How Long Did It Take?

[memyselfNi]

I realise the time frame from when you decide to train your dog to a competitve stage can vary on a number of factors, but I would like to get a general idea on how long it took some of you from when you started training to when you actually competed.

In any of the sports, obedience, jumping, agility, tracking etc would be appreciated

Smiles :p

[xena98]

Hi

My current dog Gabby I started to trial her in CCD at 9 months. She is now 26 months old and has her UD title. She started her Agility career in June at 22 months old and has her ADX and JDX and her GD and 3 legs of her GDX and 1 leg of novice snooker. Xena my nearly 11 year old dog Cant quite remember when I started CD but I know I had her in UD at 20 months and she is still competing competitively still and I had her in agility at 18 months and by the time she was 20 months had her title. My 7.5 year old border collie Inka I had her in the trial and she had her UD title by the time she was 2 and started her agility at 22 months

[dogdude]

I really think it just a personal choice thing.

Some people like to title their dogs early, concentrating on titles alone, and others concentrate less on titles, and more about acheiving high scores.Not to say that both are not acheivable, just not likely.

Most of the consistant trial winning people will tell you to only enter a trial when your dog is truely ready.

I think when I started out in obedience trialling, I tended to look at the overall picture of my dogs performance, instead of breaking the exercises down into tiny pieces. This was a big mistake.

Training times for obedience dogs generally come down as your experience grows, although my latest dog is yet to hit the trialling ring, and she has just turned two, and started her training at 11 weeks of age.

She would have been competitive enough to gain a ccd or novice title at 5 or 6 months of age, but personally, I think I get fussier with each dog I trial. You see the little things that you know will cost you a point or two, so you tend to keep trying to iron them out.

Achieving a Highest Score In Trial is normally decided by just one or two points, so if that is your goal, then that is what you need to train for. Every point is critical.

Ideally I would have entered my dog 6 months ago, but I only just got the transfer of ownership papers yesterday for her.

I am looking at entering her over the next few weeks somewhere.

[Seita]

My last girl was competeing in novice when she was 12-18 months old. She was not ready and needless to say we didn't do very well. With my current girl I started training her from 8 weeks and she didn't enter the obedience ring until she was 2 (around march last year). Like dogdude said she would have probably been ready and would have done it at 12 months old but I wanted good scores and I wanted her 100% proofed as I didn't want to muck around in those lower levels. She gained her CDX title in August last year and has been in training for UD since then. She is just about ready for UD now but I still want to do further proofing and training so it's not likely that she will hit the UD ring until she's around 4 as again I don't want to muck around with loads of fails and just want to get in there and do well from the very start!

[TerraNik]

I've been training both of my dogs since they were 8 weeks old...

Jedi has just entered the CCD ring and he's 18 months old.

Ahsoka will probably start early next year at about the same age (18 months).

[Agility Dogs]

Xena started competing in agility at 18 months after starting 'proper' training at 12 months. This is a video from her second trial.

Both she and I have improved significantly in the 2 years since her first outing.

Her first flyball race was around the same time and she has been pretty much spot on ever since. We started flyball training at about 14 months so it only took about 4 or 5 months to get her going really well there.

I've been incredibly lucky with her because she is a very willing worker and very forgiving of novice handler/trainer mistakes - and there have been a LOT of them.

CK on the other hand started training seriously at 14 months (we could only do very basic obedience up until then because of an injury that took about 9 months to get sorted fully) and just now at almost 3 years is beginning to get it, although we still have a major issue with weavers (only in the ring, not at training - go figure) that we have to sort out.

This is one of our earlier efforts - very sad!! :p He's always gone well at training, but when you add the layer of a competition ring we do struggle. He is just about 'there' though.

His progression in flyball was pretty similar to Xena's. He did his first flyball beginners comp only 2 months after he started training

and hasn't looked back. In that run he had a good look around, but by the end of the day he was running low 5 second runs, he is now consistently under 5 seconds over lower heights and there or there abouts at the full 14 inches.

