blackcob
🖖
Or, how to train a Siberian husky when you're not allowed to use a club with a nail in it. 
I've been having real problems with Dax and agility of late to the point that I took her to work for a full work-up, convinced that she was in pain on her TTA leg, had tweaked her back or had a UTI or something, such was the weirdness I was getting at training. Lots of jump refusals (something she's never done before), slowing right down, refusing weave entries, having no interest in gobbing off at the collies, bombing off half way through a run to sniff and pee. In one hour session she forced out seven wees!
Boss vet spent a good fifteen minutes prodding and poking and declared that there was nothing wrong with her (or her wee). So I went ahead and took her to her first KC show, expecting the worst, and indeed she acts up - I got one amazing run, clear but for want of a correct weave entry, but in subsequent runs she acts up. Not to the point of leaving the ring but she refused multiple times, including totally freezing up one jump from the finish and having to be dragged out of the ring, and again with the sniffing and racing off to pee.
Vet tells me I'm beng paranoid so the pressure stays on and we go away for the weekend for a race. We had a brilliant weekend - my heart sank when she looked worried on the start line but so did R, I think the atmosphere just rattled them a bit but once we were off she put her little heart into it and ran like a demon, even for the impromptu night run (don't ask, it was simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating
). She came home tired but 100% sound.
No break, straight into a club agility show last Saturday and lo and behold I again get one good fast run followed by a ruck of refusals. We have a very sensible trainer who doesn't normally anthropomorphise dogs but even she pointed out that her behaviour was almost deliberately goading - 'what can I do that will most make mum shout and wave her arms and chase me?' sort of thing, the result being her dashing up to me in the ring, play bowing, then dashing off to hide in the tunnel. Repeat x 4, add in a laughing audience, trainer has to produce a tennis ball to lure her out of the tunnel (and ultimately the ring). Argh!
So we had a little heart to heart with the trainer last night, during which we came to the conclusion that she was displaying a lot of displacement behaviour (sniffing, peeing, making her own entertainment in the ring) and that what we were doing at the moment was clearly not fun for her. It appears that I have become hugely complacent - the better she gets the more critical I have become, with less praise, kibble instead of high value food, expecting more and more without giving her much back. I spend a lot of time yelling, scolding and correcting and not so much time playing. It's all got too serious and not fun enough - fine for a self-motivating dog like a collie, not so much for a wolfy fing who isn't naturally inclined to this sort of thing and who will use any excuse to switch off.
When we left the ring on Saturday I took her out to the exercise area and watched her pootling about the field with multiple strange dogs and people while I chatted, playing politely, chasing a ball, coming back the second she was called even if another dog was off running. And I realise now that a year ago I would have been so, so proud of her being able to do that - and a year before that I would have told you she would never be capable of something like that, never mind all the other amazing things we've done as well since then.
I went to training last night with a pocket full of cocktail sausages, lobbed one at her for any obstacle attempted with enthusiasm, didn't scream like a banshee for her contacts and produced balls and tuggies at frequent intervals. She was fab.
A lesson learnt!
A few pictures from the last few weeks.
When I shriek 'TOUCH IIIIIIIT' she grinds to a halt as pictured and the sniffing sets in... no more of that!
Fed up of this agility lark...
The one course she did fabulously - unfenced ring, all three contacts, 12 weaves, she'd never seen a wall before and still jumped it. I need to acknowledge that this is an amazing achievement even though we didn't come home with a rosette, rather than leaving the ring disappointed that we missed something.
And last night, angling for a sausage
I've been having real problems with Dax and agility of late to the point that I took her to work for a full work-up, convinced that she was in pain on her TTA leg, had tweaked her back or had a UTI or something, such was the weirdness I was getting at training. Lots of jump refusals (something she's never done before), slowing right down, refusing weave entries, having no interest in gobbing off at the collies, bombing off half way through a run to sniff and pee. In one hour session she forced out seven wees!
Boss vet spent a good fifteen minutes prodding and poking and declared that there was nothing wrong with her (or her wee). So I went ahead and took her to her first KC show, expecting the worst, and indeed she acts up - I got one amazing run, clear but for want of a correct weave entry, but in subsequent runs she acts up. Not to the point of leaving the ring but she refused multiple times, including totally freezing up one jump from the finish and having to be dragged out of the ring, and again with the sniffing and racing off to pee.
Vet tells me I'm beng paranoid so the pressure stays on and we go away for the weekend for a race. We had a brilliant weekend - my heart sank when she looked worried on the start line but so did R, I think the atmosphere just rattled them a bit but once we were off she put her little heart into it and ran like a demon, even for the impromptu night run (don't ask, it was simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating
). She came home tired but 100% sound. No break, straight into a club agility show last Saturday and lo and behold I again get one good fast run followed by a ruck of refusals. We have a very sensible trainer who doesn't normally anthropomorphise dogs but even she pointed out that her behaviour was almost deliberately goading - 'what can I do that will most make mum shout and wave her arms and chase me?' sort of thing, the result being her dashing up to me in the ring, play bowing, then dashing off to hide in the tunnel. Repeat x 4, add in a laughing audience, trainer has to produce a tennis ball to lure her out of the tunnel (and ultimately the ring). Argh!
So we had a little heart to heart with the trainer last night, during which we came to the conclusion that she was displaying a lot of displacement behaviour (sniffing, peeing, making her own entertainment in the ring) and that what we were doing at the moment was clearly not fun for her. It appears that I have become hugely complacent - the better she gets the more critical I have become, with less praise, kibble instead of high value food, expecting more and more without giving her much back. I spend a lot of time yelling, scolding and correcting and not so much time playing. It's all got too serious and not fun enough - fine for a self-motivating dog like a collie, not so much for a wolfy fing who isn't naturally inclined to this sort of thing and who will use any excuse to switch off.
When we left the ring on Saturday I took her out to the exercise area and watched her pootling about the field with multiple strange dogs and people while I chatted, playing politely, chasing a ball, coming back the second she was called even if another dog was off running. And I realise now that a year ago I would have been so, so proud of her being able to do that - and a year before that I would have told you she would never be capable of something like that, never mind all the other amazing things we've done as well since then.
I went to training last night with a pocket full of cocktail sausages, lobbed one at her for any obstacle attempted with enthusiasm, didn't scream like a banshee for her contacts and produced balls and tuggies at frequent intervals. She was fab.
A lesson learnt!
A few pictures from the last few weeks.
When I shriek 'TOUCH IIIIIIIT' she grinds to a halt as pictured and the sniffing sets in... no more of that!
Fed up of this agility lark...
The one course she did fabulously - unfenced ring, all three contacts, 12 weaves, she'd never seen a wall before and still jumped it. I need to acknowledge that this is an amazing achievement even though we didn't come home with a rosette, rather than leaving the ring disappointed that we missed something.
And last night, angling for a sausage
