Tap is a very special little girl. She has been through a lot in her short little life, and that has obviously affected her outlook on life. Tap came to me through a rescue call. At the time I was running my own rescue, which turned out to be much more difficult than I had anticipated. I was contacted by a family who had just adopted a border collie from the local animal control, and now they needed to find her a new home. To make a long story short they got more dog than they could handle and she was terrorizing everything in the house.

Tap had very little self-control or self confidence. She was afraid of everything, but at the same time had a drive to be doing something. Trouble was that something was usualy not an activity you would encourage!

I began training Tap right away and it soon became clear, that what she really needed was some time to find her place as a dog. To calm down and chill out. While she was taught basic manners so I could handle living with her there was no formal obedience training at all. Instead we focused on interacting correctly with humans and other dogs. When she first came home she had no interest in toys what-so-ever, but about 6 months into her "rehab" she decided that toys were WONDERFUl, and she is a play freak now.

About a year ago I decided that she was ready for compitition. She was trianing beautifully, great heeling, perfect sits, good fronts ect. The stress and pressure proved to be more than she could handle and she totaly shut dowmn on me in the ring. This definatly set us back some, but allowed me to realize that her number one issue was still a lack of confidence.

Our new game plan has been Rally! I can talk to her the whole time which is fantastic. After she got her RN I continued to show her in Novice. For those of you that have dogs with confidence issues I HIGHLY reccomend Rally. And STAY in novice! Just because you title does not mean you have to move on. I stayed in Novice with Tap until she could make it through the course with good attention, a happy attitude and minimal talking from me. This has been the best idea ever. The last time I showed her in Novice she was a cocky, tail waggin, forging, pracny girl and I loved every second of it. Tap has since moved up and attained her RA, but we will stay in advanced until we conquere being off leash.

Titles earned: Obedience No obedience titles earned yet

Titles working on: 1st CD leg, score 186.5

Rally RN - Rally Novice RA - Rally Advanced

E-mail us

Home