Beginning Agility-where Do I Begin?
In about a month or so I’m going ot be signing up for a class for agility with my dog. I heard you should wait until they are about a year old just to make sure their bones are formed fully and their muscles are mature enough.
So I was wondering if there were some at home activities that we could try to see how he does. Yesterday I set up a little ‘jump’ with two chairs and a broomstick. I laid the broomstick across the two chairs and talk him the command “over”. It took him a few tries, since his instinct was to go under rather than over. However, this morning we tried it before work and he was like a natural, he was flying back and forth over it and definitely already knows “over”.
So what are some other make shift things I could try at home. Since it’s winter, I don’t have space to set up any real courses, I was looking for more ideas for normal household things I could set up for him to work on. Like a tunnel, those little posts that they weave through, ramps. Has anyone had any luck coming up with other things?
Edit: This is a repost because it looks like it didn’t go through the first time, even though it is listed under my questions…and I didn’t have any answers.
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Start with your basic obedience skills. You will need a sit & down, fast & happy! A decent stay & a good recall with distractions. Make sure your dog is socialized with strangers & other dogs. You can teach some hand targeting & some general targeting. Both skills you will use in Agility training. You can practice some very low jumps if you want. No higher than your dog’s hocks. As far as makeshift equipment, I wouldn’t yet. You want to wait till you start a class to learn how to teach your dog to do the obstacles correctly. Teaching him wrong could cost you a lot of retraining (harder than learning right the first time), also you could make your dog afraid of the equipment or injure him. Your instructor will tell you what type of at home training equpment you will need & when & how to practice. Ask at the training club if there are any local Agility trials coming up. If so, go & watch. See what the sport really looks like. Watch the handlers. You can even help some. This is a great way to get into the sport & start to learn. Good Luck! & Have Fun!
The best thing you can do to prepare for agility class? Work on your obedience skills. Agility is done off leash, and a dog with good obedience will have an easier time concentrating on agility instead of all the other dogs, humans, smells, etc.
Kips mom is 100% correct. The dog absolutely MUST have a solid base in obedience, including a very good recall. You need to work on your obedience skills before you get to the class..or you and your instructor both will get frustrated.
I do training with my dog, one thing I use at home is the footstool…table…down…stay
having your dog sitting and staying before they are allowed to go is huge too
build a ramp from wood.
I will star for my contacts
sorry I couldnt help much
Take a look here: http://www.clickertraining.com/node/1286 You’ll want to get him used to a variety of surfaces and movement under his feet. you can set up a small teeter with a board and something round under it, or look into making or buying a tippy board or buja board to help teach him to balance on unstable surfaces. I would not introduce the weave poles, jumps, ramps, or other obstacles yet. You want to have a good, solid base in basic obedience and directional commands before introducing any obstacles. Most instructors will not introduce any jumping to a dog under 18 months to avoid straining the joints, instead the jumps will be placed at a level they can step over when they are young. I would not be putting him over jumps at home now if he’s still young. Teach your dog to move away from you, turn right, turn left, go ‘on’ ahead, go around an object in both directions, etc. Being able to direct your dog through the course is needed before you can be successful at obstacles. There are good tips for teaching directionals here: http://www.agilityaddicts.net/aatipsdire… Also teach him awareness of where his feet are. Lie a ladder on the ground and have him walk through it. He’ll need to learn to lift his feet and be aware of where to put them. Also start work on ‘contacts’ with a plain board on the ground. It should be 12-18″ wide, depending on your dog’s size, and at least a few feet long. Walk the dog down the board, and teach the dog to stop on the end with either one, two, or all four feet still on the board (I use two on, two off). Reward for pausing in that position. This will be transferred later on to the teeter, dog walk, and A-frame to make sure they touch the contact zones at the end and don’t leap off early. You will have a lot more success in the long run if you develop a rock-solid base in directionals and focus and obedience before you introduce obstacles. Good luck!
No, no, no, no, no! Don’t listen to the folks telling you to put a broomstick over two chairs. Agility is NOT about your dog jumping over obstacles. Novices or people who’ve never done it think that’s what the sport is about–it isn’t. It’s about building focus, operating as a team and then your ability BETWEEN the obstacles. Getting your dog jumping over anything right now makes about as much sense as trying to get your dog to play the violin–it absolutely will not prepare you for agility in any way–there is no good in it at all at this stage for the two of you.
