There are a number of things you can do at home to begin training agility before your dog even SEES a jump:
1 - Obedience: 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. You can order full size training tunnels online but until you know whether or not your dog will enjoy agility, you probably don't want to spend the money on specialty items. A child's tunnel you can give away to a family or day care if you end up not needing it.
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:
- 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.)
- 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.
Hope this helps!
, apparently he has all the time in the world