Expelled

Well me & Katy have been taking agility classes for the last 5 weeks. Katy has been really good at the exercises but has trouble being on lead near the other dogs. This only started a few months ago on walks, nothing seems to have triggered it   Off lead she is fine with any dog, on lead she's only ok with her best friends, even one's she plays with occasionally she will lunge at on lead. Well Mary who runs the class phoned me yesterday to say she thinks it would be best that we discontinued until we have sorted this out. She apologised a lot saying she was annoyed to do this but some in the class were worried Katy might attack their babies   I must admit it is hard keeping her attention if the other dogs are eyeballing her. So we went out there early today to get a refund, Mary said she would give us 1/2hr 1-1. Katy excelled I might add off lead over each combination she asked us to do without any problems, she was even doing the routine as Mary was telling me what she wanted Katy to do    I know for a fact that off lead she would be absolutely fine with all the dogs in her class & so does Mary but never mind. Now looking into obedience classes to see if we can sort this out as we all know our pups need to b e perfect in the eyes of everyone else  

Seems a common thing, I have read it time and time again here. Moo is bad on lead, perfect off lead as she usually is. Xx

Shame for you though x

Hope you can get it sorted, what a pain xx

Same here Darcy doesn't like to be approached whilst on lead! Fine off! Hope you find something that works Hun, shame as Katy was doing so well xx

Oh what nuisance Jen hope the other classes will help xx

Had a similar situation with Douglas in a class (aged 2). It wasnt an agility class, just basic training. However, he seemed very anxious and couldnt cope with the close proximity of the other dogs, all on lead. He did some lunging and pulled some ugly faces. In our case though, I spoke to the trainer after the first session and said we wouldnt be back (my decision) as it didnt seem to be the right environment for him. She agreed that he was getting nothing out of it and converted the rest of our paid-up sessions into a 1-2-1, which was more helpful. l dont know whether we would have been expelled if I hadnt done that, but we jumped before we were pushed, which was the right thing to do (in our case). It would be great if Douglas would exude peace and love at all times to all dogs, but, although we're continuing with training (in a way that's suitable, successful and enjoyable for him) it would be a bonus (not a certainty) if he can ever totally manage to be 'sorted'. Being perfect in the eyes of everyone else is also not a thing that is ever going to happen (esp being a staffx), but being near-perfect in my own eyes is a much lower bar for him to achieve.

meh so much for a trainer... on lead dogs have there flight instinct removed... simple as that. it depends on how confortable they are with that as how they react to other dogs. if they are confident you might not get many issues yet a lil bit warey you might get a few problems. its easy to train around...you keep confident yourself and lead by example

janey wrote:Seems a common thing, I have read it time and time again here. Moo is bad on lead, perfect off lead as she usually is. Xx

Shame for you though x

I discovered this with Flo too. I wonder weather they feel restricted whilst on the lead and unable to escape/evade.

It is a real shame about the classes though   

A gsd had to go 1 to 1 when we did the bronze citizen award for the same reason. Tbh Ledger gets a bit stressy at agility and obedience he is ok when we are doing something but the sittting around on the side on lead isn't great at times his go to behaviour is to bark or if really stressed will try and chew his lead

We are currently between classes I was going on a Tuesday night but it moved inside over the winter and almost doubled in the dogs going meaning more time sat around, also there was an experienced collie that is a bit DA anyway and we were doing exercises on different pieces of equipment and they got just that bit too close to each other and it snapped at Ledger and with one swipe ofhis paw he put her on her back. Tbh I've used it as a bit of an excuse not to go to that class, now just waiting for some daytime ones to start next month

It does seem a shame that Katy should miss out just because of the views of certain other individuals, I'm surprised the trainer didn't suggest another way around it such as a muzzle !!

Oh well, I hope you get on better with the other training   

Kathy wrote:It does seem a shame that Katy should miss out just because of the views of certain other individuals, I'm surprised the trainer didn't suggest another way around it such as a muzzle !!

Oh well, I hope you get on better with the other training   

She did say when we joined that if anyone had any issues with each others dogs she would deal with it, part of the problem was the other owners not giving us space. One of them would insist on walking past us 2ft away, Mary took each of them to on side to tell them to give us room. I had already decided that as Katy is booked in for spaying may 8th she wouldn't be able to do agility for a month anyway so I was going to try & sort out this issue anyway. As for a muzzle that would seriously stress her out & I don't want that. I have been given the name of a reputable trainer in the next village & have been told she's really good so I will ring her tomorrow to set up a 1-2-1. Also she's good at heel work so it would be worth going just for that (wouldn't that be a novelty   )
Will let you know how we get on  

Inez Maria wrote:Oh what nuisance Jen hope the other classes will help xx

Thanks Inez, I'm sure we can get it sorted then we can restart our classes & wipe the floor with them, going on how well she did without the others & off lead whereas they are all doing it on lead  

Ohh Katy you little rebel! Sorry to hear that she's been kicked out of class Hopefully you'll get good results with the trainer though!