BC running off at Agility training

[Guest s123]

I have a 16 month old border collie who somewhat trained in obedience i.e. she is in a beginner novice class and has been doing obedience properly since she was 5 months. The problem is that now she is doing agility and the instructor's keep telling me to run her off lead but everytime that happens she runs off. She has been doing agility on-lead for 2 months for half and hour a week. What should I do? On this occasion she did come when I called her but every time a try to get her to run over an obstacle she heads off.

[nathalie]

Use a tug toy as a reward, have the dog go on the obstacle then call and reward, it will teach the dog to focus on you.

[clarkshas]

You can try a number of motivational things to keep your dog focused. I guess the most important thing though is to try and figure out the reason she is bolting so you can try and fix the behaviour. Does she bolt when doing off lead obedience work? Agility seems to really excite the dog and they go a bit bezerk and forget all their obedience training. I don't do agility with my dog as she has had an intermittent limp since a pup (yes all checked out and XRayed and no known cause). I've had a number of people tell me that they had to work extra hard to maintain their obedience standard when they started agility though. It may just take some persistence and some back to basics with the recall to make sure when she does do a bunk she will return consistently. Then address the issue of her not doing a bunk in the first place. Good luck!

 

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Sharon

[Guest s123]

In actual fact the truth is she does try to run off when we do off-lead obedience unless she is fully focussed on me and actually doing attention heeling or a recall with no distractions. The problem with this is it won't work for agility as of course they need to be looking at the obstacles and not at your face. She isn't what I would call a very bonded dog. In fact she would be anyone's as long as they have food. I don't know whether this will change as she gets older but at the moment very opportunity she will approach another person and do her best sit and see if they will give her any food. Should we try to change this or will she just grow out of it? We have had her since she was 8 weeks old so maybe that might have something to do with it.

In relation to her recall she isn't very strong when there are other dogs around. We have been working on that but it isn't proving a strong success yet. I have tried letting her run with a rope attached however everytime she does that and she is round another dog she will not run off and play.

 

Any help with this situation would be much appreciated.

[clarkshas]

I find border collie's are a fairly distractable dog in that they are total sticky beaks. This doesn't mean they aren't good workers, just that getting them to focus takes more work than some other breeds. This is just part of having an intelligent, thinking breed of dog. 16 months is still pretty young and you'll find your dog will have some maturity spurts. Training is constant one step forward and 2 steps back and just needs hard work and persistance. A good instructor helps naturally. Perhaps you could consider backing off the agility work and working on the obedience. Your dog needs to be consistent with its recall in all situations - during obedience, with other dogs and people around, when out playing - everywhere. You could do some agility on lead to keep in practice and gradually improve, but don't try off lead until you have better control of the dog.

 

Re the food: have you been training your dog with food rewards? This may be part of the problem. I don't obedience train with food rewards but got into using them to teach tricks. My dog goes nuts for the food rewards and looses all concentration. I find it very hard to work with her in this situation and am so glad I didn't ever start it with her general obedience work. Try food refusal. Never feed your dog when you are eating or your scraps, have the dog wait in a sit or drop until you give it permission to eat (have a command you use but it's best to avoid OK as anyone would think of that first). Have friends eat near your dog and bring it away and into obedience work. Don't let them feed it and don't let it sit there and gawk and drool. Offer it food while in a stay and don't let it take the food - just say 'uh!' and pull the food away if it tries. Don't give it the food at the end of the exercise. Your dog should not expect to have food just because it is drooling. My dog doesn't even sit and watch me when I eat. She knows my food is not for her.

 

Don't know if any of this is helpful, but good luck.

 

Oh, re the bond, you may be surprised at how strong the bond is, but if it truly is not strong, perhaps some additional work on strengthening this is needed.

 

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Sharon

[diane allen]

I had this problem with my goofy big mixed breed - he used to run off DURING a course, then started it as soon as we finished a course. He too isn't the best trained animal in the ring.

 

But I started with just this one command, then put it (in training) after just a few obstacles, then after a full course, now it's after EVERY competition course.

 

Just a simple "Front!" He knows that if he comes to me, and sits in front of me, facing me, he'll get a treat (this guy is VERY food motivated!). Of course, after a real run, it's only after he gets leashed and we walk off course to our "stash" that he gets fed. But after hundreds of sessions where it did work immediately...he's usually patient enough to go that short distance. So now, no matter what the last obstacle, his last command is always "Front!"

 

Hope it works for you. (I thought for probably close to a year that this guy would NEVER finish a course....patience, patience; and make doing courses more fun that whatever else is out there!).

 

diane