Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 6:08 pm Post subject: fear of heights and wont go on agility course!
Ever since indi was a pup she has always had a fear of heights. I really dont no why. She came from the breeders with this fear. As a pup she refused to go down 1 tiny step to get outside to go to the toilet. She got over this. Then it was fear of jumping out of the boot. Eventually she got over this about 6 months ago. Now we have started to take her back to agility. She refuses point blank to go on any of the heigh equipment. She wont do the high beam, see saw or A frame. When we do coax her up there she stands there back legs violently wobbling! Silly sausage she then looks down and panics and the shaking starts. Now we can convince her to get up to the top then she commando crawls across the straight, which is hilarious!!! Then she refuses to go down the ramp to get off. She is digging in her heels and so scared. I dont want to push her and her get frightened of it but i know she has to do it as I want her to get better at it. She use to do it about 4 months ago and the high beam and see saw where no problems she would whizz over them!!! So after she had a season, her spay, our hols and got her back into it she refuses to do it now. I just dont no what to do to to help combat this fear!!!! Any advice would be appreciated!
edited to add - she doesnt mind going up and down stairs and i dont think it has anything to do with the sensation of having her bottom higher than her head like some dogs.
I know she feels Hayley, I have a fear of heights and tbh is someone forced me to do something I was scared of I`d never try it again.
Personally as she`s so scared I would`nt keep trying with the normal sized equipment, maybe start thing very very slowly, as Laura (Luna-Tuck) has done to get Tucker started.
Firstly the dog walk size plank flat on the ground, its not just the height but the fact it is so narrow, once she`s confident walking up and down that, raise it a little and so on til she`s happy with it being off the ground.
I know this may take a good while but much better than putting her off altogether and refusing to do anything at all.
Are you planning on doing comps with her?, if not why not try and see if anyone does just the jumps and tunnels.
She is fine with tunnels and jumps. She even did the tunnel with the fabric collapsing end for the first time. She can weave in between the poles. Sit on the little podium. She can do a tunnel that is bent round a corner, go through a tyre. Just she refuses to do the A frame, the seesaw and the high beam. Will see if the trainer will allow us to lower the beam to see if that makes a difference to her.
She is the only dog school nearby that speaks english. Plus she is really amazing our trainer and really helped us with Indi's training. She is looking at training in flyball so it may be worth giving that a go next year, She might prefer that over the agility course. So who knows. I just want her to combat this fear of heights.
Alfie has only just started to do the seasaw happily and he's 6 I'd done it with him previously and after doing it he would refuse to do the a frame and dog walk so i decided to give up on the seasaw until one day he just did it
Has your trainer suggested anything to help? Our club has a training dog walk which is low and alot easier for them to start on. Sophie's cadbury (chocice) holds onto the seasaw and creeps along it but Sophie has perservered and he is now alot better
I think its a case of making it easier for her by doing it lower and wth lots of encouragement and then just keep doing it, the more she does it the less scary it will be
[Disclaimer: I am not a trainer!! I am just responding from my experiences of training my 2 and from what I have seen at comps and training and a judges training day xx]
Yep like Mary says go right back to the beginning.
I have seen some dogs fall off the top of the dog walk and then run straight back up without hesitation and some dogs who have a scare and take months to trust it again. Their handlers simply run around that equipment on an agility course when 'competing'(it gets them eliminated but hey!)
I think the key thing is not to force her, coax her or bribe her to do anything as she won't be happy doing it as you have seen by her shaking. You need to take baby steps with her and get her REALLY confident and then she will end up leading you onto the high stuff!
I have a plank in the garden that Luna has always happily walked up and down. I have always had it set up down 2 steps so that the gradient of the slope gets her walking all the way down. I used it to teach her ON IT which is my command to get her hitting the down contact area. She rarely jumps contacts on the proper equipment. I don't like teaching dogs to run to a stop on contacts as I think it puts pressure on the elbows and shoulders that isn't needed. But anyway!
In hope I encouraged Tucker to walk on it but he wouldn't. I put it flat on the ground he AVOIDED putting his feet on it. If he put one paw on it I rewarded him! Then one day with a handful of treats I straddled the plank and walked backwards encouraging him to follow the treats. He walked with his 2 front paws on the plank for half the way and got loads of fuss! It all went very quickly from then on! We repeated and he walked the whole way with 2 paws on the plank! Yay! Loads of treat and fuss! Then some of the way he had 4 paws! By now he was sooo excited by the fuss, reward and 'the game' that he did the whole plank! This was still flat on the floor.
