I'll send you a PM on the AKK, they're a novel of their own!
To help Nike, I first started taking him to class while I was running Eli. That way, he got used to the sounds of everything (he's really sound sensitive). Then I would crate Eli while I watched the next class with Nike so he could see all the movement and people. We did this for weeks before he started, so he could desensitize as much as possible.
We also trained really hard at home. When Nike gets nervous he has a tendency to "forget" how to do things, and I find that by slightly overtraining certain things, I can get him to snap out of it and come back to me. Since I have jumps/tunnel/table at home, we worked those obstacles hard before class. If he gets stressed, I ask him to jump a few times, and that usually brings him right back. I also use his fun little tricks to keep his mind active and focused on me (spin, bump, shake). The big thing for Nike in class is that I can't let him worry. If he starts to worry, then it builds and builds and it can be a challenge to get him back. When I see that a person is too close and he starts to tweak, or if there's unfamiliar sounds going on, I tell him to "shake it off" (in which we party for a few seconds - ie. just having pets and bouncing around) and then ask him for a well-learned behavior. That usually calms him down.
The big bonus is that he LOVES agility. Loves loves it. So as long as he's kept relatively worry free, he's been able to work the obstacles and gain confidence. Just learning the obstacles in and of itself has been a big confidence booster! Nike lives and dies to please, and the BIG PARTY TREAT time that would happen whenever he banged the teeter got him SO excited.
He couldn't stop himself from trying again!
