KarissaKS
Posted : 1/26/2009 9:33:33 AM
It's hard to make any meaningful or helpful suggestions without seeing the situation and how the dog is reacting.
Do you still have a bazillion dogs in this group? Do you have long waits between your turns? Are the classes still lasting 1 1/2 - 2 hours? These are all issues that will cause a dog to shut down.
Dogs do MUCH better with intensive (focused) work done in short periods. When I work at home, each dog gets only about 10-15 minutes of "drilling" on equipment and then we're done for the day. Even Kaiser is having a difficult time with the way that group classes run -- there were seven dogs in our group last week and there was a LOT of down time as we waited for the other dogs to make it through the exercises. He was bored out of his mind after the first 30 minutes and started to shut down in the last half of the class (ours never run past an hour). We were doing some course run-throughs afterwards, though, and after I ran Luke through it a few times, I pulled Kaiser out of his crate to give him a shot. He did great because A) there were fewer dogs there at that time, B) he got to run/focus on a full course opposed to a short obstacle sequence and C) it was a short/concentrated training time with no sitting and waiting inbetween turns.
Morrison sounds like the type of dog who would benefit greatly from some private time. There are MANY bonuses to taking private lessons. Luke, for instance, goes absolutely ape-sh*t over his black rubber ball and this is what I use for drive at home. I *cannot* use the rubber ball in a class setting because there is generally not enough room to throw it without disturbing someone else and it's not fair to the other dogs who are also highly arroused by balls.
Taking a few private lessons would also clue you in to whether or not Morrison is stressed by the large number of dogs in your class. There are so many different vibes being thrown out by the various dogs in your group. In my current class, Kaiser is completely stressed by a dog-aggressive Doberman and being anywhere near that dog will cause him to shut down. If I stay well away from that particular dog, things go much better.
Depending on the level of your class and how fast things are going, Morrison could be one of two things -- He could either be incredibly bored because things are moving too slowly for him OR he could be stressing because things are moving too fast and the level of difficulty is above what he is currently comfortable with. Again, this is were privates help because they are tailored to the skill level of the dog. I took many private lessons with Luke in the beginning (in addition to the group classes) because I didn't feel that the group classes were moving fast enough to keep Luke's interest. The weekly privates pushed his skill level a bit and kept him enthusiastic about agility because he was having so much fun. For some dogs, the low level weekly agility classes are just boring as all get-out.
And finally, the last piece of the puzzle is you. Since I'm not there at your classes, I have no idea what sort of a vibe you are throwing off. There's a very good possibility that you are stressing him out simply by worrying so much about him shutting down. There is such a thing as trying too hard. Also, if you are at all nervous (which, believe me, the beginner classes are generally FILLED with people who are nervous about working their dog in front of other people), your dog will feed off that. You really need to project a fun & confident vibe in order for your dog to do well. Again -- this is where privates often come in handy because YOU no longer have the stress of performing in front of a group of people.
Some dogs/people do fine in weekly group classes. Others don't. I would suggest that you look into the option of privates for a while to see if you can't get things turned around a bit. Learning to perform well in group classes is important if you plan on attending trials in the future (hence why I have Kaiser enrolled!), but I think Morrison might be better off in a private or semi-private setting until he is more confident on the equipment.
It's a shame you aren't closer, as I'd gladly have you over to play on my equipment once I put it back outside! 