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Originally Posted by SigTau66  I have a weird one for everybody. |
LOL, I read the title of your thread and said to myself "Gee, I know a dog like that...."
Not weird at all. Prey monsters are stimulated by prey monsters.
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Originally Posted by Rottlva  God loves prey drive, HUH???? My dog is a very tough, high drive dog. He has been extensively socialized, and is working at advanced obedience levels....obedience is a way of life for us. That being said, when a border collie, barky super fast dog runs agility, and he is in the SAME ring as them, he fixates...will do commands for food, will hold stays, will tug, but the moment he has a chance, he's locked on to them again. Collar corrections jazz the hell out of him, a tug is just a redirection for him, it doesn't fix the fact of fixation, just curbs it...........Since my goal with this dog is an OTCh, VCD3, this was an issue that we felt we needed to nip in the bud. He can't be on a sit stay and watch a fast dog run out and get a dumbell and attempt to go tag him...... |
Gee, your dog sounds an awful lot like my dog!
(For those who don't know it, Rottlva's dog and mine are littermates...
) I waited to start agility for this very reason. Chili's obedience is wonderful and it's a darn good thing because I train with mostly border collies. She is still kept on lead or flexi for the most part, because what I know about her is that if she thinks for one second that she can target and go, there are times she's gonna do it...and if she needs to stay on lead for another year (or the rest of her life
) until I am convinced she can exhibit the self control she needs, it's fine by me. I don't want any mistakes like that and I'm in no hurry to title. She is much improved and I can "usually" get her attention back but once in awhile she'll target one particular border collie and be unable to let it go.
She LOVES to work and be a part of the activities, so what I've found helps with her for those moments when she just can't get her mind back on her own business is to simply take her to her crate on the field and crate her up, without saying a word to her, and then go back to the group without her and join in on the exercises myself as if I did have a dog on my arm. I've only felt the need to do this a couple times, and she was much better after 5-10 minutes to settle, isolated from the fun and the companionship.
There have been a few moments where I would not be opposed to the chair method you mentioned, but I doubt either of Chili's instructors would do it.
SigTau66, I would do more work on attention with your dog and strategize so that when the border collies are running, you've got your dog actively working on something that keeps his attention on you. Turn away and heel the other direction, do some small left turn circles, do one step sit, three step sit, five step sit....whatever you need to do to keep his attention on you. The fixating is self-rewarding, and the more he succeeds with it, the more conditioned it will become.