[xena98]

Hi

Even though my girls are in early being working breeds they only did go in the ring when they were ready. Gabbys CCD score was 99,98,and 96 and that was she was afraid of this particular judge. Dont know why. All my girls understand what there job is and they are very consistent with high scores normally in the 190's. But like people said there is no rush you put them in when they are ready. When they are young I do break up the exercise to little bits so they understand.

[Tay.]

I started training Jess in basic obedience when I first got her at 8 weeks. We started training in ring work type stuff at the start of this (April-ish) year and we entered our first trial (CCD) in late May. So she was about 17-18 months old. I think I could have waited a few more months because though she seemed ready in training, we didn't pass til our third trial.

I think her brain really kicked in when she was about 22 months old as we got three passes in a row, no worries

She is now exactly 24 months old Happy 2nd Birthday Jess!!!

[J...]

Darcy is my first dog so she went all the way through puppy school and obedience. Our club trial was on in March and I volunteered to steward in CCD to help out, despite quite a few of my instructors telling me I should be trialling. I'd never even seen an obedience trial at that stage and not no real interest in it - agility was my thing but Darcy was still too young at 15 months.

Anyway I stewarded, decided that yes we could do that and we entered the first close by trial we could which was April. She got two passes in CCD that day and got her final CCD pass the following weekend.

She entered agility (jumping only) at 18.5 months and had her title within 3 trials. She didn't start agility until she was 2 because she wasn't ready contact wise. She got both her Masters titles this year at 3 yo.

Zee is 4.5 months, she'll be entered in agility and maybe obedience when she's ready. I won't be in such a hurry to get her in the ring now I have a dog competing.

[Zug Zug]

And then there are those of us who are reeeaaaallly slooooow....

Zamba and I started weekend training (half-heartedly) when she was 7 years old. She got her CCD at 10 years old. We now have one leg of her CD title and she is 11.

We'd be happy to get her CD before she breaks a hip! :D

The point with us is really that I'm a learner. She's a great student - if only I'd stop teaching her all the wrong things!

But honestly I don't care much. We have a great time and she neeeeeeds the stimulation (bonkers dog otherwise), so I reckon who cares how long it takes? It's a great game I play with my dogs, we love it, so we keep coming back.

[gsdog2]

And then there are those of us who are reeeaaaallly slooooow....

Zamba and I started weekend training (half-heartedly) when she was 7 years old. She got her CCD at 10 years old. We now have one leg of her CD title and she is 11.

Go Zamba (and Zug Zug)

As long as you're having fun, who cares how long it takes

[luvsdogs]

And then there are those of us who are reeeaaaallly slooooow....

Zamba and I started weekend training (half-heartedly) when she was 7 years old. She got her CCD at 10 years old. We now have one leg of her CD title and she is 11.

We'd be happy to get her CD before she breaks a hip! :D

The point with us is really that I'm a learner. She's a great student - if only I'd stop teaching her all the wrong things!

But honestly I don't care much. We have a great time and she neeeeeeds the stimulation (bonkers dog otherwise), so I reckon who cares how long it takes? It's a great game I play with my dogs, we love it, so we keep coming back.

I'm going to be like you. I'm a lazy trainer & have found over the last few weeks the things I have to concentrate on. About the only thing Tilba knows for sure is, where heel is.

Her recall is poor, her stays are poor except for waiting for her dinner, & forget stand for exam, she's a wriggle wart.

[Heidii]

We offically started agility training and going to a club in Feb 2009. Our first & only ADAA trial was at the end of May 2009. We didnt get a pass card but didnt get DQ either! Then in September 2009 we entered out first ANKC trial at the Royal melbourne show...Somehow in someway we ended up winning Novice class. So many people told me I shouldnt be trialling until i have been training for at least a year...infact you'll probably see some topics in here about it...I think if you know your dog and your ready then go for it! Who cares whats happens anyway was my philosophy...I treated trials just like i did training.

Edited October 12, 2009 by Heidii

[BittyMooPeeb]

In agility, my first dog and I trained for 3 yrs before starting to compete. With my second dog it was only one year (but that turned out to be too soon as she gets stressed and misbehaves on the course)

Obedience was less - 2yrs for my first dog to start competing in CCD, 1yr for the second dog. (neither have their titles - I started doing agility instead!)