Hello from the west coast

[Golly's Mom]

Hi, I have come looking for a forum for agility lovers and sifted through many before I found this site. My name is Elizabeth and my 17 month old girl is named Golly.
She is a border collie/rat terrier/blue heeler mix and the joy of my life. I adopted her after I lost my newfy mix almost 2 years ago. I was hoping for a dog I could do agility with.
Sometimes it seems as though Golly loves it as much as I do, sometimes I have to literally connect the leash (like today) and drag her through the course.
We are in agility 103 and our instructor has a border collie/heeler mix who doesn't do well with change. She said our girl is the same way.

I am hoping I can tap into anyone's perspective who has a dog who is always "in their head". I love my girl and want her to be happy. Sometimes she is, sometimes she is a drama queen.

Can anyone relate? I look forward to meeting any and all dog lovers and when I get a chance to it always feels like I have found new "old friends".
Thanks for giving us a shot!

Elizabeth

 

[Linds]

Welcome to the forum!! She sounds gorgeous, you need to post some pictures!

Maybe you could make a thread and explain your situation a bit more with her. We've got a lot of amazing talented trainers and sport dog people on here so hopefully some would pop there head in there!

 

[k9krazee]

Welcome!! We LOVE pictures!!!

I commented in the other thread -- but I also wanted to say my ACD/Terrier mix can be affected by bad experiences and doesn't seem to forget a thing - one day I shut him in a room alone where I work for less than 3 minutes and now he avoids the room at all costs. He won't even walk through it. If he's following me around and I start going towards the room he takes off in the opposite direction. There are a couple other scenarios like that where he wasn't really traumatized, just unhappy, and he remembers them all.

Dragging her through the agility course is adding another bad experience on top of her dogwalk one and isn't good. But like I said in the other thread, please get her checked out and make sure she isn't in any pain. And take everything slowly, she's just a babydog!!!

And again, PICTURES!!!!

 

[Golly's Mom]

Thanks for the welcome. K9Krazee, you are just the one I want to talk to! My girl looks like your ACD/Terrier mix but with a tail Yours is amazing, I love that signature line trick he is doing!

My girl is the same way about experiences, she is super smart with a very long memory and super easy to train. The downside is the long memory, it affects how she views the world. When we got her shots for the first time the vet was wearing cowboy boots and wasn't gentle with the needle, now anytime she hears cowboy boots walking she will hide behind me. She is also very timid with tall men.

I took her to the vet (my regular vet who is awesome) and she said my girl was fine, no issues with physical stuff, it is all psychological. EEeesh. That is the hard stuff to fix :yikes:

 

[Golly's Mom]

Here are a couple of pic's of my pretty girl

I will try this one and see if it works...

 

[Linds]

She's absolutely adorable! Can't wait to see more of her!

 

[Xandra]

Sorry, no advice, just wanted to say she is seriously photogenic!

 

[katielou]

Hey! You're in the same state as me! Where are you located?

 

[Golly's Mom]

Thanks I am sure I'm biased because I too believe she is one seriously adorable and photogenic girl.

I am in Western Wa, just south of Issaquah. Where are you KatieLou?