We went to an agility “fun-run” yesterday at Paws and People, an agility and training place near Story Mill. Nancy, the owner made us feel really welcome, introduced us to everything and was really really nice. We had a great time overall, Scherzo did great she did all the obstacles and with much enthusiasm.

That is until she was waiting her turn and saw those other dogs doing their runs. It was too much for her, she was barking and super excited- more excited than shes been in months.

Anyway, after seeing those agility dogs and the crazy focus they have, I had an existential crisis. That is exactly the type of teamwork I want with Scherzo, she knows so many behaviors and can do a lot of them “on the road”, while hiking, on mainstreet etc. So WHY OH WHY do we never get focus like that? She will willingly sit, down, stop, down stay etc in all those places, and in return she gets to run, sniff and swim, so why is she not focused on me, giver of run sniff and swim? why is she not rushing to do what I ask, why is she only willing? I want her to WANT to do what I want her to do.

Until yesterday I felt like I was completely on track, working on the levels, working on distractions, but suddenly it seemed that I wasn’t being led to that type of focus and…fun. Those dogs just seemed like they were doing exactly what they wanted to be doing. Obviously they were trained to love it, atleast in part. Its all very disconcerting, what with Scherzo and her lack of an obsession with food,a ball or frisbee. Any movement toward obsession with any toy is spent very very quickly- she just gets bored of it. Thus there is no one great thing I can give her, so also no one great thing to motivate her with….

But don’t worry, everything is ok now. The levels do lead to that kind of focus- I believe. I read a really good article here I think the fact that Scherzo is now very willingly doing all these things means that we are on the right track. If fdrive is just arousal plus focus on the handler amidst distractions then working on bigger and bigger distractions is exactly where we need to be. We know she can be aroused by many things, once she can focus around big distractions I think she will show more drive- she will find the things we ask her to do finally inherently rewarding.