At the KC International Festival an awful incident has made me question what it is all about. Do our dogs really get the most out of life by doing agility? Do we improve our relationship with them by training and competing with them? Or is it all really about our own desire to compete?
I do not know what upset me the most, the sight of a dog so out of it's mind that it attacked it's owner or the fact that somebody said she came back from hospital and competed with her other dog in the afternoon - sorry BWTF. Surely the dog that attacked her needed to be taken away from the show to somewhere peaceful - is competing at agility more important than your own dog's welfare?
Maybe the lady had her reasons (as the dog had it's for doing what it did) and as I don't know the whole story I'm not in a good postion to comment on her actions. I do know I do not want to see of that kind of frenzy again. Hopefully there will be an explanation of a long stream of events leading up to the incident and valuable lessons will be learnt.
For my part I will be more mindful of my own dog's stress levels and ensure they are enjoying the competition as much as I do without loosing control.
Talking of control Ruth has hatched a plan for improving Inka's focus from an training method used in Leslie McDevitt's Control Unleashed. It is early days but already shows huge leaps of success. I will let you know more about how it works as it progresses.
Talking of progress - Rhyme actually played tuggie with me around the rings at the KC Festival. We walked around quite a bit and I got focus and play in more than one place. Once even when his Dad Reef was running :)
Talking of running - I must get a move on with other things now :) :)
A short clip to help relax after all that stress
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