Personally, I think you get the most out of this sport if it helps you
> really get to know the dog you have, and appreciate his or her strengths
> and understand his or her weaknesses. The challenge is to maximize the
> former and do your best to overcome the latter. In the process, you
> discover stuff about yourself. You learn to be patient, to plan, to
> observe, to experiment and then do it all again. You find out that
> embarrassment doesn't actually kill you. If you look around, you find
> that a LOT of people and dogs face the same problems that you have. You
> meet interesting and amusing people if you take the time. There is a lot
> to be gained from any sport aside from competition results. You compete
> against your past results with THIS dog, and look for improvement and
> progress. For some dogs that will never be enough to win a class or get
> an OTCh, but it will be progress that YOU achieved.
>
> And sometimes, you discover the limits of a dog's ability to tolerate
> social pressure and the rigors of the competition setting, in spite of
> your efforts. You sometimes have to switch gears from training the
> exercise to focusing on desensitization and counter conditioning a dog's
> responses to noises, other dogs, etc.. If you put the effort in the
> right direction, you may see improvement in the exercises in the ring,
> but it might not ever be a total turn around. The dog is still improved
> from where you started, but if YOUR focus is on being better than other
> competitors in the ring, no, you may not get what you need from the
> sport while working with THAT dog. But you can't blame the dog for not
> fulfilling YOUR desire to be better than other PEOPLE. And that
> frustration can really affect a handler's ability to make the ring as
> pleasant a place as possible for the dog, which leads to a downward
> spiral of attitude on both ends of the leash. That is what I think has
> to be faced. Instructors don't want to see people blame their dogs for a
> human issue.
>
> really get to know the dog you have, and appreciate his or her strengths
> and understand his or her weaknesses. The challenge is to maximize the
> former and do your best to overcome the latter. In the process, you
> discover stuff about yourself. You learn to be patient, to plan, to
> observe, to experiment and then do it all again. You find out that
> embarrassment doesn't actually kill you. If you look around, you find
> that a LOT of people and dogs face the same problems that you have. You
> meet interesting and amusing people if you take the time. There is a lot
> to be gained from any sport aside from competition results. You compete
> against your past results with THIS dog, and look for improvement and
> progress. For some dogs that will never be enough to win a class or get
> an OTCh, but it will be progress that YOU achieved.
>
> And sometimes, you discover the limits of a dog's ability to tolerate
> social pressure and the rigors of the competition setting, in spite of
> your efforts. You sometimes have to switch gears from training the
> exercise to focusing on desensitization and counter conditioning a dog's
> responses to noises, other dogs, etc.. If you put the effort in the
> right direction, you may see improvement in the exercises in the ring,
> but it might not ever be a total turn around. The dog is still improved
> from where you started, but if YOUR focus is on being better than other
> competitors in the ring, no, you may not get what you need from the
> sport while working with THAT dog. But you can't blame the dog for not
> fulfilling YOUR desire to be better than other PEOPLE. And that
> frustration can really affect a handler's ability to make the ring as
> pleasant a place as possible for the dog, which leads to a downward
> spiral of attitude on both ends of the leash. That is what I think has
> to be faced. Instructors don't want to see people blame their dogs for a
> human issue.
>
2 comments:
I love it! Really puts things in perspective.
It's all very true, too. I've learned so much about Layla through training that I'd never have known elsehow. Also, I watched the livestream of the regionals for agility, and hardly anybody was watching the people who were running - they were all preoccupied with themselves. And that's the regional, not just some small local show that gives me stomach upset just thinking about.
Thanks a lot for posting that - makes me feel a lot better.
" But you can't blame the dog for not fulfilling YOUR desire to be better than other PEOPLE. And that frustration can really affect a handler's ability to make the ring as pleasant a place as possible for the dog, which leads to a downward spiral of attitude on both ends of the leash. That is what I think has to be faced. Instructors don't want to see people blame their dogs for a human issue."
AMEN!!!!
Now to burn all that into my brain!!!!
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