Ella's second go at agility

Today we had a second go at agility. We hire out an arena for an hour just for us so she doesn't have to cope with the stress of other dogs being there too.

I've got to say she amazes me, she's learned so quickly and she loves it to bits! The first time we went, we only did little sequences, but she learned so quickly that we progressed much quicker. Here's a video of her today, sorry about the awful quality, it was getting darker and it was taken on a mobile:



The only thing now that we've got an issue with are the contact zones. I've so far only attempted the walk, and that with previous training of walking over a plank etc which she's fine with. But she's scared of heights!! She also hates bridges etc. There are tree trunks in the park and she's fine walking on those, but only up to a certain height.. Has anyone got experience with this?

It's great that she's doing so well! I must admit we always start young dogs on a half-height dog walk to build up confidence. My latest dog, Jack, was a bit nervous of the full-height version but has got used to it now.

The thing is, I'm training by myself at the moment because she still gets too stressed by other dogs, and it's not my equipment. There's no half-height dog walk there.. She went over it once, but it took a long time and lots of treats and she was clearly anxious on it. I'm just wondering if she'll always have that fear of height or if she can get used to it? I know some humans never get over it lol

I wouldn't like to say either way - all you can do is keep trying and making it fun for her. Are there any other blocks that you could make a lower dog walk from? It is quite narrow so it's not surprising some dogs are a bit nervous - better that way than completely gungho!

Good luck with the dog walk; I suppose I'm lucky as Bailiie doesn't seem to fear anything very much and my trouble is trying to slow her down
Does she have a favourite toy you can use to coax her? I used to use a rabbit dummy but now I find its not necessary. Bailiie used to chase the dummy as I held it in front of her.
We are practising contact points at the moment, the see-saw is the hardest as Bailiie wants to fly off and move on to the next thing but we started last week by walking slowly and saying "right down" so she got to the end. It worked last week, fingers crossed she remembers for this week
Ella looks like she's loving it in the video so hope you progress well