04/27/2026
Does Your Dog Fall Apart in Competition? Good â Because Itâs Perfectly NormalâŠ
Picture this.
Youâre chatting to your neighbour about their dog and you say, âDo you fancy taking your dog to a massive field, a couple of square miles, and just letting them off lead?â
Theyâd probably go, yeah, sounds nice.
Then you add, âThereâll be a few hundred dogs there. A few hundred people. A burger van. Dogs running at speed. People throwing toys. Entire males, entire females⊠and plenty of smells from all the dogs that have already been there.â
They might hesitate slightly.
And then you finish with, âOhâand while all of that is happening, Iâd like your dog to give you undivided attention.â
Now it sounds ridiculous.
And yet⊠thatâs exactly what we do every time we go to a competition.
The funny thing is, when youâre in the dog sports world, you stop seeing it like that. It just becomes ânormal.â Just another show, another ring, another run. But if you actually step back and look at it properly, you realise weâre asking for a seriously high level of focus in one of the most distracting environments imaginable. And then weâre surprised when things fall apart.
Weâve all either said it or heard it⊠âbut he does it perfectly at home.â Of course he does. The garden is quiet, predictable, safe. Itâs the easiest version of the exercise youâll ever see. Competition is the complete opposite. So when your dog suddenly looks like theyâve forgotten everything they know, itâs not because theyâre being difficult, itâs because the entire picture has changed and theyâre trying to process it.
And this is where people get stuck, because they assume something has gone wrong. In reality, what youâre seeing is actually very normal. What weâre asking dogs to do in that environment is huge. Weâre asking them to ignore dogs, people, movement, smells, their own instincts⊠and still choose us. Thatâs not basic training. Thatâs advanced. So if your dog struggles with that, thatâs normal.
Youâll also often see a drop in performance when you first step into competition. The dog that looks sharp, fast, and engaged at home suddenly feels a bit flat, a bit slower, a bit less precise. Sometimes that drop is 20%, sometimes 30%, sometimes more. Thatâs not your training falling apart, thatâs your dog learning how to work in a much harder environment. Again, thatâs normal.
And then thereâs the environment itself. For a lot of dogs, itâs genuinely overwhelming at first. Theyâre sniffing, looking around, taking everything in, maybe struggling to settle. Thatâs not them being naughty or blowing you off, thatâs them trying to understand where they are. In those moments, the best thing you can do is actually take the pressure off. Walk them around, let them sniff, let them absorb it without immediately asking them to perform. Give them time to acclimatise. Thatâs normal too.
What people donât talk about enough is how much this affects us as handlers as well. You feel it. You get nervous, your timing changes, you rush, you move differently. You might even smell different to your dog. And they notice all of that. So when things feel a bit off, itâs not just in your head, and itâs not just your dog. Thatâs normal.
And then thereâs that frustrating gap between âknows itâ and âcan do it here.â Just because your dog can perform something beautifully at home doesnât mean they can do it in a completely different environment with completely different levels of distraction. Skills donât automatically transfer. They need to be built, layered, and practised in context. So when it doesnât hold up outside your training bubble, thatâs normal as well.
When you look at it like this, the goal shifts. Itâs not about getting your dog to âlisten better.â Itâs about building the kind of engagement where your dog chooses you, even when everything else is competing for their attention. Because thatâs what competition really tests.
So if your dog falls apart in competition⊠good. It means youâre finally seeing the real picture. And once you can see it clearly, you can start training for it properly.
Thatâs normal. Thatâs expected. And most importantly, itâs fixable.
Over the next couple of weeks, Iâm going to be diving into this a lot more. Iâll be running a live series breaking down how to build real focus, how to create durable engagement, and how to actually prepare your dog for these environments. And Iâve got something coming that will be a bit of a game changer for anyone who struggles with focus and engagement.
So keep your eyesâand earsâpeeled đ
