So, pretty much I started making agility FUN& took out my anxiety of needing perfection. Instead of focusing on handling/ complex courses, take your dogs favorite obstacles (Penn's are tunnels& A-frames) and build a course where they can zoom over/ through those frequently. So, I have access to 4 tunnels consistently so I've started building tunnel courses with just a few random jumps in them. I get her zooming through then toss a reward often. It looks crazy but her speed is really starting to pick up from it. It looks like tunnel, tunnel, jump, tunnel, reward. I vary my reward rate. Sometimes I ask for 1 obstacle then reward& sometimes 10.
Also, I've stopped making up an actual course& am just winging it because my issues were getting cranky when we went off-course. Not having a course means it's impossible to mess up the order!
Next, this helped THE MOST and you don't need equipment for it. I started building my motivators into things that could come into the ring with me. Penn is a funny dog ..she's easily motivated for 10 seconds then needs a new motivator. It became so that I was using 100 toys for one training session (okay ..a slight exaggeration but still) and that's insane. I had tugs, balls, stuffies, food (at least 3 kinds), frisbees, etc.
I ditched all that for building my own motivators. I made the ball a motivation by having her run after the ball to bring it back ..the faster she went to get it& brought it back, the higher value treat she got. She will now chase a ball like crazy because she knows she gets a good reward for bringing it back. This is huge if your dog isn't super toy driven. It works off the food drive but they learn to associate chasing& retrieving the ball with food!
We also built spinning in as a fun factor. If your dog has a trick they love, use it! Penn gets spun before AND after a reward so that the spinning can be used in place of a reward. So, we finish a sequence. I ask for a spin, reward& ask for another spin. Same with hand touches& weaving through my legs. We started with adding in absolutely no equipment, just building those us up high, high in value& then using them in conjunction with the equipment. She's learned equipment must fun ..you spin, take a piece of gear, spin again, get a reward& get more spinning! It's been a slow process but in the month since we've seen Jess Martin, we've improved about 70%.
Sorry for the novel ..hope some of it can apply to your situation. Shutting down around gear/ on course sucks. It's my biggest fear for Penn never making it to a trial. We're getting there but somedays I feel like just saying screw it& getting my herder NOW instead of in 2+ years. I just try to remember every mistake I make with Penn, I can prevent with my next dog. And every bit of training tips I learn now, I'll have for my next dog. Still ..some days.