Beginning Agility - Questions

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Whitney

Forums Regular
I have never done agility with a dog before, but it looks like fun activity. I’m not necessarily looking for a pup that is too driven, so my expectations of agility would be more of just a fun thing for me and my dog to. Not necessarily super competitive. However, I do have some questions about training, etc. Like how do you start training for agility, besides basic obedience? Do you need to build the course in your backyard, or are there training centers you can go to? Classes to take? About how old do you want the dog to be when you start introducing agility training? Thanks for your help!!
 
Good Questions and I am sure you will get lots of replys. AS for training you want to have good basic obiedience, a couple of levels anyway, you will need to have good control of the dog offleash before you can really start any serious group agility training, you can start this with the pup 12 to 16 weeks old, and go from there. AT the same time you can start what is called foundation training, this is teaching the dog to run with you, in circles and figure 8's, on your left side & right side, and just basically weaving back and forth with you with out getting stepped on or getting in the way, you can do target training here too & teach directional commands but don't expect much here at first. Then at 6 to 8 months you can maybe do some very , very low less the 6 inch jumps and tunnels and a low tire, at 10 to 12 months introduce some low contacts, low dog walk & low frame are OK but leave the teter till later. Once the dog is a year old you can start to train at higher jump hights and bring in the rest of the obsticals, and start moving to full hights on the contacts, I usually leave the teter as the last obstical to train but that's just me, as it tends to give the most adverse reactions in many dogs.

AS for training there are probably Clubs or training facilities in your area, that will offer training, you just need to check around, the best way to do this is to see if there is an agility trial going on in you area, go out have a look, take you pup out with you, talk to the people there , I am sure you will find most of them very accomadating and helpfull in this respect... don't be shy I think you will find most agility people very easy to approach and with a pup in tow a lot will probably approach you LOL, or check out the local phone book.
A training facility is usually the best route to take as they will have all of the proper legal equipment to use , but it wont hurt to have a few basic things in the backyard to practice with either, most of us have at least a few jumps & some weave poles & may be a tunnel or two just to have fun with.

But beware we all usually get into this to just have fun and work with our dogs,
but if you have the least little bit of a compeditive nature in you, its very, very easy to get carried away to the compeditive trail life, especially after you get that first Qual run:wink2:.
 
Whitney,
Welcome to the forums and I think its great that you want to try agility with your Sheltie. Its a fun game to play with them.

Here is some information I've posted before about starting out in agility. I hope some of it helps.

Its not recommended to start working on Jumping, Weaving, and some of the Contacts prior to 1 year because they are still growing and it could damage their growth plates. Competitive venues won't permit a dog under 1.5 years to participate.

That doesn't mean you have to wait that long to start training though. Here's a few things based on my experience in starting out. Some of this is probably going to repeat what was already stated but it never hurts to mention again.


1 - Obedience requirements: I think a better description here is BEHAVIOR basics rather than obedience because it's easy to confuse what you need for agility with competitive obedience. (Not that more advanced obedience is a bad thing. I had my CGC when I started agility training.) What you should have are basic behaviors - Sit, Stay, Down, and a very good recall. You can start without these in some clubs but it is highly recommended and encouraged - especially when you start off leash work.

2 - Tunnels: A child's play tunnel are perfect for indoors because they are small and short. An actual agility training tunnel would be a bit unruly indoors, especially if you don't have a lot of room.

3 - Flatwork: This is one of the foundations for agility; it's what happens between the obstacles. It includes things like 'recall to heel', basic sends, turning skills like front & rear crosses, etc. This is something you can definitely start working on without worrying about the dog's joints. Clean Run, the only magazine on the market for agility that I know of, has a book available called "Flatwork - Foundation for Agility" by Barb Levenson (http://www.cleanrun.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=1213&ParentCat=261). I looked on Amazon for this but they only have 1 used copy available and the seller is charging TWICE as much as a NEW copy from Clean Run would be.

4 - Teaching where his back legs, and body, are in relation to the front: Believe it or not, dogs don't really realize they have rear legs; or more specifically don't usually pay attention to where they are in relation to their front. So, we have to teach them. This skill is necessary for jump but more so for contacts like the dog walk and teeter, which are narrow. There are two different exercises you can do here:
  1. Ladder work: Place an extension ladder on the ground and walk him through it. Do NOT expect him to go through the entire thing the first time through. Start by rewarding him for starting to walk through it, even if he bails after a few steps. Slowly increase what he has to do with the ladder to receive the reward (get halfway across, get all the way across, get half way WITHOUT touching a rung, get all the way WITHOUT touching a rung.)
  2. Walk the plank: Put a plank of wood on the floor roughly 2x4x8. (You can do 2x4x4 if you can find that in the scrap wood or have a hardware store cut a 2x4x8 board in half for you.) Start by rewarding him for putting his feet on it. Increase the requirement for the treat by having him walk across it (all 4 paws don't have to be on at this time). Increase the requirement again by making sure he keeps all 4 paws on the board. Stopping at the end is NOT required for this exercise. If you want to make it a little more difficult, you can put something under the board to raise it off the floor by about 4-6 inches. (With a puppy, you don't want to go higher than 2 - 4 inches.)

