The "Awakening"

Most puppies go through the “I’m afraid of everything that I wasn’t afraid of before,” I like to call it the awakening. Well Jazz is ahead of schedule which is not surprising therefore she is in the middle to end of the awakening phase. Two weeks ago we visited my parents and the plants that we had to protect from her before (she ate them) she was now afraid off, growling and crying. Although it funny to watch, I try not to laugh and instead help her get over her fear of the small things. However in reading many books and articles, I found it best not to push the big things, instead put them aside for a little while and reintroduce them later, after this phase is over. That being said I am sorry to say that Jazz didn’t finish Agility, the class size was too big, she hadn’t begun obedience, she was in a major growing spurt making her uncoordinated and she was in her awakening phase. Jazz made it most of the way but the last three classes she just didn’t have it in her, she became very nervous around three of the major obstacles which were at regulation height. Jazz and I missed three important classes which brought the obstacles from low to regulation height. She did fine on these the first class that had them at regulation height, but the next class she just refused to do one of them, next class she refused to do two of them and then finally she refused to do three of them. We will resume agility at home first then introduce her back to a standard class size environment in about a month.