Slow & Naughty In Agility?

[Lorie & Ellie : )]

Good morning,

I am new to this particular group, so I hope that I am posting to the correct place and then hoping I can find your responses when I return...LOL!

My cairn, Ellie, is almost 3. We have been in agility since she was 8 months old. I know she likes it, as she can't wait to get into the agility room. She has an obsession for the teeter & A-Frame. BUT... there are times (like last night) where she appears to just lack motivation. She WALKS from each obstacle as if she were going to a funeral. Last night she would go to each jump and just stop right in front of it. Now, she KNOWS how to do all of the obstacles. She can do a full course and somedays do it very well. Speed, however, has never been a strength for either of us.

Her instructor thinks that I need to bring a little more "obedience" into agility...LOL. She is being stubborn (imagine that). So, does anyone have any suggestions? I usually bring chicken breast or cheese for her treat and she loves that. We went to agility practice on Sun, obedience on Mon, and agility class on Tues. Maybe too much, 3 days in a row?

Just curious if anyone has similar experiences, suggestions.

Thanks,

~Lorie & Ellie in Chicago

[Marty & Sherry]

We are in an Intermediate Agility class with our 2+ YO Cairn Emmy. She too knows how to do all the obstacles (although she is still a little scared/stubborn about the teeter). She is also a little slow when I use treats. Using here ball as motivation, however, is a completely different story. I can't keep up with her when she thinks she will get her ball at the end of what ever exercise we are doing. We have only been using it the last two sessions so this method definitely needs to be refined. It really motivates her & adds the speed.

[PeppersMom]

If she was slow the first thing I would wonder if she wasn't feeling good. Whenever my Pepper has worked like that in the obedience ring it has been because of illness. Some days they just don't feel good. The other thing is boredom. You simply cannot make a Cairn do the same thing over and over. They get bored. I like to say training a Cairn is for the lazy trainer because if they do it right the first time, you are done! You can't drill these little guys like a lab. This advice comes from my obedience instructor and I now follow it...we do scent articles and he brings back the right one..we are finished. he does signals...we are done! .its great and it keeps Pepper motivated...

[PeppersMom]

I re read your post..she wouldn't jump? I would really suspect something is up..she may have hurt herself. When Pepper had anaplasmosis (tick disease) , the only way I could tell was he was refusing to take jumps. I would have a vet check her out...

[cairnsby3]

and or a doggie chiropractor. Again, I would reinforce keep training short. I don't know if you lead out on starts, but some dogs find that demotivating, so start with her. There is a game, called the ready game, where you say "ready, ready, ready" and take off runing. Practice that without equipment, just when you are together, you can even do it on leash if you don't have an off lead place. Run a few feet and give her a treat. When you are doing agility, don't ever let her know she made a mistake. This is really hard, but say she does an off course obstacle, just keep running until you get back to the start of the sequence and run it again. My first cairn who wasn't the most motivated, if he dropped a bar, I would say "we have to run faster", if I stopped and let him know in any way that he had made a mistake, he would get slower. Cairns don't like to make mistakes, but instead of trying harder, alot of times they don't try at all. Slow dogs also like movement, so that may mean you have to run around the outside of things, so that you keep moving yourself. Hope some of this helps.

[Lorie & Ellie : )]

Thanks for the responses! Thankfully, I don't feel that she is ill. She has done this with various obstacles. A few months ago it was tunnels. I will, however, take her in for a check up pretty soon. I like the "we have to run faster" and I think you are right about them not liking to make mistakes. Her instructor is pretty good and if she has trouble she will have Ellie end on a good run or, as she says, "end on a high note". That means El may miss out on the last run but it is better than ending the class in frustration. AND... the biggee.... so many agility problems are the handler, not the dog. So, perhaps I need to do a little evaluation???

I hope that you will all post your agility stories and experiences. I don't know of any other cairns that do it, so I look forward to this.

Happy Holidays & thank you again,

~Lorie

[PeppersMom]

Most dogs if they are unsure will stop..do the avoidance thing. And I read somewhere in a book that a dog has to basically unlearn before they learn..they go through a period where they act like they have no clue and then all of a sudden get it..

[cairnsby3]

Lorie, there are actually 4 agility cairns in the Chicago area. One of them is a MACH 9, I think. There is a saying in agility and obedience "you always mess up your first dog". That's a little harsh, but it's true, you make mistakes with your first dog, it's just a fact so accept it and learn with her. It gets better.

[Karen]

Hi Lorie,

What Linda says is true, you mess up your first dog. I did it with Morgan, my first one. As we got into Excellent, she got slow due to worrying about doing things wrong and never ran very fast again in trials. She taught me a lot so my second cairn Mac did much better from the beginning. I feel bad in this because she would have done better than he did in agility if she hadn't been my first dog. I think the biggest thing I learned was not to mark the mistakes in any way. No matter what obstacle Mac took, he got praised for it being correct. My instructor would "scold" me for bad handling.

Since you had 3 days of training in a row, her slowness may be due to that, little too much for her. I don't think more obedience in agility will help fix that. She's trying to tell you something. Either she's bored, tired, wants to do something different. If she does that again at a class, I would think about skipping the balance of class or asking to use someone else's dog so you can practice. Give Ellie the night off in a good way so she doesn't think it's a punishment. Let her relax and have fun doing something else. If you rely too much on treats to get speed during practice, when you're at a trial she'll know you don't have treats in the ring, so you won't get the speed anyway. Or try jackpotting her at the end of a run since that's something you could do at a trial.

I would also get a chiropractor or masseuse to go over her. Years ago my cairn Mac started popping the weaves so at my instructors suggestion, I would leave the ring with him and leave him alone in his xpen for a few minutes so he knew he had to do the weaves. It helped for the next few shows til the popping started again. Then I got him adjusted and massaged and that fixed his problem! He was sore so didn't want to weave. I got him on a routine schedule of massages and adjustments. Even though both Mac and Morgan are now retired from performance, they still get massages and adjustments when possible.

Definitely keep the training fun and short. Too much repetition is boring for our guys, even when it's agility so a little different depending on the obstacle.

Karen

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