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Agility Equipment Looking Different To Dogs


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Chazer has just started doing agility trials. We train at night time with a yellow and white dog walk. At the trial in the day time he was presented with a black and yellow dog dog walk.

The first trial he had no idea there was a dog walk as it looked wrong to him, until after several attempts I actually moved my hand up along the obstacle.

He had is 2nd go yesterday. His first go he went past again but just after he went passed it clicked that the thing was the dog walk and went to jump up from the side but I called him away and got him to go up properly.

His 2nd go yesterday he had finally worked out they can look different and went straight up it with no worries :confused:

PS - This has nothing to do with fear as he absolutely loves the dog walk - he just had it in his mind the dog walk had to look a certain way

Edited by helen
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Chazer has just started doing agility trials. We train at night time with a yellow and white dog walk. At the trial in the day time he was presented with a black and yellow dog dog walk.

The first trial he had no idea there was a dog walk as it looked wrong to him, until after several attempts I actually moved my hand up along the obstacle.

He had is 2nd go yesterday. His first go he went past again but just after he went passed it clicked that the thing was the dog walk and went to jump up from the side but I called him away and got him to go up properly.

His 2nd go yesterday he had finally worked out they can look different and went straight up it with no worries :confused:

PS - This has nothing to do with fear as he absolutely loves the dog walk - he just had it in his mind the dog walk had to look a certain way

Yep, I've seen a lot of dogs balk at different looking equipment - all green dogs.

My girl has never had a problem, but my boy has been wary a couple of times. Now neither of them have a problem when we go somewhere new. (Touch wood.)

It just takes a little time for the dogs to understand that the picture can change, but the job is still the same.

It's only your second trial - he will be on top of it in no time!

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:confused: Hi Helen

Yes - and not just green dogs. There was one set of equipment at Adelaide Nationals, in the Excellent ring, that was significantly different in colour and texture from 'normal' equipment, and a lot of dogs had problems, particularly with the seesaw - and most of those dogs had no problems in other rings (my Kirra included.)

Night and day can be quite different too.

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My dogs have always generalised agility equipment well, but I have seen dogs balk at unfamiliar equipment and like Agility Dogs said, mostly "green dogs". However my younger Vizsla was jumping off contacts at an interstate trial, as a seasoned dog, something very unusual for him! I worked out it was the bright blue contact colour that was putting him off! He'd never seen it before and it must have looked different. From my understanding dogs see blue against green (the grass) very well, maybe it was the big contrast that confused him....

Edited by FHRP
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Lily refused to jump multi coloured (each piece a different colour) broad jumps. In fact any colour but white saw her hit the brakes. She didn't get past it but I have to say the broad jump was never one of her favourite obstacles.

She loved tunnels but refused point blank to enter the clear ones set up at the Vic Nationals some years back.

She was never the world's most confident dog on equipment. :confused:

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Kaos has baulked at a few different chutes as they were a different shaped opening to the one he had trained on before - he had practiced on barrel opening and these were kennel style shaped opening (now fixed as I got to practice on those chutes in training ;) )

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I've had a relatively experienced agility dog get confused over different types of tyres. She had always been trained on one with small frame around the tyre and the first time she encountered one that was hanging from a larger frame with chains/rope holding it up she refused it. She did the same thing with a lollipop style one when she first encountered that style too.

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Aubrey loves going through the tyre jump at Agility training in the evenings.... it is a white tyre and she has no problem.

However, take her to the dog park where it is a hole in a black piece of wood at the same height, and she just wont do it.

Looks completely different - but same command and same approach and she just wont go through it.

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Yep, I've seen a lot of dogs balk at different looking equipment - all green dogs.

My girl has never had a problem, but my boy has been wary a couple of times. Now neither of them have a problem when we go somewhere new. (Touch wood.)

It just takes a little time for the dogs to understand that the picture can change, but the job is still the same.

It's only your second trial - he will be on top of it in no time!

Agility Dogs, you were right, he got his first agility quali yesterday on the same dog walk - could have knocked me down with a feather, I wasn't expecting a pass but he went on the dog walk perfectly :laugh:

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Yep, I've seen a lot of dogs balk at different looking equipment - all green dogs.

My girl has never had a problem, but my boy has been wary a couple of times. Now neither of them have a problem when we go somewhere new. (Touch wood.)

It just takes a little time for the dogs to understand that the picture can change, but the job is still the same.

It's only your second trial - he will be on top of it in no time!

Agility Dogs, you were right, he got his first agility quali yesterday on the same dog walk - could have knocked me down with a feather, I wasn't expecting a pass but he went on the dog walk perfectly :wave:

:rofl: AWESOME. Well done! Can't wait to hear about the next one!

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