Agility with team or on your own?

[INU]

I built some agility equipment with PVC and I started teaching Jazzy at home. (I have never taken agility courses, only learn from books and seen at tournaments etc)

 

I went to this agility school which is like 70 minutes drive on tonight. There are no schools in my area. I observed three classes from beginners to competition level. It didn't look like the instructor was doing much. It seems self-explanatory to me. I am not planning on doing this to compete (well unless she happens to be REALLY good at it), I just want to do this for fun and also hoping that Jazzy would gain more confidence. It will also be helpful in disaster Search & Rescue training.

 

Do I really need to take classes or can I just do my own thing at home? Again I have no experience, and very little ideas what the rules are. 70 minutes drive is a little much as I have to drive hours on SAR training already. oh! and my backyard is not very big.

[Rave]

You can do it at home; however, if you ever do decide to compete, you'll probably have to go back and retrain everything.

 

Also, keep everything LOW or your dog may lose whatever confidence she had.

 

Have fun,

Laura

[Alaska]

I have been taking an agility course that is offered through the internet:

 

http://www.cyberagility.com/

 

The course focuses on building teamwork skills, rather than just playing around with obstacles. Agility aside, it is a terrific way to improve your skills as a clicker trainer, since the training plans provided are very detailed and the instructor is very knowledgable about both theory and practice of positive reinforcement training.

 

I can't say enough good things about this class. Even if I lived in a place that offered agility classes, it would be unlikely to find one that compared favorably with it. Check out the website and see what you think.

[INU]

Thank you both for the input

Alaska, I will check out the site tonight.

[Sparty]

With our trainer we have a lot of emphasis on training the human body language clear understandable signals. we had really cruddy weather here lately and the work area is just slush, so he had us in the car park without the dogs working on body position and correct signals. one of the problems we have with our beloved BC's is they are so fast and over anticipate.

[KrisK]

One suggestion for training on your own is to subscribe to Clean Run magazine. There is also a newsgroup (I think it's yahoogroups.cleanrun.com.) Anyway, the magazine is dedicated solely to agility. They also have excellent agility books for sale, starting at beginners and working to advanced. There is also a yahoo group for agility (called agilebc), where you can get some pointers.

I basically train on my own (when I have time!) and my Jazz (male 5 yr old BC) LOVES agility.

Have fun!

[JenS]

If you are not interested in competing, you can do some agility at home. I would advise you though, to keep in mind some typical pitfalls.

 

1) Most people tend to go too high, to tight , too fast. Especially with a talented Border Collie, it is very easy to think, "Oh, we can do that! No problem!" and get yourself into trouble. No only might you learn bad habits, but you could do some things that are not in the best interest of your dogs long term soundness. Keep things low and safe until you are really solid.

 

2) Not teaching proper contacts. This is kind of a follow to #1. It is very easy to be lax about contacts. VERY EASY! If you have contacts, go low and progress slow. Train them solid. This is an area where you can really hurt your dog if you go to fast and too high. Remember, the other name for contacts is safty zone.

 

#3) As mentioned abouve, 90% of agility is the handler! One can get very frustrated (as can the dog) by simple handler mistakes an instuctor will spot a mile away. A home video camera can help.

 

I think the cyber agility sounds intriguing for those who have difficulties with classes. However, if you can get to a seminar or two or do an occasional class, you might find it helpful.

 

Have fun!