Agility

[btsparks]

Next week Sophie mu 6 Month old starts agility then next month starts working on her CGC and Therapy certificate. We are so excited.

Brian

[ZoesMomma]

Zoe LOVES agility! She is finally old enough to be in a Basic 1 Class. We were lucky to go to a facility that has Puppy Agility, so she's had two classes already. You're gonna have fun!

[targonrotts]

you will become addicted!
great!
start slow, do alot of groundwork early on. work on obedience. work her on your left and on your right. practice warm ups before working, and don't jump anything higher than 12" until she is at least 18 months and her growth plates have closed. practice safety and don't rush her, make it fun and you will both enjoy it!

[btsparks]

Thank you for the info.

Brian

[keller27]

I am trying to find something to get back into the dog sports with Khori. He is 3, so thought I would bring out my agility jumps. Well, he could have cared less. I was all excited and trying to get him motivated on it, but guess it is not his thing. He would go over the jumps with me. He can stand and jump over them, but after like twice, he's done. He has his CGC. He just doesn't get overly excited over anything. I have started using clicker with him, to help with his trial and errror system. Maybe if I can do that, he will start getting more excited over other things.

[targonrotts]

make it a game, start low.
find a local class to help you get started.

[TrinaJ]

After obedience class on Saturday, Jett and I hung around to watch a few people in Agility and I thought it looked like a lot of fun for both dog and handler.

Jett is a very High Energy dog so i need to do more things with her (currently we train twice per week; Wednesday night at the Rotty Club and Saturday afternoons at my local Dog Club), we go on 4 x 1/2 hour walks every day but STILL she has an astounding amount of energy. So i enquired about Agility. I was told that i was not allowed to enrol her until she was 12 months old and because she is a rotty maybe i would have to wait until she was 18 months old. Jett is 6 months old, I had no idea how old the dog had to be and i 'assumed' that i could just do this for fun until she was old enough (i was looking at the tunnel work and the climbing NOT jumping). Is this normal to be told your dog has to wait until 12-18 months old? I dont want to do anything that will hurt her, we just need to do more to try and run all of this energy out of her.

Can someone please tell me what other things I can do with her at this age?

Many thanks,

Trina

[moondog]

Originally Posted by TrinaJ

Jett is a very High Energy dog so i need to do more things with her (currently we train twice per week; Wednesday night at the Rotty Club and Saturday afternoons at my local Dog Club), we go on 4 x 1/2 hour walks every day but STILL she has an astounding amount of energy. So i enquired about Agility. I was told that i was not allowed to enrol her until she was 12 months old and because she is a rotty maybe i would have to wait until she was 18 months old.

Can someone please tell me what other things I can do with her at this age?

If there is a puppy agility class somewhere nearby, I don't see any harm in that. It would (or more appropriately - should) just be foundation work in agility (getting used to low board work, wobbly surfaces, going through standards with poles on the ground, learning directional signals, etc).

I waited to start agility until my dog was two - and really it had to do with my belief that she should have a good foundation in obedience before being exposed to the crazy chaos that agility certainly is for many people/dogs who participate in it (they are everywhere!). I'm not going there, but they do come with the territory and I want my dog to be able to "overlook" a lot of stuff so the activity truly is fun for both of us.

We are in our sixth month (4th session) of foundation classes in agility, and the highest we jump at this point is 8" - with most of the work being started with the poles on the ground. We are just now starting to put a jump or two together with a tunnel, rear crosses over jumps set on a turn, and have yet to see the dog walk, weave poles or the a-frame. We do lots of very controlled teeter work (targeting 2o/2o, highly rewarded bounce the teeter games, having the dogs stand on the elevated teeter while we just feed, feed, feed them, etc.). There are many exercises that can be done without any equipment at all (teaching left/right, rear cross, sit/down on a mark, targeting, etc.).

It's really been good for Chili, her competition obedience has improved because of it, too....and I'm in NO hurry to go forward too fast. About half our class are puppies. Knowing what I know now, I would have started her very young, as a foundation class is much different that the more advanced classes where the dogs are doing courses and the whoops and hollers can be heard for 1/4 mile, LOL.

[TrinaJ]

Thanks Moondog, that's the kind of class i was wanting to get Jett into. I will have to find out if another club does puppy agility. I want this to be fun for both of us and see it as something to complement the obedience classes we are taking.

We still have a LONG way to go in basic obedience, she actually sat in the 'stay' position on Saturday and i walked all the way around her, so we are progressing, slowly, but we are progressing

Thank you for answering my question, i wasn't interested in competition, just the basic foundations of agility, something to get her mind working a bit harder.

Will keep you posted on how i go with finding a place that will teach us the basics.

Trina

[mellie13]

Jiezel does both agility and ob, we love both... its more time to spend together, more fun... but nothing very serious in the competitions... we just enjoy spending time together and in fact it really helps for obedience.