5 - Teach targeting: Get the lid from a margarine container. Hold it in your hand perpendicular to the floor. Reward when he touches his nose to it. As he gets proficient at it, add the word "target" to the action. Next step: place the lid on the floor; reward when he touches it with his nose. (MAKE SURE he's touching it with his nose before you reward. Some dogs, after a little while, will go through the motion but won't actually touch the lid. You DO NOT want to reward that.) Again, add the word Target as he gets proficient at this. Finally, slowly start to move the target away from you and send him to it with a "Target" command from a sit stay. You can bait the target with a treat to get him started but still reward correct behavior even if you bait.

6 - Teach 2 On 2 Off: Using the same plank as above... once he can walk across with all 4 paws on the board, start requiring him to stop at the end with 2 paws on the board and 2 on the floor (2 on 2 off or 2o2o). If you want to make this a little more difficult, raise one end of the the board off the floor by 4-6 inches. (With a puppy, you don't want to go higher than 2 - 4 inches.)

Target training and 2o2o training go hand in hand. We use targets at the end of contact obstacles when training 2o2o because it gives the dog a reason to stop. Even if the target is baited, we still reward the correct 2o2o behavior.

Hopefully there will be something in this long post that can help you get started, Training works best in small doses - take 10 - 15 treats (not including bait treats) and when they are gone you are done.

I don't have a lot of space at home (I have next to no yard to speak of) but I am still able to do a little work at the house; jumping techniques, basic obedience, flatwork, sends (you can practice sending them around a dinning room table for instance), and other things as well. The biggest issue I have is practicing the Contact obstacles.

If you have a training facility near you, I'd recommend stopping by, without your pup, and talking to people and watching how they teach to see if it feels comfortable to you.

There are certain skills you do need to work on, such as weave poles, in order to for the dog to really learn them. If you don't have room to set them up, they'll still learn them, just at a slower pace.

I work with Edan a little bit every day but not just on Agilty itself. I constantly proof his sit, down, stand, and stay commands. I try to take a class with him each session - classes are one day a week for an hour at a time. When possible, since we are competing, I take him to run throughs at our facility. (Run throughs are just short courses set up where we can run a full course as well as work on specifics you only see on a course that are difficult to replicate in class.) Now that the weather is getting nicer, I'll probably start taking his jumps and weaves outside so we can play on them.

Anyway, I got a bit rambly here. I hope some of this helped and didn't scare you off. Agility really is a fun sport even if you just want to do build a relationship with your dog and never compete.
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Wow, that is quite a wealth of information! Thank you, I really appreciate it. This definitely looks like something I would like to try with my sheltie pup.
 
I saw your other post about questions for the breeder. If you are thinking you would like to do agility make sure you look for a pup with good structure and an outgoing personality. It doesn't have to be the driviest puppy ever but should be at least solid in temperment. Not that you can't do agility with a shy or more reserve dog, it will just be more difficult.

A good breeder should help match you up with a puppy that will meet your needs. Quite a diffience between was is right for a pet home, a recreational agility home and a serious agility home.
 
Justicemom said:
I saw your other post about questions for the breeder. If you are thinking you would like to do agility make sure you look for a pup with good structure and an outgoing personality. It doesn't have to be the driviest puppy ever but should be at least solid in temperment. Not that you can't do agility with a shy or more reserve dog, it will just be more difficult.

A good breeder should help match you up with a puppy that will meet your needs. Quite a diffience between was is right for a pet home, a recreational agility home and a serious agility home.
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Thanks for the advice! My ideal pup would be a combination of pet/companion and recreational agility
 
I agree with Justicemom. Regardless of the level you plan to compete at in agility (even if it's just for fun), you'll want a structurally sound dog with an outgoing type temperament. Even at the lowest levels, and just doing it for fun, you don't want a dog who will break down doing agility. That's very important, as there are many out there who will pass anything that's not going to make it in the conformation ring off as an agility dog... which includes dogs with the wrong temperament, and structural faults that will potentially lead to them breaking down over time. Cosmetic faults- head faults, bite is off, too short of a tail, eye shape is wrong won't hurt an agility dog. Things like poor angulation, or a dog with a really great front/rear and really poor of the opposite is going to have problems.
I also look for a puppy who wants to please/work with a person (a dog who wants to interact with you). An outgoing temperament and want to please attitude will take you far, AND make it a pleasant dog to own even just as a pet.
I owned one for nearly a year that had NO interest in working with people. High energy/drive... but was impossible to work. That dog is now back with her breeder being just a conformation dog, as she would've never made the type of teammate I wanted in agility.
 
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HopeShelties said:
Things like poor angulation, or a dog with a really great front/rear and really poor of the opposite is going to have problems.
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Do you have any tips on how I (as relatively unexperienced) could tell the difference between a structurally sound puppy and structurally unsound puppy? I'm not sure how I could tell poor angulation or not. Or is this just something I would have to take a more experienced person's word for?
 
Whitney said:
Do you have any tips on how I (as relatively unexperienced) could tell the difference between a structurally sound puppy and structurally unsound puppy? I'm not sure how I could tell poor angulation or not. Or is this just something I would have to take a more experienced person's word for?
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I too struggled with this when I decided to get my second sheltie. I wanted an agility dog (though a pet first and foremost) so structure was really important to me. I read up on it (you'll see some posts on here), and I even talked with sheltie breeder friends of mine, and they all said the same thing...that in order to truly understand structure, you have to put your hands on a dog, and have a mentor explain it to you.

I think the best thing you can do as a beginner is to find a truly trustworthy, responsible breeder. I know that task can be daunting, but once you find one, the breeder will be able to tell you about the puppy's structure beforehand.
 
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