However, a problem has developed. In class on Thursday before the trial weekend, he slid off the end of the teeter, which bounced up and whacked him in the butt. It had to hurt, but he went right back and did the obstacle properly. I stayed after class and sent him over it 3 or 4 more times, and he seemed fine.
He must have been fine at the trial on Saturday too, because though he had several NQs none of them involved the teeter. But on Sunday, in his otherwise lovely Standard run, he bailed off the board halfway up. This is a dog that had never, ever, bailed off of anything, but off he went. I brought him back around (which is a big no-no in CPE, and earned me a warning from the judge!) and on a 2nd try he did it without hesitation. I wondered if maybe I hadn't given him a good approach, or something -- not that that had ever mattered much to him before.
By class time the following Thursday, Mox had concluded that teeters are really monsters with huge jagged teeth and voracious appetites for little black dogs. He wouldn't even go near the one in our practice course. It's like he'd spent the week brooding over his initial mishap, blowing it up to gigantic proportions in his mind. In fact, just the sound of the teeter banging on the ground seemed to frighten him -- which it hadn't previously -- to the point that he kept trying to hide behind the hedge at the edge of the ring. Poor guy!
So, we're in teeter-retraining mode. I booked a couple of private lessons with my instructor, Sandy Rogers. We've gone all the way back to square 1, playing "the BANG! game" (jumping onto the teeter -- set to a low height -- from the side, so that the end slams down, BANG! followed of course by lots of very yummy treats), and running back and forth over the board in both directions. My friend Elissa let me borrow her teeter; I found a good place for it out by the storage shed under the fir tree. I also made a wobble board out of a piece of plywood I found in the garage. Unlike Miko, who mastered the wobble board early and easily in his training, Mox had never been comfortable on one. Now it took him several days to put both front paws on, and over a week before we got even one back paw.
Now, finally, he's hopping onto it with all four, looking quite pleased with himself (and the chicken chunks he gets as a reward). He's doing much better on the teeter as well. I've been raising it little by little and now it's at about half official trial height. I figure (hope!) that within a few weeks he'll be doing it with confidence at full height again.
We have a trial this weekend. I've entered Mox in classes where he won't have to perform the teeter at all -- Jackpot and Fullhouse, where you pick your own course, and Jumpers, which doesn't include any of the contact obstacles. No Standard runs for him for awhile. He's also entered in Wildcard this weekend, where there might or might not be a teeter required. If there is, I'll offer him the opportunity to do it, and however he responds will be fine with me; we'll just go on to the next obstacle. More of the same in 2 weeks -- and continued work at home and in class, of course -- and then we'll see how he's progressing. Never a dull moment!
