My 2-year-old foster dog Bandit has started in agility. At first he acted terrifed of the equipment and did not want to participate. His tail and body were low and I basically had to force him to do the obstacles because he kept trying to avoid them. There is no real reason for us to be doing agility other than I want to do it with this dog because I thought he would enjoy it. He hated it. I did question whether we should give up because he hates it so much and I felt like I was being mean to him.

My decision was to continue with the agility. We started practising walking along the spectator benches at the soccer park with no distractions and really delicious treats.

We just had his third class last night and he went over some of the jumps with his tail up. He even did 3 jumps off-leash and went over the beginner A-frame (on-leash but not being pulled) two times.

I think I made the right decision to continue working with this dog. By making him work though his fear I think he has realized it is not so bad after all.

For the record I take all my rescues to obedience school once they have bonded with me. I have a good school/trainer that does not allow "fraternization" and teaches training geared for competition. She also recommends prong collars and trains the owner how to train the dog (she is very helpful pointing out handler mistakes I didn't know I was making).

I find the discipline of a weekly class is good for me, the owner, because then I get off my butt and do "homework" each night with a goal (OK by next week we need to know how to such and such). Without the class I don't get around to it as often.

I have found that "backing down" and "giving up" when a dog is nervous and fearful (because it breaks my heart!) ends up as NOT what's best for the dog. While socializing my puppy (now 5 months) he was very fearful sometimes in certain situations, and so what I did was start exposing him to what made him fearful, rather than avoiding what made him fearful. He has made leaps and bounds in progress.

You need to decide what's best for your dog but if it were my dog, I would stick with it (as long as the other dogs are leashed and not allowed to get in your dog's face - this would obviously be counterproductive.) Your dog and the other dogs will eventually figure out that class time is not crazy time.

Right now I have Bayley in private classes, no other dogs. We're starting right back at square one, but the instructor keeps it interesting and she gets ball time between working. At home, because I want to do Rally Obedience with her this summer, we work heeling around cones. This instructor is also willing to work around my work schedule..now if the darned weather would co-operate!!

I think I will keep taking him. I feel if I dont that he has learned (even just after one class) that its ok to act aggressively towards other dogs, even if its in fear- If i take him back I can work on showing him its not ok to act like that and its ok to be around other dogs and that he wont get hurt. I really wish there was a pro OB trainer around here for one on one but no such luck so I'm on my own. When spring rolls around here sometime soon (I hope) I can train at home and at the park outside and get his serious OB training started. Sometimes its just confusing to know what to do whats best for your dog!

As long as the other owners have THEIR dogs under control, and you are prepared to distract him from the others and keep his focus on YOU, you should keep taking him.