Loves agility but impulse control drops to 0 at class
I took my 8 month old Keeshond to his first agility class, an intro one session course to see if your pup would enjoy agility. He loved it, shot through the tunnel, ran across the a-frame and albeit clumsily still confidently did a short teeter. The trainer told me he'd make a good agility dog and had a lot of drive and speed.
My problem is his barking was the worst it's been since he was 4 months old and he jumped on the trainer and pulled like mad. He's 8 months old, normal adolescent behavior. But I've spent the last 5 months working on improving it and on settling him and taken a lot of training classes to do so. I know his impulse control and obedience was low because he's excited and there were a lot of new dogs (someone brought a reactive terrier that did not stop barking the entire class, so that didn't help). I'm worried that the agility classes will hurt his ability to settle and most importantly stop barking and stay quiet; his breed is prone to nuisance barking and I've spent so much time reducing his barking. Anyone else do agility with a barky dog and did you see an increase in the barking because of it?
Would you recommend agility if I still want my pup to be calm and quiet outside of classes?
Posted Oct 14, 2019, 1:39 AM UTC
The logic that doing agility will worsen a dogs impulse control is in line with a lot of trainers false belief that playing tug will affect a dogs impulse or make them aggressive. Uncontrolled tug may lead to trouble, but as long as the game has rules (drop when i say drop it) it shouldnt have a negative effect. In fact the affect should be positive. Games with rules give the dog a healthy way to get there energy out. Set rules. Have him sit and stay at the start line, if he breaks the stay dont let him play until he doesn't. The same can go for barking- we dont get to play until we settle just a little bit. If you need to do one obstacle and call him back to settle for awhile thats fine. I would also advise coming into class with a exercized dog. Go for a walk or play fetch beforehand. Get a little bit of his puppy energy out before you go. Its easy to want to feed into a young dogs exuberance at the start, and the object isnt to break it down, the object is to reward control first. Hes still young yet, so it may not be a bad idea to keep taking obedience classes or just sit in at agility and work on getting him to focus on you and then join again once hes a little more settled and matured. He sounds like a great dog and he probably will excel at the sport, but he is still a baby and may just need a little time to just be a baby.
At what behavior point would you recommend starting agility? What commands should they be solid on and what should they be able to achieve behavior/ maturity level wise before starting? I know they need good recall, which he used to have but lost it this month, so we're back to square 1 on that... Having a teenage dog feels like trying to pour water into a colander when it comes to obedience :(
I would start with doing sequencing without obstacles, like sending around stations of jumps. Call him back periodically and reward. A solid stay and watch me are important too, obstacle focus will come later. Just focus on foundational stuff, building his general obedience and confidence. With my puppies i always sit in on agility classes (which is admittedly easier when you are also attending the class with an older dog like i always am) and let them get used to the other dogs running around and the slam of the teeter. Once hes comfortable just relaxing in the atmosphere he will perform a lot better once he gets to go out and actually do it.