What order did you teach obstacles?

[fotobridget]

Little Miss Liberty Ann has 'finally' finally 'finally' got a clean bill of health--and is ready to begin agility training. She turns 18 mths old tomorrow!!!! And has all of her hair back...pretty girl!!!

 

I'll be training her myself (the closest agility class is more than ninety miles away and there is no way we could join a class)

 

I just finished putting her dog walk together and was wondering in what order should I introduce her to her obstacles? She is already trained on a standard tunnel, and knows what 'tire' means (I've let her do it a few times...), but was wondering what everybody else has done...

 

So far we have:

collapsible tunnel

weaves

tire jump

bar jump

dog walk

 

and I am building an A frame and teeter for later use...

 

Any advice will be helpful

[Aquarius89]

I did it in this order:

 

Jump

Tunnel (with no curve)

Tire jump

Weaves

 

That's all the equipment I have, so that's all I've taught so far. lol

[Kat's Dogs]

There is a lot of training that should be done that doesn't use equipment first. Obedience of course, but also handling on the flat, directionals, play drive, self control, rear-end awareness, target training, and so on. Once all that is done I start the equipment training. The order I did with Daz was something like the following.

 

tippy board/teeter foundation

Touch (end behavior of contacts)

jumping foundation

tire

weaves

the rest of jump training

table

tunnels

Teeter

Aframe

Dogwalk

chute (the last thing she learned because we weren't competing in an organization that had the chute)

 

I don't know that the order is all that important. Some things need more work (end behavior for contacts, weaves, and jumps) than other things (tunnels, table, chute) so that is the only reason I really started some of them first. Some obviously need to follow others (end behavior for contacts, then introducing the full equipment) so there is a little bit of order there but not much.

[dogsofmenace]

I think you can teach the obstacles in any order you want. The only real order that I would have is to teach the dogwalk before the teeter. I've found a lot of dogs can develop fear of both obstacles if you teach the teeter first. When you move to the dogwalk, they'll expect it to move and get freaked if it doesn't.

 

Otherwise, I don't think it matters. I usually start jump training first because that takes the longest to perfect.

But as Kat stated, there are a ton of things you should do before obstacle training. Flatwork is very important. Teaching recall to hand and front/rear crosses are things she needs to learn in order for you to direct her correctly over obstacles. Plus simple obedience will help a great deal, especially come, stay and heeling (on BOTH sides!). Since you are new to agility, I don't know how much you know about foundation stuff. But it is very important and if you don't have a good foundation you'll regret it later!

 

Just have fun with her :]

[Root Beer]

I've never really thought about doing a set order for obstacles.

 

With other training going on at the same time, of course, I've taught my dogs - in no particular order . . .

 

Tunnels (straight at first and then curved)

The barrel of the chute

Low jumps

Walking on boards

Get on the table

 

Dean started 2 by 2 weaves very early in his Agility training, too.

 

From there I've gone on to - again, in no particular order . . .

 

Chute with material

Different types of jumps (tire, panel, winged, broad) - set to "easy"

Weaves with wires

Low dog walk and A-Frame

Send to table then sit or down

Contact behavior

 

From there I work to build proficiency and start simple sequencing once the dog is fluent on each piece. Names for each piece of equipment, full jump heights, higher contacts, etc. all come when the dog is ready for those steps.

 

The one thing I don't teach until much, much later is teeter. Like dogsofmenace said, I want my dog to be very comfortable with dog walk before I bring teeter into the mix.

 

I will use a tippy board at home in the early stages of training, but the actual teeter comes later for me.

[haleigh]

I started with a lot of foundation work...stuff that wasn't taught in my class that people are now kicking themselves over Here's the more 'Complete' order:

 

Targeting

Side and With me (running with me on the left side [side] and right side [with me])

Directionals ('tight' and 'switch')

a LOT of hind end awareness and jumping work (trotting poles, cavalettis...etc.)

Weaves

Finishing up the jump training

Tunnels

Chutes

Contact behaviors (on the stairs )

Table

A Frame

Teeter

Dogwalk

Different hand signals for sit and down

Table

[3dogslater]

Targeting and flatwork, basic obedience, recall, food and toy drive all before we got anywhere near equipment. Oodles of socialzation to people and environment and noises.

 

Tire, tunnel, table, jump - using these obstacles I can work on sending, recalls, startline stays, handling, front and rear crosses, distance etc.

 

Wobble board and plank work before contacts.

 

Contacts and weaves last because of age/growth concerns.

 

Along the way I also taught verbals for sit, stand and down, right and lefts, weaving through my legs, and other tricks. Lots of hind end awareness, stool work, backing up, backing up stairs.

 

Training on your own is extremely difficult - if you can get a video camera so you can see what you're doing that would be a big help. There are some good books and videos out there for beginners. You could rent them from SmartFlix.com so you don't have to invest so much money but can still learn.

 

I can't imagine I'd know what I do if I'd been training on my own. Is there any way you could schedule a lesson every month or two just to get an idea on how you are doing? Make it a weekend trip, do a lesson each day and drive home?