15.......... training

The builders were gone and agility equipment was once again out on the lawn = new scary stuff for Mac. He wouldn’t go anywhere near even a crossbar on the ground. Light bulb moment reminded me how he ran with Border Collie Heaven’s pack after the tennis ball, so I started throwing them near to the equipment. He would stretch himself as long as possible to get the ball without making contact with the equipment but eventually picked up a ball touching a cross bar!

Over the weeks this progressed to running between 2 uprights to get the ball, then over a cross bar lying on the ground and eventually jumping over it at the lowest height, but if anything fell/touched him/made a noise - he would dash for inside.

OK – so this could take a while and the weave poles even longer so they needed to be tackled sooner than later. Using a tennis ball, I used the “old method” and thread him through just 4. Once he was doing 4 on his own, I gave him 8 then 12. Mac had found his passion. He loves the weaves and with his very own special style, was “nailing” them, on both sides, within 3 months.

February 2009

His down came from nowhere and took me completely by surprise. It is instant and the further he is away from me, the better it worked!

At the club he was no longer dashing off and enjoyed all the dogs that were willing to interact with him. (Huge sigh of relief to know that a young dog with limited history had no “issues” with other dogs). Equipment noise was still an issue and if we had to hammer in the tunnel (metal hoops) he made a bee line for the boot. Desperately wanting the tennis ball one sunny day, I got him through a straight tunnel. I had discovered his mode of motivation – tennis balls!

He was training with Lindsay in Wynberg as well as at Agility Academy. He had no idea what was expected of him and knew exactly how long my arm was. If he got confused, he would just stand still. I was unable to physically position him and had to just keep running with a ball to place him correctly for exercises. This gave me the foresight to teach him directional commands so that he was able to work away from me, his preferred method. His left and right is awesome!

I was unforgiving with his start line behaviour and within reason, it’s pretty consistent. Away from the start line his stay was pretty good too.

Contacts were trial and error and I had to make do with whatever he would give me. Once again he wouldn’t allow me to work close to him so distance training was the norm. Bonus?
The clicker must have been deafening as he was unaccepting to any treat if I tried to use it.

"Shutting down" was often and when there was “nobody home”, no happy voice, nice treats or even the tennis ball would work. I would just let him retreat to the boot to give him some “it’s OK time”.

Mac loved playing with all other dogs and chasing a tennis ball, but his blue eyes lit up most when he saw agility equipment, so as challenging as all this was for both of us, as soon as he was eligible to compete officially, I decided to begin competing just so that he could show me what else was going to attack him!

Mac and Me

C’est la vie