Just wondering if its possible for an independant collie to do agility, my collie is independant but i would dearly love to do agility!!!! Help!

I'm sure it would be possible, but uou need to learn how to get your dog to listen to and work with you. Clicker training is excellent for all dogs but especially independent ones, as they tend to feel that they are training you :P

Lindsay
x

Absolutely!! I have one that is very independent. LOL He thinks too much really and will get me eliminated because of it, the upside is that he also gets me out of trouble when I make a pigs ear of it. You can't have it both ways LOL. I have a 5 month pup that has the same attitude, I would rather have them this way. My dog does agility because he wants to. He doesn't do it cos I tell him to, pleasing me isn't the first thing on his mind. He would run with anyone, he doesn't need me there. It took a lot of work to get the control on a course but I have seen people with much clingier dogs have the same problems but my dog doesn't give a stuff about getting it wrong cos he can think for himself and he is never wrong!! :-D :-D If you can find a training group with space then go for it. Just be prepared for the frustration. I used a soft ragger to get mine to focus on me. I played with him and really wound him up and then put in in my pocket and ignored him. Eventually he started to lose interest and look elsewhere and then he got the toy again. I only used this toy in training when he did something right and now I don't use it at all, he gets his lead instead. I found this the best way of getting mine to focus on me as he is toy mad. The fact that the dog only gets the toy when you say makes it special and mine will do anything on the off chance that he will get 20 seconds tug time. I found clicker training didn't really work with him cos he is always right and doesn't need a clicker to tell him that ;-)