Today

I learnt a few things.

One: I really don't yet have a grasp on a way to make obedience super exciting for Charlie.

Two: we do still have a commando lesson tomorrow morning, before the demo.

Three: Charlie can get quite enthused about his dinner bowl being turned into a frisbee.

Four: if I whack a bowl of food at the end of the dog walk, I get an awesome 2o2o.

And five: my dog is a total stress pot.

For the past few trials it's been really noticable- Charlie stresses to the point where if I didn't have him on lead, he'd have run off and never returned. It's not while we're walking around. He's fine. He goes to sleep in his crate and is totally chill.

It's only just as we're walking up to wait outside the ring before we go in to run. Once we're in the ring, he'll drag me to the startline and want to go go go. He seems fine on course. It's just the immediately before part.

He's never done it at a demo before. Until today.

And I'm now officially worried because I sort of get it in a trial environment, especially for Charlie- he's a very sensitive, very big worry wart and that plus a trial just makes his mind explode.

But this was just a demo. It's kind of similar to a trial, but scaled down to about a fifth of the intensity, and he was actually worse today than he has been at a trial before.

I got him set up and he ran fine, but even afterwards he beelined for his crate and tucked himself away.

He loves agility. And I'm not just saying that. He really does enjoy it- it's one of the only things he will get excited about without me having to spend a half hour geeing him up and trying every trick imaginable just to get him to wake up and pay attention.

But clearly something is making him have a panic attack.

Logically it'd just be me and my nerves, because he's very handler sensitive and if I'm not in the right mood he will be an absolute nightmare and I might as just not bother working him at all. But this was a demo and I'm nervous at trials- despite trying not to be- and definitely not when it comes to demos, and he was worse today.

So maybe it's something else.

I'm wondering if it might be something a bit abstract, and something that's partly my fault for creating, but it seems a bit obscure so I'm not sure.

At the moment I don't know whether to just ignore it and keep my fingers crossed it's just part of the weird frame of mind he's been in lately, or I need to do something more drastic.

I'll see how he goes at tomorrow's demo, and at next Sunday's trial and then re-evaluate.