

I'm going to sign her up for another class (obedience). I hope that putting her in enough different settings will help her some. I don't know why she is fearful, she was socialized as much as possible since I got her.

Breathe... relax..its all ok

I think you are just expecting too much too soon. I know its hard to see a dog who seems so perfect one moment then act like they know nothing the next...

You have to remember that many of us who post about our agility dogs have been at this for years with a dog. Often most dogs really don't hit their stride in agility for a few YEARS after they start trialling. Most dogs rocking it are over 5 or 6 years old.

Sure do obedience, but don't give up on agility. Its hard, but its soo worth it. Its just a difficult sport (obed is easier.. less fun, but less hard... just don't say that to obed only people ) It usually takes quite a few sets of classes before you are really running courses decently. So I don't think you are making bad progress from what you say.

What is she scared of? Or is she spooking at stuff?

Hang in there! At some point in time you'll look back at how far you've come and how "silly she was back then".

I don't think she's making bad progress I just feel she flips back and forth from rocking to being totally unable to do almost anything.

She startles a lot compared to Summer. She gets over her threshold a lot faster too.

A car backfired near us while we were doing the dogwalk- her favorite obstacle. She startled and fell off (it was a mini dogwalk so she didn't fall far). Back to square one with that. She refused so we stopped and won't be trying again till next week.

She also shies a lot from the other people and dogs. She's fine standing right next to them but really doesn't want to interact with them. she's also very handler sensitive and she gets upset if I get frustrated so I try to keep it happy happy all the time but I think that might be part of it.

It's just I see this dog at home with so much fire and drive and it rarely comes out on the agility field yet.

I just think the obedience will be good for socializing her around people and dogs in a class setting.

I do agree though. It took Summer about a year before she really started speeding up and having a really good time. I try to remember she was overwhelmed a lot at first and even more fearful than mia is. Summer is so bombproof now I forget how she was when we started.

She's spooking. She goes through times when she's really into it. Tensing and waiting on every word then just flying and getting excited when she's done (like with jumps today). Then some obstacles she spooks on. She has had some bad experiences with big dogs when she was very young and I can tell she doesn't really trust the big dogs in class yet.

Luna was very uncomfortable around other dogs when we started agility. It took her a while to figure out that they were not going to bother her, that they would stay with their person and not come hunt her down, lol. I could tell when she finally started to figure that out and become more comfortable in the class setting, that's when she got a lot better with the agility, because she could focus on the training rather than the other dogs.

So I do think that if that's Mia's problem, too, then obedience class and other classes would be really good for her. Especially if they're in the same location as her agility class (but of course even if they aren't, it'll be good anyway).

I've almost wanted to ask if both Summer and Mia could just go to the agility field sometime and just run around. Mia seems to do better when Summer is there and having fun. Summer used to be terrified of other dogs and now she's just great with them.

The obedience classes are at the same place but indoors. But I do think it will get her in a setting with more dogs (including the two dogs in her agility class are going). It's actually a CGC class. My trainer said Mia is too advanced for basic agility.

I too am having issues with Lincoln. He is my little rock star, and I am trying to not make the same mistakes that I made with Kiba - that cause her to attack me (in play) when we run. Now he is scared/unsure of the teeter, though is fine with everything else, and now me running with him seems to gives him the zoomies. I try to keep it fun fun fun, as I think I was too strict with Kiba and EVERYTHING had to be right.