Dogs not wanting to do agility

3Stars said:
In an ideal world, this would be true...but this is completely taking the dog out of the equation, which is unfair to the dog. Do all dogs enjoy herding? Definitely not. Do they all enjoy obedience? No. So why should we expect them to all enjoy agility just because we think it looks like fun? I'm an extremely positive, enthusiastic trainer, and my dog was still miserable. Reflecting back, pulling her out of agility classes was an excellent decision on my part - when I focused more on our relationship by doing things she enjoyed, such as hiking through the bush, I saw her personality really start to bloom.

If I had continued to force her to do agility, I would have been putting my ego ahead of my dog - and that to me is completely unacceptable.
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Need a "Like" option for this post. Excellent point!
 
3Stars said:
In an ideal world, this would be true...but this is completely taking the dog out of the equation, which is unfair to the dog. Do all dogs enjoy herding? Definitely not. Do they all enjoy obedience? No. So why should we expect them to all enjoy agility just because we think it looks like fun? I'm an extremely positive, enthusiastic trainer, and my dog was still miserable. Reflecting back, pulling her out of agility classes was an excellent decision on my part - when I focused more on our relationship by doing things she enjoyed, such as hiking through the bush, I saw her personality really start to bloom.

If I had continued to force her to do agility, I would have been putting my ego ahead of my dog - and that to me is completely unacceptable.
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I am having this same issue with Diva and obedience. She will do it but she is not really motivated by it. Oh she looks good but I can tell she is struggling with the control needed for heeling and the tight body movement for fronts and finsihes. RIght now we are working on the fun retrieving parts of utility and I am not so concerned over the straight fronts and finishes. She looks good in those areas and loves those active type of things.
 
Thank you Melinda, I have now had a chat with my trainer and we are going to see if we can get to the root of the problem and/or possibly retire him from doing the dog walk.
 
labgirl said:
Thank you Melinda, I have now had a chat with my trainer and we are going to see if we can get to the root of the problem and/or possibly retire him from doing the dog walk.
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Does not have to be retired from DW

Another option is done by Julie Daniels. Shaping on demand.
http://www.bowwowflix.com/detail.php?id=251
Basically, what you do is treat, treat, treat on the scary thing (but don't lure to it if they are really scared - build up until they are at least comfortable being around the scary thing). Then release the dog from the scary thing and walk away and "pretend" you are done training (you will still have treats with you). Kind of hang out and see if your dog offers to return to the scary thing. If they do, rush back in and reward. Repeat - reward, reward, reward, release. Keep some "leftover cookies" and see if the dog offers to return to the obstacle/location/etc.

One thing is to not spend too much time on the obstacle. Let scarcity of access (with high rewards when they are on it) make the scary thing seem like a very special place to be.
Word of warning- You CAN NOT lure to/on the scary object. Pairing up scary object with food reward is a killer.
 
With some dogs as well you just get Burn out and maybe other factors that might go unnotice immediately injury or a health problem ,overtraining ( Quilty), Cosmo is a perfect example of this. He enjoyed agility but doesn't live for it like Storm does, A combination of me overtraining him, trial pressures and performance stress , him adding weight and developlng a very minor shoulder injury and me not picking up on it immediately, he continued to perform on it and when it started to cause him some pain obvious problems to the point where I finally picked up on it , it turned him off agility, now after some time completely away from it, we stopped training with him for almost 4 months, after a weight loss program , still ongoing, and some time to heal and recover, he is very slowly starting to come around again, he's starting to run a bit more and you can tell that some of the enjoyment that he used to have while doing agility is starting to come back, HE starting to actually have fun at it again, But I may never trial him again or just even do 1 run per trial to see how he responds, I will continue to train a bit and play with him to see how he comes along, but at least now he appears to be getting some enjoyment from it where as at the last trial we did together in January 6 months ago he certainly wasn't a very happy camper.
Although I am sure there are dogs out ther that would rather just play fetch in the back yard with thier human, or go dig a big hole in the back yard rather then do some of the stuff that we want them too.
 
Went to run thrus and saw 3 dogs that did not want to run!!! We got 2minutes on the course and watching those 3 dogs for two minutes were awfull!!!
:cry:
 
Sharon said:
Not gonna happen!!!:winkgrin:Maybe someday you will get it right and get a MACH!!!
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hehehe. I have to work on that darn AF. Other than that, I'd say we're doing pretty darn good. Need more work on all contacts though. I also need to make more money to be able to afford more shows so I can rack up points.
 
Boy am I glad that this thread didn't exist when I first started agility!

When we first started training, Bailey clearly didn't want to do agility. She was fearful, sound sensitive, lacked confidence and drive, and was incredibly slow. If I would've read a thread like this back then I would've definitely considered quitting agility training. I wouldn't have wanted to push an activity on my dog when she hated it.

Thankfully, I pushed her because I felt that despite her fears, agility could built confidence and give her a much needed job to do. It didn't matter to me if she was slow and not drivey, but I did want her to learn to enjoy it.

There were days where I would just show up to class, get her to do one jump, praise her like crazy and leave. We always left on a positive note. And all our hard work paid off.

Bailey now loves agility. She doesn't want to leave class. She has gained a lot of confidence and really has a good time. She is still not the fastest sheltie, but I'm sure as her confidence continues to build she will get faster. Heck, I don't mind if she is as slow as a tortoise, as long as she is not fearful anymore.

My parents' dogs hate going for walks. They will walk so slow and clearly can't wait to get the dreaded walk over with. They would prefer to just stay inside all day, but like any dog they need exercise and will be walked whether they like it or not.

Dogs don't know what's best for them. If their owner thinks that agility is a good thing for their dogs (physical & mental exercise, etc), but their dog may not enjoy it as much as some other dogs do, who are we to discourage them from training and competing?

When I go to trials I am happy to watch every dog... the slow ones, distracted ones, fast ones or accurate ones. I am just thrilled to see people encouraging their dogs to be active and working together as a team. I'd much rather see a slow dog who is not really that interested on a course than a dog wasting away by sleeping all day with little to no exercise, which sadly is how most dogs live :no:.
 
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