Sniffing Agility

Pawz4Ever

Hiya this is my first thread so PLZ be nice!
My german pointer cross springer spaniel is great at agility, the only thing holding him back from getting a grade 2 is sometimes his attention wanders and he goes off sniffing. I've yelling at him, being nice to him(treats, toys, ect) and ignoring him. One of my friends suggested doing a few obsticals, then praising him, a few obsticals, then praising, ect but now every now and again he runs off course because he's expecting the praise.
Any ideas??????

Criosphynx

sniffing during training is a displacement behavior. the dog doesn't know what to do, for whatever reason, so he sniffs. This is usuallly a problem with the dog/handler interaction. Though it could be plain excitement/arousal.

If you have yelled at him, or used corrections to train this, its much more common. The other reason would be that the dog doesn't know the command, but I doubt that in this situation, as you have already competed with him.

http://baillement.com/displacement-delius.html

I would switch to a positive only aproach and demand less from the dog.

we are nice here!

Mikey

Welcome!! LOL Yes we are nice here no need to worry

Crio's advise is great I can't add to it We'd love to see pictures of your dog!