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Posted by PHRiot on March 03, 2003 at 09:38:49:

In Reply to: Re: scared sheltie posted by kathyg on March 02, 2003 at 14:54:03:

Good advice! I agree. My guy fell off of the dog walk and it took me 3 months to coax him back onto it. With positive efforts, fun and lots of treats it is now his fav obsticle! Good luck and please post back to let us know how things are going ;)

Email PHRiot

::my sheltie used to be fine with contact obstacles, but recently he's been afraid of them. if I coax him and push him a bit he'll be fine for awhile, but I wanna get rid of this problem b4 we start to compete. any ideas?

:First I would check his feet to see if he might have injured a paw on the downside slats, assuming your agility training place has slatted contacts. Of course, it may have been a brief injury that has healed but left a bad memory... if it's just a bad memory, the cure might be to make it fun, fun, fun! and treat, treat, treat! and praise, praise, praise! If you seem worried or anxious or frustrated by his fear, he could feed off of that and balk. So try to keep it lighthearted and don't force the issue at first, but praise and treat and talk happy talk for every little bit of success.

:The next thing you might think about is how you train the contact zone (or how your trainer wants you to train the zone). Do you do a targeted stop or do you do a running contact? Are you consistent with what you ask for at the bottom of the contact zone? Does your sheltie know what you are asking for in the zone or is he maybe confused and so balks at doing the contacts because he just isn't sure what you want when he gets to the zone? It may not be fear, per se, it could just be frustration and confusion. I discovered that this was my dog's problem on contacts (she never acted afraid of them--but she does fly off the a-frame), and as soon as this darned winter weather lightens up and we can go back to classes, we will be working on consistency and a good targeted stop.

:Hope this helps you a little!!
:Kathy in PA

Follow Ups:

• Re: scared sheltie agilebasenji 03/04/03 (1)
  • RE: ADVICE PHRiot 03/05/03 (0)