A Tale of Two Kittens and One Puppy

Chester & I entered our first agility fun match. Because my husband was out of town, I decided to leave Lola at home and just take Chester. I had planned to do one tunnelers course and one touch & go course, but since he started wigging out on contacts around Thanksgiving, I just decided to do the one tunnelers course (nothing but tunnels).

It was a cool, drizzly morning and I almost decided not to go at all. But we went. And we did fine on the first four tunnels. The next large, curved tunnel was black inside. I didn’t think anything of it, but apparently Chester did because he popped out of it twice before completing it — and then running off the course all together.

By the time I got him, another dog was already on the field.

It is always assumed in agility that a dog making an error is the handler’s fault. I’m still not sure what I did wrong, other than I probably should have bypassed that tunnel altogether after he refused it twice. That’s what the one other team whose dog balked at it did.

On one of the forums I frequent, someone said I should have made him finish the course no matter what. I disagreed. I think agility is about two things, or ought to be:

Fun
Trust

Chester trusts me not to push him into something he’s not ready for yet. For whatever reason, he just wasn’t ready for that tunnel, and I pushed him too hard.

In an ideal world, I would have liked to collect him, bring him back to the course, and finish at least another obstacle. Although considering all the obstacles were tunnels, I’m not sure that would have worked here. But I don’t want him to think he can run out of the ring. Not because it’s “defiant” or a “refusal”, but because it would be too easy for such a small dog to run up to the wrong dog and really get hurt.

If your dog does run off the field, I found this page that describes various solutions (most do not include forcing your dog to finish the course).

I also got a real chuckle out of Things I learned at My First Agility Trial.

And just wanted to add this postscript: Lola has finished her beginner agility class and we’re continuing on. She loves it. And she’s really surprised me — she’s pretty good in class. Not necessarily at agility, that is, but she’s mostly calm. Once in a while she gets a little growly, but she’s easily controlable.

It has really seemed to help her calm down and mellow out a lot. She’s still my wild child, but a mostly controlable wild child these days.

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