ANOTHER setback *sigh*

...and this one is embarassing. My friend Dee was kind enough to offer me a mini-Rally lesson at her home, so Sunday morning Blitz and I went off and had a fantastic time. He met her mini-poodle and her Bostons and all was great. On Sunday afternoon I would meet with Dee again and some of her Novice students at the training building with Moto. Again, all was well until the sit-stays. Moto's rear legs began splaying out so I went over to him to tuck them back under, when a Yorkie pup for whatever reason became enraged and ran over and attacked Moto. To my mortification Moto got up and ran from the 4-lb terror (Moto is a whopping 42 lbs). We caught both dogs, pup was corrected, Moto calmed and we tried again, this time with Dee standing on the Yorkie's leash. Alas, Dee lost her balance, the pup took advantage and AGAIN ran over to attack Moto. Suffice it to say Moto was done with any training for the day.
Initially I was upset with the Yorkie, but upon thinking it over, I realized Moto's reaction prompted the problem. If he were more confident with himself, he would have remained sitting and looked bemusedly at the pup as if to say "what is YOUR problem?". With Moto's thick massive coat and size, there is absolutely no way this pup could have inflicted any pain. So this, and the "card table incident" are absolutely terrifying incidents in his young life. *sigh*.
So, here is what I think: I think Moto is very young and very immature. It's going to be a very, very long time before he can enter the Obedience ring. I need to continue to train him of course, but have no planned obedience debut schedule. He needs to have positive experiences and lots of them, and reinforcement from me that I love him and reward his efforts.
IN the meantime, we'll move forward with an agility debut and possibly a herding debut in the winter or spring of next year. Both these two venues are great confidence-builders. And of course, his beloved tracking. So obedience will be on the back burner for awhile, he'll probably go to class 1-2 times a month, while we focus on other things for awhile. It's discouraging, but he is what he is, and to force things would be a waste of everyone's time.
Meantime, Blitz got a clean bill of health so he will be entered in Rally Novice for the Lawrence show. Now - that is exciting!