Yeah, I know you want to start doing obstacles. But you only have one month (which is NOT enough time to do what I’m going to suggest) so do the best to get as much accomplished below as you can. It would be better if you had 6-9 months to work on this stuff before your first class but I guess that can’t be helped. In the mean time, don’t try anything so silly as to create your own obstacles and start doing them–that’s at best a waste of time that will not give you a head start in agility.
1. Get clicker savvy. I owned 15 dogs in my life and never used a clicker on any of them. Started agility with #16 and used a clicker with him. I have no idea how anyone can train for agility without using a clicker. It’s not that the clicker is magic, it’s the principle of operant conditioning. It’s what the Navy uses to train dolphins, what the SeaWorld trainers use for Orcas. Get knowledgeable about a clicker, get the clicker “loaded” and get your dog acclimated to you. I think it’s fair to say that not being clicker savvy means agility will take you, at a minimum, 3X longer than if your’e clicker savvy. It should take you 1-2 months to get clicker savvy and decent on the timing–if you’re a quick learner and start out by reading some good material on operant conditioning and using a marker.
2. Start behavior shaping (which is done using a clicker). A really smart dog should be able to do a range of different behaviors with 2-3 months using a clicker. The reason why this is invaluable is it makes teaching agility behavior a cinch. Your dog learns how to learn, you learn how to prompt particular behavior, you also discover how to teach complex behaviors very precisely. Seriously–how would you teach your dog to put only one rear toe (or paw) in a contact zone? With behavior shaping it’s easy.
3. Get into training tricks. You’ve only got a month so there isn’t much time. Try for a new trick every week and keep doing this during agility training. You see, tricks teach your dog that you’re the source of fun, you learn how your dog learns, these become stepping stones for agility skills and also critical agility warmups. Let me give you an example: I’ve taught my dog to….
–weave between my legs (which teaches one element of weave skills–wrapping around my legs and is a great warmup at trials where there aren’t weaves outside the ring to practice on)
–jump into my arms when I say “arms” (which is how we end all of our runs and is a rocksolid recall even when he gets distracted or alarmed). This has saved us at least three Q’s where he almost ran outside the ring after his run.
–a series of knuckle and palm touches (which I use to build focus just before we run in the ring)
–crawling (a great muscle stretching activity before running).
I’m guessing to teach all of these tricks (if your dog can’t currently do them) would be around 2-5 months.
4. Work on obedience. You will need a rock-solid sit-stay (for the start line), a great down-stay (for the table), a great recall and a strong heel. All agility is done naked–your dog competes without a leash or collar and with tons of distractions. I don’t know your dog so I have no idea how strong your obedience is at this point and won’t guess how long it takes to acquire this stuff.
5. Flatwork and circlework. Before you ever run a course, you should be able to run it without the obstacles. You should be able to do a circle (with the dog on the inside or the outside) heeling perfectly withyou as you run–not getting in front, lagging behind, crossing behind you or getting distracted. Start with walking. Think of it as going for a walk with your dog with no leash–how would you do? Now deviate the course–make a mazy walk. Pick up speed. Go in circles. This takes about 3-5 months to get okay (not great) at.
6. Health. Get your dog checked out by a vet. Make sure your dog is in good shape and definitely not overweight. Get on a hiqh quality dog food (something like Innova Evo). The two of you should start interval training (since agility is about sprints and quick recoveries).
7. Crate trained. When you walk the course, you’ll put your dog in the crate for 5 minutes and go out of sight. Can your dog handle that?
Okay, you’ve got about 6-9 months of work outlined here. Don’t waste your time by jumping over broomsticks or trying to build indoor obstacles–you’ve too much other stuff to work on.
Unless you have a really big dog, a broom on a chair is too high. Most dogs start off with a 10 inch jump height and move up slowly. The height that the dog will jump is based on the height of the dog. If you are going to use chairs, put the broom across the bottom rung of the chair.
A children’s play tunnel will work.
Work on basic obedience. A good recall is vital to agility. You also need to have you dog able to work on both sides of you (left and right). Walking your dog on both sides is a good start.
Wait until your start the classes to do too much. The trainer will know how to properly teach your dog some of the harder obsticles.
I would not even try to train a dog in agility without a trainer who knows what they are doing.
Be careful, make sure your with your “jumps” that the Broomstick can fall if he hits it accidentally. You can get a kid’s tunnel and start to have him go thru it. Wait until class starts before you start with the weaves or other obstacles because sometimes they can be difficult to teach correctly and you may have to undo some training if started off incorrectly.
Practice your obedience. Especially recalls. Do some target training. teach him to follow your hands, Remember, that in agility dogs are running loose. sometimes in the same area as other dogs and you need to have control over him.
Have fun