Agility Builds Confidence

Wednesday was full of highs and lows for Stella. Her grooming anxiety is detailed below, but we've been so busy that I haven't been able to report on her agility class. I took a different dog to class with me than I had on the grooming table in the morning. She turned from a shrinking violet (at least she was trying to impersonate one in the garden) to a happy and brave soul! She did a 19 obstacle sequence that seemed like it had lots of yardage for a little girl, and she was focused throughout. She even did the dreaded teeter. I was very proud of her. I've attached the video from the afternoon, where she is practicing agility. No comment on my clothes, please. Clearly, I need to get my track pants out of storage for the spring. Stella looks great though.

Back at Treefrog Farm!

Wednesday was our first outdoor agility class night at Treefrog Farm, so Stella is back in the game. It was so muddy! The Shih Tzus decided that they are not mudders. In the really sloggy parts of the course, they just stopped in their tracks and looked at me like "Really? Jump into that? Umm, you just go ahead without me." I have to confess that I didn't want to run in the mud either. I was running pretty darn slow, and didn't avoid the puddles anyway. My sneakers are still drying out.

Stella had a good time. She wagged her tail at all of her agility friends and ate lots of treats, and I think she did a fine job running her first little course since last summer. You will see that she pops out of the tunnel over and over. It was still a bit crunched up from being stored, and she likes her equipment just so--neatly laid out with no bumps in her path. It's so nice to see her having fun. She shut down as soon as we came home. I keep telling her that as much as she loves the outdooors, she's just not ever going to make a good yard dog. We are still toughing out the huperzine trial, but I want to call Tufts again soon.

Stella's Story Part 2: The Fearful Dog

Stella's noise phobias were evident from the time she came home, but I took her to puppy classes hoping they would help her conquer her fears. She did fine in her first class, where the dogs were tethered to the wall to keep them spaced well apart from each other, and where they were interacting primarily with their owners. She was a quick study, and I had high hopes for her next class.

When we moved up, dogs were working at various levels of obedience training. One of my friends, who was teaching a retrieve for her Rottie, tossed his very large wooden dumbbell across the room, and it landed with a huge thud. At that moment, Stella decided that she was finished with class. Miserable and afraid, she ran for her crate. I tried to work with her in quieter corners of the room, but she shut down, refused food, and exhibited her most unpleasant (for humans) expression of fear, nervous defecation. With her anxiety seeming to increase rather than decrease, I abandoned the project. I was not willing to subject her to repeated fearful experiences without any signs that she might recover enough to learn, and she was really too afraid to learn.

We waited out the long winter months, and Stella's first spring in Maine came around. In April was time for Douce to train outdoors in agility. We train at a beautiful farm in North Yarmouth, and I brought Stella along for the scenery. There was a pair of secretive bitterns nesting in the pond and the tadpoles were still small. Stella walked the grassy areas of the drive and explored the tall grasses left from winter, but when it was time for instruction, she stayed in her crate where she seemed comfortable.

After 6 weeks of classes, Stella was positively moaning about being confined to her crate, when all the fun was happening out in the agility ring. A classmate accused her of making "baby noises"--she does have quite a vocal range. So she emerged from her crate like a nestling, and seemed to adore agility training. I enrolled her in foundations class, and she worked very nicely at her own pace. While she was leery of many obstacles at first, in the past two summers, she has mastered the Buja board, the big tunnels with their scary change of footing, the chute with its scary enclosure of fabric, a full height A frame. She was even conquering the teeter by this past June. Victory! Until winter came . . .

The indoor training space we moved to is large and echoing. Stella felt pressured by the closer proximity of dogs, and she really hated the sound of the metal teeter banging. When it was her turn to practice, she couldn't even take a jump, and ran for the safety of her crate. I have let her seek the comfort of her crate, but she has never asked to come out and practice they way she did outdoors. It’s been a disappointment, because I think that agility training is a great confidence builder for her.