Well, I took the plunge this morning. Devon and I went to the agility yard, and I asked for the teeter. This is the first time I’ve asked for it in at least 8 months (and maybe more). Devon was doing pretty well when we left off this spring. She was volunteering a low teeter about 16 inches. It took us several weeks to work up to that height.
This morning, I asked for the dogwalk first, then the A frame. And then I asked for the teeter. She surprised me by going right on it, but she did bail off when it didn’t tip where she thought it should. We worked through it and after a few minutes, she was repeatedly going over it. What a good girl!! She’s not confident, and the teeter is not full height (it is probably higher than 16 inches). However, she was willing to do the obstacle, and she was happy and only minimally stressed, and that’s all I really want from her.
After we played on the teeter for while, I moved back to the A frame and then the dogwalk. She was confident on the dogwalk but did take the ups and downs a little slower than she had before the teeter. I plan to work the teeter and the contacts tomorrow and Friday, then give her the weekend off (due to the hunt test) and start in again next week.
I’m really confident now that she’ll do the contacts full height. I’m also confident that she will eventually do them in other places. My only anxiety is with the speed that she’ll do them. I’m really hoping she speeds up her performance with confidence. I just have to have the faith that with time and confidence her speed will improve!
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Something you might want to try is working the teeter and dogwalk on opposite days (or one in the morning, one in the evening--not in the same training session). Give her more space to work out these similar obstacles one at a time, without the stress of mixing them up in a single session, until she's more confident.
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