Teaching The Basics Of Agility

[whitka]

Fly is a 7 month old Border Collie and I want to get into agility with her but not sure where to start. What are the basics that I should be teaching her?

[sheena]

A good solid stay, with a fast drive once released....hand touches & targeting...working on both your left side & your right & not crossing behind you....focus...back end awareness...being comfortable on wobbly surfaces.....how to play with a tug toy...reliable recall. I am sure there are lots of things I have left out, but clicker training is an invaluable tool IMO & using the clicker to shape most of the above as well as as many tricks as you can. This creates focus on you & a willingness to please you. With my older BC, I only have to produce the clicker & she is like putty in my hands An excellent puppy book to get is The Focused Puppy & start by teaching everything in there.

[Tay.]

You could also do a little bit of contact work, something similar to this...

and some shadow handling, lots of turns, startline stays, just keeping it fun!

(something like this)

[canine fun sports]

This creates focus on you & a willingness to please you.

I agree with all that is said, but advise to be wary about creating a dog whose only focus is on you. It is important with any agility trainined dog to be able to signal focus on the handler (and these behaviours should be rewarded by rewarded close to you and out of your hand) but it is equally important to teach you dog to drive ahead and away from you, focusing ahead (usually at obstacles or a target of some sort) and these behaviours should be rewarded by throwing a toy, or food out ahead of you to an area where you want the behaviour to continue. You do not want a dog whose speed is limited by your speed.

My puppy foundation include a reliable stay with genuine verbal-only release, working on games that switch the dog from handler focus to drive (I tend to use my own variation of the two-food-throw game) as well as lots of hand and movement following games, a two on two off on a small tippy board, tight turns around an upright at a low jump height (very low for young pups) working the turn from all angles including a posting turn (no side change) and front cross and a change behind. I also teach sending to, calling to tunnels and direction changes from tunnel exits including a call to side with turns in both directions.

I do a lot with my pups, but in VERY short bursts and it is always a game for them. I am not big on tugging (must be my gundog background) but do a lot of work with retrieving and games with my dog while they hold their toy in their mouth. This give me a fun positive way to interact with my dog directly, or away from me by throwing their toy.

Edited December 31, 2011 by canine fun sports

[huski]

I am only a newbie to agility so I am no help with suggestions for foundation exercises, but personally regardless of what dog sport I am training in I always train focus first and teach the dog to have a high value for me and the rewards I offer. IMHO once you have that you can apply it to any activity you undertake. I don't intentionally assign value for any obstacle or item in any dog sport I train in, as IMO nothing should override the value my dog has for me and the rewards I offer. Running obstacles or fetching a dumbell or whatever is just what my dog needs to do to earn their reward.

[ness]

See if you can get a copy of the Greg Derett and Susan Garett dvds. SG's one jump (and no jump drills) are good for creating a dog who is both handler focused when needed as well as having obstacle focus when needed.

[canine fun sports]

I am only a newbie to agility so I am no help with suggestions for foundation exercises, but personally regardless of what dog sport I am training in I always train focus first and teach the dog to have a high value for me and the rewards I offer. IMHO once you have that you can apply it to any activity you undertake. I don't intentionally assign value for any obstacle or item in any dog sport I train in, as IMO nothing should override the value my dog has for me and the rewards I offer. Running obstacles or fetching a dumbell or whatever is just what my dog needs to do to earn their reward.

In agility, the dog that is used to only recieving rewards directly from the handler will tend to spin back and check in with the handler when it is not appropriate, and it can also limit their speed because they do not want to drive ahead away from the handler.

I am certainly not saying you should not do your focus work, but in agility, do not neglect your focus ahead work. Getting the balance is the trick. We see A LOT of the two opposite problems in agility. The dogs that have little or any focus on anything and do their own thing, but we just as often see dogs checking in too frequently, causing dropped bars, refusals, and a slow performance.

Cheers,

[aussielover]

Fly is a 7 month old Border Collie and I want to get into agility with her but not sure where to start. What are the basics that I should be teaching her?

I think it really depends on how seriously you want to get into it.

If you just want to have fun all you need (imo) is to find a good club, have a dog who is reasonably well behaved and obedient- by that I mean solid stay and recall and that likes to work for a reward (food, toy, tug, ball, praise, pats etc). Also practicing distraction work is good as often dogs that are ok at home, get over excited by other dogs and the club atmosphere.

If you're quite serious then there are lots more foundation exercises you can do at home like teaching rear end awareness, contact behaviours, you can get DVDs etc as others have suggested.

Some people will tell you that tugging is a must for agility. I think BCs generally do work well for a tug but like CFS I have a gundog and I find food or retrieving rewards work better for us, although tugging before training does rev her up a bit. Its all about finding what works best for you and your dog though

although apparently some clubs will expect your dog to tug for a reward.

[Kavik]

I initially created too much focus on looking at me with Kaos, and had to do a lot of work to get him focussed on the equipment. I really like SG's Success With One Jump DVD for teaching this As ness said some of the exercises need no equipment, others need one jump. Reminds me I should do some more work on this, all the SG Recallers stuff I am doing is handler focus oriented, probably need to balance that out.

[kelpiechick]

Get yourself a copy of the book 'Agility Right from the Start' - worth every cent.

This will go through all the exercises that everyone has mentioned so far, with lots of pictures to explain step by step, plus really explains how to create that balance between handler focus and driving ahead using lots of games. Loads of flatwork exercises and the authors are certified TAG teachers so really know how to break each exercise down into small bits, plus they have worked regularly with Greg Derrett and Susan Garrett so use many of the same exercises. (Remember this is TRAINING focussed so the book is not particularly handling system specific and would benefit anyone planning to use any system in the future)

If you visit the website

www.agilityrightfromthestart.com

there should be a chapter of the book that you could download for free, plus a couple of videos of them teaching some of the exercises in the book. One of the other things that they also cover in detail is training mechanics or what they call 'good agility practices'. This is where you learn to use your training time most efficiently by being totally prepared before you start, not wasting time looking for treats in your pockets, how to move dog between training exercises most efficiently, etc. etc. Very worthwhile as a lot of people struggle with this one.

I also love the GD foundation DVD, Moe Strenfel foundation DVD is good, Silvia Trkman's trick training DVD's (a 7 month old would benefit down the line for agility training by doing lots of shaping and having fun learning tricks which allows you to create a high level of reinforcement - or money in the bank as SG calls it) plus Success with one jump is great - but if you don't want to outlay that much money then you will get just as much from this book.

My main goal for a 7 month old would be that I was building lots of value for working with me, so they were excited about working with me, no matter what we did.

Edited January 1, 2012 by kelpiechick

[whitka]

Thanks everyone loving all these suggestions Will be looking at all these books and dvds that have been mentioned. I already have The focused Puppy and loving it so far. She's not really into tugging yet but loves her food so that helps.