Signs of frustration

corbinam

corbinam

Moderator
Hi everyone! I just had a question about dogs getting frustrated during agility. I've been doing agility with Bentley since the fall of last year (ie we're very new!) and he's been showing some signs of getting frustrated when he can't do something (like when we were doing jumps in a pinwheel formation). In that case, we just made it easier for him so that he could be successful and he eventually figured it out.

Recently, it has gotten worse. The other day we were working on front crosses where we had a very repetitive set up. We had 5 jumps in a horizontal line with a curved tunnel on the other side. The exercise was to go over a jump and into the tunnel, then front cross as he came out and go over the second jump in the line and back to the tunnel, etc. He did the first two successfully, but then started to balk at the entrance of the tunnel. He started to bark at me and jump on me and nip at my heels (he only does this when he gets into his herding mode, which I typically associate with frustration). Any thoughts on how to discourage him? It's almost as if he gets mad if he doesn't get a treat every time he does something, and gets frustrated. For the life of me I couldn't get him in that tunnel no matter how encouragingly I told him "get in that tunnel!"

I even tried making it simpler and just sending him in and out of the tunnel (not worrying about the jumps) and he was still not willing to get into the tunnel (constantly looking at me, barking, jumping) without a lot of coaxing.

In ordinary circumstances, like me revving him up and sending him through the tunnel or running next to him and sending him into the tunnel he doesn't have any problems.

I know this is long--so sorry! But does anyone have any tips for this? Thanks so much!
 
My dogs got very bored with agility until we started doing long sequences and running full courses (although Deska would be quite happy to go thru the tunnel 100x in a row).

I wouldnt run him through the set up again straight away if he is balking. Better to end on success and you want to keep him revved up and interested in agility. I sometimes pull my dogs aside to play fetch or tug or chasey for a while to rev them up again and give them a break, or I will move on to another piece of equipment.

You could always put him aside and run the course without him (esp front crosses). Lets face it, a lot of agility is about the human getting practice rather than the dog! He might also get a bit jealous and want to join in.
 
I wouldn't allow this behavior from one of mine... the barking/nipping/jumping at you. For one, if you're competing and your dog is jumping at you and nipping at you, you can get whistled off.
I've had one that was particularly bad about it. From what I've experienced, it is not a frustration at repeating the same exercise a couple times during class. It is often the handler not being fast enough with their signals/getting too far behind/getting in the way.
You'll have to handle this two ways... First, you need to correct the behavior. Don't allow it. Most shelties, being on the softer side, only need an 'ah ah', and that is plenty of correction to let them know this is not an acceptable behavior. If you have a dog that needs a little more correction for it (BCs come to mind), lie down will cut it out.
Now, you also need to correct what you are doing. I'm going to guess this dog has some speed. You need to get your signals out faster to your dog, make sure you're doing your crosses correctly, and don't be a hindrance to your dog (you've got to think fast, and be doing what you need to do each moment so as not to aggravate your dog). Also, don't poke around. For instance at the tunnel, don't be standing there waiting on your dog to race past you. Send the dog in, get your cross done, and get moving! As my trainer says, 'don't stand around watching the dog do something thinking about how cool it is that the dog actually did what you just asked of it. keep moving!'
As far as the tunnel situation the other day, I didn't see it, so I can't say anything for certain. However, did you stop your forward motion, and just kind of hang about telling the dog to go tunnel? Many green dogs aren't going to get in that tunnel when you're just hanging about at the entrance. Take off, retake one of the jumps, send the dog back to the tunnel, don't hesitate thinking 'is he really going to go in?', and keep moving on to that other end as if you're 100% sure your dog is going to complete that obstacle. Chances are, you're just aggravating your dog hanging about (again, being behind, not doing what you need to be doing to keep that dog moving forward).
 
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I have a dog that gets frustrated VERY EASILY. He doesn't nip but he does bark. I like to think it's because his mind works fast. Heh. Still, training can be a challenge!!

You're doing the right thing by scaling back the difficulty so that it's easier for him to succeed. What I'd also advise is to use a higher value treat and increase your rate of reinforcement. I've seen great improvements just by giving 5 treats instead of 1, or 10 tiny treats instead of 1. Funnily, it's not the size of the treat but how many the dog gets that ups their motivation to work. If you can, I'd break the monotony of any long and repetitve set ups. In between shorter set of 3 or 5, do some tricks, like sits, spins, whatever, or even a short game of tug then send the dog for the next set.

I've seen some trainers dangle or drag a fleece toy at the end of a "fishing rod" (basically a stick with a rope tied to it) at the end of tunnels or weave poles to motivate dogs.

I'm a complete novice with agility so I won't know much in that context. But I just run with my dog and yell out stuff and we celebrate each great run at the end with many liver treats (high value, high rate of reinforcement!)!
 
Thanks!

Thanks, everyone. Sounds like there are a lot of things that I need to work on.

I think you all had great ideas. I'll try giving more (and better!) treats when he does something right as an added incentive. And I think you were also right about me getting behind. I am probably stopping and asking him to get in the tunnel, and he thinks that he should stop too.

We will scale it back a bit and do things where he can be successful.

Thanks!
 
Agility

HopeShelties could not have said it any better.I use to get so mad at Shadow when he was younger and I would get frustrated at him and it wasnt him it was me frustrating the heck out of him.I was green and taking out my frustrations on him.I took a private lesson with Joan Myer one time and Shadow was stopping all the time and she asked me why he stopped and I had no clue.She said he stopped because you stopped. Shelties work on motion and from that point on I started connecting with him.Sounds like your dog is going to be awesome.
 
A helpful thread to me, too.

I really appreciated seeing this thread and the replies, as I had a similar situation with Snap this week and we are a “green / green” team. My “simple” task to send him through the tunnel came at the end of our hour lesson, when teams for the next class started arriving. On my first THREE sends to the tunnel, Snap went around the outside. With repeated sends and repositioning him in front of the tunnel and with increasing distractions developing he became more worked up--- barking, then biting my sending arm. What I learned (the hard way) is that 1) I was standing too close to the tunnel, resulting in my stopping at the entrance--- therefore causing him to stop; and 2) I was crowding his “space”, resulting in his going outside and behind the tunnel; 3) finally and most importantly, the next time he gets worked up to this degree, we will stop immediately and find something else familiar to end on “well”, such as a jump.
 
Bentley and I worked on this in our last outing...and it got better! He started to get confused and nip at me, but I stopped him and I realized that I wasn't really running "through" the tunnel. So when I stopped, he stopped thinking it meant something. He still needs to work on it, but we had a lot of success by me not looking at him and keeping my arm outstretched towards the tunnel and saying "go tunnel". I think my mistake was not only did I stop, put my arm down, but I also would look at him thinking "why won't you get in there?" When I stopped looking at him and just focused on the tunnel, he started to get it--then there was lots of praise! We're working on it, but I wanted to say thanks again for all the advice!
 
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