The overwhelming thing I have learnt from my dogs and teaching is that each dog is an individual as is their handler; and what works for one dog and handler may not work for another.
We also need to keep our journey with our agility partners individual and set goals and targets for our team and not in comparison to others, just because two dogs started training at the same time does not mean they will progress at the same rate. Each one of my dogs has been different to train, some have been amazingly easy and just seem to know what I wanted, while others I’ve had to rethink my training and go away and come back with new ideas and ways to train behaviours as they weren’t working for that particular dog. Also for some of my dogs that thing called ‘life’ has got in the way of our training plans and where I’d maybe planned we’d be on our agility journey.
If your dog is one of those ones that is a little harder to train than others, relax and enjoy the scenic route on your journey, others may be taking a more direct route than you and your agility partner but you will get there and the satisfaction when it all comes together will be immense.
And remember that agility is a very small part of our dogs lives and their lives are too short as it is so enjoy agility and don’t ever drill your dog as they only have a limited number of agility runs in them so don’t waste them.
We also need to keep our journey with our agility partners individual and set goals and targets for our team and not in comparison to others, just because two dogs started training at the same time does not mean they will progress at the same rate. Each one of my dogs has been different to train, some have been amazingly easy and just seem to know what I wanted, while others I’ve had to rethink my training and go away and come back with new ideas and ways to train behaviours as they weren’t working for that particular dog. Also for some of my dogs that thing called ‘life’ has got in the way of our training plans and where I’d maybe planned we’d be on our agility journey.
If your dog is one of those ones that is a little harder to train than others, relax and enjoy the scenic route on your journey, others may be taking a more direct route than you and your agility partner but you will get there and the satisfaction when it all comes together will be immense.
And remember that agility is a very small part of our dogs lives and their lives are too short as it is so enjoy agility and don’t ever drill your dog as they only have a limited number of agility runs in them so don’t waste them.