Oh definitely, they shine under positive, upbeat training methods. And I could see where they'd easily shut down under negative ones. Not too long ago at agility class, one of the dogs was making a beeline towards another one, with what looked like intent to attack it. The trainer jumped up near Oz, ran into the path of the attacking dog and was waving her hands, hollering at him, so that he'd be scared to running back to his owner, which he did. Meanwhile Oz about had a heartattack. He launched himself into my lap and the rest of the class, he gave the trainer a wide berth. It wasn't even directed at him, but still it upset him.

He's the only dog in class that the trainer will not use those types of methods on. Whenever he's fallen off the dog walk, those are the times where he's stressed and won't come to me. But she won't intervene, she'll just give me time to calmly go track him down. I don't use any negative language at all towards him for agility. If we make a mistake in class, I just ignore it. Some of the other people can get away with saying "No" to their dogs, but there's no way I could do that with Oz. He'd shut down in a nanosecond. I just let it go, because I know he'll figure out really fast, what gets him the cookie and what doesn't.

Par...