seesaw & dogwalk

Caro

Caro

Moderator
Tully has recently decided she hates the seesaw, and if she does the seesaw early in the run she will then refuse the dogwalk.

Anyone have this problem? She used to enjoy the seesaw, but now she seems to be scared. Possible due to a couple of incidents of her flying off the end, plus I slow her down when we get to the seesaw so that she doesnt fly off the end again.

Atm I use 'seesaw' for seesaw and 'walk on' for dogwalk. I've noticed quite a few people at trials use 'steady' for the seesaw, although I'm not sure if changing the word would help.

Any ideas?
 
Ember use to. Took forever to get her to do the teeter. Even now she is not good at it. The teeter scared her and then it spilled over onto the other contacts. It would be so hit or miss if she would do them. I can't say I really fixed it. Just kept doing it and she atleast kept going on them.
 
Agility

That is weird. Just a thought has she seen a chiropractor? She maybe refusing because she is out of alignment.My trainer Erin's dog Boom(Sting's brother ) was refusing the seesaw as he took a nasty spill off the dogwalk and she took him to the chiro and now he is okay.Not refusinng any equipment. I use Go Bang for my seesaw word.
 
I hadnt thought of taking her to the chiro - I guess I spend so much time focussing on Deska's treatment. She prob does need some work though. I might also give her a thorough massage too as we have a trial on Sat and maybe that would help loosen her up.

I like the term 'go bang', its different term to the other equipment. Do you think it would actually help her to learn to just bang the seesaw to maybe make it fun? I also wonder if she is unsure of her tipping point.
 
Can you have another person hold the teeter steady and slowly drop it? Or maybe put a table under one end so she doesn't have so far to go down? I saw a couple working their dog with this before Duncan's agility class. By the end, they'd gotten a nervous dog (who had previously loved the teeter, apparently) to run it without hesitation. I'll have to wait until next week to tell you if it 'took.'
 
I agree with Chelle, I would go back to basics. (After you rule out anything medical). Sounds like maybe she was scared or spooked at some point. Go back to controlling the bang and making it happen slowly. Give her a treat right as it's about to bang so she thinks bang= yay!

I have a friend who uses "go bang" with her over-excited aussie. It seems to help her as it's a more "fun" command. She has also learned that the word "bang" equals the bang of the teeter.
 
The teeter is easily the most difficult obstacle to train because its the only one that moves. When dogs get scared of the teeter, about all you can do is go back to basics with it and retrain. Some folks in my club actually changed what they called the teeter to make it 'a different obstacle' in the dogs mind.

Edan use to have teeter issues. He'd run so fast off he'd either fly off the end or stop in 2o2o and the teeter would bounce him off; sometimes catching him in the privates. :o Instead of my normal targeting command for contacts, I trained a "wait" on the teeter. I say it just as he gets to the yellow and he stops and rides the teeter down (basically we went from a 2o2o to a 4 on for the teeter). It took a little while to retrain the teeter with him but it can be done.

Have Tully checked to make sure there is nothing medically wrong first then go back to the fundamentals for the dog walk and the very beginning of teeter training (either bracing the ends of the teeter on tables so there isn't much movement or guiding it down slowly) until her confidence returns.
 
Seesaw and Dogwalk

I don't think the seesaw is the hardest to teach. Everyone trains differnet.My dogs were subjected to equipment as puppies and I am not talking the equipment that we train on. I had wobble boards and a mini seesaw(made of a very small plank and a small PVC piece underneath it.I pretty much had Sting on it as a puppy and I think that is why his seesaw is incredible plus I trained the finishing seesaw the way some world team members train theirs.Even Sting's breeder had the equipment in the ex-pens so they could play on it.IF the Chiro is not the answer then yes I would go back to basics and re-train.Shadow's cue for me to the chiro is when he starts popping out of the weaves.Then he is out .
 
Sharon said:
I pretty much had Sting on it as a puppy and I think that is why his seesaw is incredible plus I trained the finishing seesaw the way some world team members train theirs.
Click to expand...

How is that? I think that by Duncan's next class, he'll have enough confidence for me to get him on the teeter. I'm going to try some PVC under the board once he gets great runs over it (almsot there!!). I'm willing to try any positive method, though, so please - enlighten this agility newbie!!
 
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