Soaring!

Practice makes perfect. Or, is it perfect practice makes perfect? Hmm. 

How about a $hit ton of practice finally pays off? How about patience...lots and lots and lots of patience...is a virtue, or something like that. Persistence pays off? How about that when you finally get seriously creative in committing to helping your dog overcome his fears, the results are un-f***ing-believable!

Pardon my French. It's just that I'm really excited.

You see, it has been a very long year with Gus...and the teeter...and the dog walk. Up until recently, these things were our nemesis. He'd maneuvered these obstacles before, but on no particular day and for no particular reason (that we could perceive) he decided he wanted nothing to do with them. Did something spook him? Did he loose his footing in a moment inappreciable to us? 

Whatever the reason, the teeter and the dog walk were suddenly off limits for Gus. We tried picking him up and placing him on the dog walk down ramp. We tried the tip assist. The only thing these methods accomplished was to send a clearly stressed Gus running as far as he could from those obstacles. This had us contemplating whether he would ever compete in standard agility. Was he destined to be relegated only to jumpers with weaves? 

I wasn't okay with limiting him. I wasn't okay with avoiding his fears. I wasn't okay with giving up because I want him to be the most confident dog he can be. I couldn't care less if he never competed in agility competitions. What I want for him is not to be scared. So, for awhile anyway, we took a hiatus from practicing both the teeter and the dog walk. If fear caused Gus to run, we'd first work on things that made him happy. Jumps, tunnels, weaves, and the A-frame. Lucky for us, our instructors want Gus to succeed as much as we do, and we all agreed that testing the limits of our patience was worth it to help this little guy become the best version of himself. With so much potential simmering beneath that lots and lots of hair of his, we resigned ourselves to helping Gus overcome his mental obstacles so that he'd one day master the physical ones.

Then, we went back to the beginning. One day, we decided to see if Gus wanted to play the "bang it" game with the teeter. He gleefully obliged. So we played again. And again. And again. With each successive class, he was jumping higher onto the bottom end of the teeter with the sole goal of making it bang the floor. And then, we noticed something: he began offering the "bang it" game without prompting. 

We ran with Gus' newfound joy in making that teeter bang, so then we added a table, and this happened:

After that day, it didn't take long before we removed the table. If Gus noticed, he certainly wasn't letting us know. On the contrary, he was telling us that he loved this game.

Like a boss!

Despite getting the teeter, the dog walk remained elusive. Why the teeter and not the dog walk? Shouldn't it be the other way around? 

Summoning our creativity again, we purchased a 10x2 plank from Home Depot, situated it atop two foot stools and got Gus accustomed to walking slightly off the ground. Then, we added a training plank to each end. What we'd managed to construct was a very low class, low to the ground dog walk.

Our homemade dog walk helped Gus to understand what was expected of him, but it didn't alleviate his fear of heights. Reaching into our bag of tricks again, and keeping in mind we're quite green at this agility thing, I decided to employ what many would consider an unorthodox move: I put Gus on top of the kitchen table. Yep, the kitchen table. And, from that height, we treated him. 

Ain't no mountain high enough...

A few minutes of our table-topping each day, and I began to notice that he was no longer afraid. He would move about -- Jen on one end, and me on the other...calling him back and forth -- accepting treats and not look so eager to get down. Were we having a "heights" breakthrough?

Well, something happened. Something clicked. The proverbial light bulb moment in his little Sheltie brain. Between our homemade dog walk and the kitchen table, Gus summoned confidence he didn't know he had. This past week, Gus attempted and conquered a lowered dog walk. We were beside ourselves. It's been well over a year that we've been trying to achieve this...and finally, finally we'd accomplished our goal.

But why stop there? At one of our usual Saturday morning practice sessions, our little guy displayed his new "no fear" attitude and proved that a full-sized dog walk was doable.  He told us he was ready, and we gave him the chance to shine.

Call it what you will. Patience, persistence, practice. We couldn't ignore our Gus' potential and had to help him overcome his fears. To that end, we'll still continue to practice, practicing persistence and patience in the process. 

Bright things are ahead for this amazing little guy. But today, we are soaring :)

Smiling the whole time.