I walked off of the agility course, rewarded and loved on my dog, exited the building, and dissolved into tears.

The negative thoughts were running through my mind. “He needs a new handler.” “I’ll never be able to keep up.” “He could go so far if he wasn’t limited by me.” “I suck at this.”

We’ve all been there. That moment when it all comes crashing down and the self-doubt comes flooding in.

How Rock Bottom in Dog Agility Created a New Path

Maxx was a phenomenal, athletic, intelligent, incredibly fast, and driven dog. If he had been someone’s third or fourth agility dog, he could have competed on the international stage. He was my first.

We’d had a beautiful run, until he got too far ahead of me and had to decide which obstacle to take without my direction. He chose “wrong” based on the judge’s design, throwing the rest of our run into chaos. It happened often enough that I later coined the phrase “The faster they go, the faster they go off course.”

Over the next few months I researched. I read everything I could get my hands on. I studied other sports like herding and learned about dog behavior. I experimented (poor Maxx), figured out what worked, and connected the why. I failed – a lot – but I also grew. I grew my knowledge, my skills, and built a system around what I learned.

And what I learned was surprising! Success was more about building the dog’s confidence than drilling skills. It depended more on incorporating “natural” cues into my handling system than teaching learned responses. The more consistent I was, the better he understood what I wanted. Distance wasn’t actually just about teaching the dog how to take a jump 30’ away, it was entirely about communication.

Once it started working, I wanted to share. In 2005, I rolled out the first version of Agility FUNdamentals for Distance, called it “Gambling is Addictive,” and taught it as a 1-day seminar.

People watched Maxx running on course and wanted to learn. I got tons of referrals and taught it eight weekends per year for a many years, adding other related courses along the way.

The feeling of having a connected, smooth run when your dog is working that far away is indescribable. At that moment, the struggles and failures were worth it, and I decided that I wanted to help as many people as I could experience that same, wonderous feeling.

Today’s Tip for Dog Training

There are so many tips to choose from in this story, but I’m going to go with failure and how failing is viewed.

Most people view failure as an awful, embarrassing, and unfortunate thing. If I had stayed in that mindset, I would never have followed this path I’m on. It wasn’t until I started looking at failure as a learning opportunity that I was able to turn things around.

You’re going to fail. Fail fast and fail often, but learn something every time you do. Consider failure a learning opportunity to determine what doesn’t work so you can discover what does. Don’t let embarrassment stop you, because the only people who have never failed are those who have never tried.

The course that started it all has been converted to an online series! Enrollment for Agility FUNdamentals for Distance: Foundations and Independent Obstacle Performance is open. Click here for more information!

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Cover photo: Courtesy of Stover Photography

Photos 1, 2, and 4: Courtesy of Stover Photography

Photo 3: Copyright 2006 Great Dane Photos. Used with permission.