The next step was to raise the plank a brick high, I did the same thing as above, straddled it until he was happy walking on all the way. The next step was to get him doing it while I was to one side of the plank, still me walking backwards. Lots of repeats and then me walking forwards and him on the plank. Then I raised it up to the normal 2 steps and hey presto he is as confident on it now as Luna is!
I always have it in the garden and he bounces up an down the plank whether asked to or not now!
He easily transferred this to a waist height dog walk at agility training.
Could you get hold of a similar plank for Indi?
The see-saw I may not introduce for another few months as he is only 16months and don't want him experiencing the bang of the see-saw landing through his joints yet. I may let him have a go if someone else is holding the end and lowering it slowly so there is no jolt, so he can experience the movement and practise the wait.
The a'frame he will only do if very low so that he doesn't learn to jump the down contact but learns to run all the way down.
There is no rush to get young dogs doing full-height agility. I firmly believe that the slower and steadier the training you invest when young the longer their agility life will be because they will be healthy enough to continue for longer. So take the pressure off Indi - don't make her do something she is unhappy doing, build up her confidence slowly but surely and celebrate each little bit of evidence of her progression!
What height are you jumping her?
(Be careful when doing the tyre - there has been a lot of criticism about it as a piece of equipment in the UK as some dogs have got very nasty injuries from misjudging it. Luna and Tucker will NEVER do a tyre until it has been completely designed to come apart in a way that won't hurt them.... that may be NEVER!)
Last edited by Luna-Tuck on Sat Oct 22, 2011 8:18 pm; edited 1 time in total
Laura those videos didnt work. Thanks for the advice. I will keep taking her to agility and trying her on the other equipment and maybe get a plank for the garden unfortunately we dont have any steps in our garden but sure we can make something to help with the highering of the plank when needs be.
The jumps are only just above ankle height. I dont like them too high and neither do the other dogs owners. The tyre is a bit iffy as i think its too small for Indi who is a bigger built dog in comparison to all the other dogs! So may miss that out in future. She just walks through it, she never jumps through. She is on the line of slow and steady wins the race! In the meantime we bypass certain pieces of equipment till she gets her confidence!
Walking through the tyre shouldn't cause too much damage to her! Bless! There is nothing wrong with having a steady dog! Many of the steady dogs end up being the ones placed at comps because some courses the fast dogs all mess up!
I've edited the video links so hopefully you can see them!
Glad you are only jumping low height - there is no point in jumping higher when training!
I'm sure you'll get her more confident! Keep us posted!!!
Coco didn't like any of the contact equipment to start with, she didn't like the feel of it, the movement or the sound. Our first attempt at the dog walk was a session just getting her to put a paw on a plank on the ground - she hated it that much!
Like Laura I put a plank on the ground at home and got her to walk along it, then gradually lifted it to a brick high. Once she got used to being off the ground and a bit of a wobble she gained confidence and didn't have a problem.
The see-saw was mastered later by someone very gently lowering it to get her used to the movement and eventually letting it bang a little heavier.
The A-frame took a lot of sausages as bribery! Once she realised what it was about she didn't look back and the next session she managed to escape from me and ran straight up the A-frame.
We have only had one setback with the dog walk and that was one that was very flimsy which bounced as she trotted along it - that one put her off for quite a while and it took time to build her confidence again.
If your trainer won't put the planks on the floor for you then find another trainer who will. If she really doesn't like the equipment and can't build confidence then stick to jumping classes rather than full agility courses, there is no contact equipment in those.
Hayley, you've had some good advice from Laura and Pam. I didn't post on your previous topic as I was worried about sounding over critical, but it does sound as though you have both rather leapt in at the deep end with your agility and it is no wonder that she is a bit uncertain!
I would go back quite a few steps with her and introduce things more gradually. We are also great fans of the plank at home and do lots of different things with it. We prop it on the patio to do practice contacts and also rest the middle on a brick to make it into a mini seesaw.
It is amazing how easy it is to scare dogs when doing agility. Think about the concept of what you are asking them to do and it is easy to see why - would you feel confident walking over a full height dog walk? Even experienced competition dogs can be scared by one bad experience on the contact equipment and it sets them back months. Try to break things down into really small steps and build confidence gradually. I would not even try to put her over a dog walk until she is running really confidently over a plank on the floor to get a treat or toy at the end. There is no rush - there is so much to practise in agility that there are plenty of other exercises you can work on while taking things gradually on the other bits of kit. It really is just a case of breaking things down and then small steps, small steps, small steps to gradually build confidence.
Sorry for rambling on. She will get it, but just give her lots of time...
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I'd done it with him previously and after doing it he would refuse to do the a frame and dog walk 
so i decided to give up on the seasaw until one day he just did it 
