Isla (nearly 8 months) is on week 8 of her obedience course.  First of all we made really amazing progress, she is after all a sheltie and as such bright and receptive.  Until today that is.

I do our homework religiously most days and she is spot on.  However tonight at the class she was rubbish. In the sit stays she wanted to lie down and go to sleep, in the down stays she tried to get up and amble off.  And worst of all was in the heel work.   She normally excels in this and trots round looking at me and everyone says - perfect.  Not tonight Josephine - she has discovered that she can jump up at the lead and bite it instead of concentrating on the job in hand.  I do wonder if I am to blame as I took Isla and Pip my JR out for a  huge long walk with a friend and her two at lunch time today and when we got back (very mud spattered) I had to bath both dogs and Isla slept like the dead for hours!!! When she woke up and had her dinner she was sooo full of beans - I wonder if that was why she was less than attentive?  In 4 more weeks whe has to undergo the test but I don't think she anywhere near ready yet!

Help!!
Snowflake

Sounds like she was overtired and hyper. Also she may have reached a plateau with the training and her brain was hurting and the information all getting muddled. Quite simply her focus had gone. It'll come back. Don't overdo things on training days- using the brain requires a lot of energy. She's still developing and so is her brain, so just be patient and carry on with the homework. It will all come together, but expect things to fall apart every now and then too.

You will get bad weeks.
I remember some weeks leaving training as proud as punch that my dog did everything perfect. Some weeks he was just rubbish and completely "forgot" everything i'd taught him OR he'd be fantastic at home then show me up in class, or be a nightmare at home and when i'd get to the class i'd tell them we'd had a bad week and he hadnt taken anything in just for him to proceed to do everything we'd practised that week perfectly making me look like a complete liar :-) dogs are much like children really!!

8 months old ? She could be coming into season

Yes Moonmaiden I am keeping an eye on the season issue!

I do feel that the pace of this course has stepped up a bit too much and she is on "brain overload" and so am I!  I daresay that we will have to repeat this course once more (a lot do).  I think she has a busy little brain and some aspects no doubt finds quite boring - like long down staysLOL but still they have to be done!

Snowflake

'First of all we made really amazing progress, she is after all a sheltie and as such bright and receptive'

I would be giving myself a big pat on the back for doing so well in JUST 8 weeks. My dog found obedience so boring & used to behave worse than this most weeks. He was nearly 2 yrs old before he 'turned over a new leaf'. I would lighten up a bit, don't take it too seriously, she is only a puppy after all.

Oh girls at that age!
I'm having the same sort of issues with my 8 month old GR who behaved terribly at the last ringcraft class. I was told she's having a "kevin" phase which is fairly common at that age when they haven't had their first season. I'm waiting anxiously for it to start... and then, relief...?

She sounds really switched on but I agree with MM in that her season may be coming up...possibly?

I've had Belgian Shepherds and found one bitch was not changed during her seasons/coming up to them, but my currrent girl was just so funny coming up to her first season - very distracted, not really listening, etc.

I just continued to train but with a big  sense of humour (well, I do that anyway but this was with a bigger dose!! lol) and in 3 weeks she had her first season and was back to normal by the second week.

We were told to expect a time of seeming disobedience when learned behaviour was making a transfer from short term memory to long term memory and was temporarily unavailable to pooch.  Our trainer said about 5 weeks after first learning something it might happen, though the time was variable.  It's just a theory, you can google it, but a few in our class identified with it.  It's also something I studied myself in my adult education classes as it applies to people too.  No magic wand to get over it, just patience and repetition.  Something to consider?

My boy had a night just like your girl, the second last class before his CGN test.  We'd been working diligently too.  He was about the same age at the time.  I gave him a vacation.   NO training for a few days, just fun walks in the bush off the leash.  It worked for us. 

Now tonight she was brill.  Bit of a practice for the Big Test in a couple of weeks.  At last she managed the down - called from a distance when she was standing.  My 7 year old son grandson Tom  is staying and we had a good old go at it this afternoon, he is great with Isla and she loves him.  He was though a bit of a distraction for her at the training as he is not normally there - Tom is with me for half term but lives in Wimbledon. Isla loves Tom as she has known him all her short life!  We had never tried the recall before but put her in a sit stay by a wall.  I walked to the other side of the large room (scout hut) and called her.  She came like a dream and sat in front of me - I was so proud of her as she is only 8 months old.

Ah well probably won't last!!

Snowflake