corbinam
Moderator
Bailey was a lot better in class yesterday than last week!!!
This past week, I set up a jump in my basement. I clicked and treated every time Bailey jumped over it. I played fetch with her, which forced her to jump over the hurdle to get the ball. I also set up a tunnel in front of the jump, so she had to jump and run through the tunnel. My goal was to make the equipment fun, fun, fun!
In addition, we practiced contacts on my contact board. I used K9kreations' suggestions and made "wings" with a beach bucket and watering canI also placed a treat on the target so when I released her to the board, she immediately did a 2o2o. Then, I treated her for as long as she stayed in that position. It seemed to work and she was starting to grasp the idea.
I decided to feed her 1/3 of her dinner 2 hours before class, so she wouldn't act like a scavenger and look for food the whole time. As soon as we got to class yesterday, I started feeding her while we waited for the class before us to finish. When it was our turn, I ran around the field with her and played fetch for a few minutes. I just wanted to get her really excited about being there. She appeared much more comfortable and confident. She had no problem jumping over jumps, running through tunnels, the dogwalk, A-Frame, etc. She even had a few good 2o2o's. We watched other dogs do the teeter and I kept feeding her to desensitize her to the noise. I even got her to stand on the teeter for a little bit, but as soon as she got far enough where it started to move, she jumped off. I think I'm gonna have to make a moving board for her. She did sniff the ground a little bit, but definitely not as bad as last week. She seemed a lot less fearful and distracted and she was a 1000x more attentive to me.
It makes me so happy to see her enjoying agility! I'll continue what I did last week and hopefully she continues to improve.
On a side note...the two times Bailey has shut down in class (last week and the week of "the incident") were classes my bf attended. I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but I've banned him from attending her classes
Randi, I'm so happy to hear that Bailey was so much better! What a good girl! Sounds like you are doing all the right things to keep her happy and motivated!
