Think about the first time a seesaw hits the ground under a baby dog.
The board drops, maybe just an inch even, and it’s LOUD. In that moment, the dog maybe didn’t like it; maybe they were a little apprehensive about it. That’s an aversive experience for that dog, in that moment, plain and simple, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.
But… we don’t respond by taking up a campaign to get seesaws out of agility.
We prepare the dog.
Tiny drops. Low heights. The dog learns the bang is coming, learns THEY can make it happen, and gets paid a ridiculous amount for being brave. Mountains of cookies, or maybe the dog learns that banging the seesaw makes you launch a ball or a toy 😂
Six months later, maybe less than that, that same dog is driving to the end of the board and riding it down like it’s the best part of the course. They’re absolutely WILD to get to the seesaw, and when they hear other dogs bang the seesaw in the building, they shake their toy with glee, or jump on you for a game of tug with the leash.
Nobody watches that dog and thinks “oh, that poor thing.” They think “wow, look at that seesaw!”
The old way, and our way.
The old way: protect the dog from discomfort.
Our way: prepare the dog for reality.
The seesaw is the easy example, because we all already agree on it. Nobody is out there arguing that teeters should be quieter (although as a community, we agility folk can argue about just about any aspect of any piece of equipment, ad nauseum!).
But, the same idea holds for the stuff your dog runs into that you CAN’T plan around. And you get there the same way you got there with the teeter: a little at a time, with the dog in control of it, and paid well for being brave and leaning in to and through the stuff that initially makes the dog feel apprehensive or scared.
Resilience is built, not protected.
So tell me: what’s your dog’s metaphorical seesaw? The thing that worried them once, and now they love, because YOU helped them reframe something that WAS an aversive experience in to something they looked forward to as a challenge they could overcome and take joy in? Leave a comment!
The whole system lives inside The Agility Challenge. Door is here.