Essential Facts About Dog Agility and Dog Agility Training
Dog agility training is both challenging and fun. Whether you do it for the fun of it or some serious competition, it’s one of the most rewarding activities for you and your pet. Pet agility training involves a structured training regimen and exercises for both the dog and its human handler. In agility events, we often see pets competing in timed off-leash courses with their human partners.
Dog agility training is roughly based on the training platform of show jumping competitions. This type of dog agility competition has its roots in the first show competition at the Crufts Pet Show held in England in 1979. It started out as pure entertainment but later changed to become a competitive event as more and more lovers and pet trainers took an interest in it.
Dog agility training uses some essential equipment including various obstacles such as tunnels, weave poles, jumps, A-frames, seesaws, and pet walks. These are simple pieces of equipment made of low-cost, lightweight materials and are generally for short-term use. Resources for your own backyard dog agility training are plentiful and you can also buy off-the-shelf equipment that is usually cheap. You can also make your own obstacles by following easy-to-follow instructions for building obstacles using common materials like PVC pipe. However, you should always remember to follow the standard layout used in regular competition to achieve the best results from your pet dog’s agility training.
In regular dog agility competitions, the obstacles used are arranged in a variety of configurations and sequences for each level of competition. The dog and human partners can negotiate the course to get acquainted before the actual competition. Handlers may use hand and verbal signals to guide their dogs through the competition course, but may not touch their pets or equipment in any way possible. The difficulty levels of the obstacle course are different and depend on the level of competition. Therefore, the competing dogs are grouped into classes before the actual competition based on the height of the dogs. The height of the equipment used in the steeplechase is based on the class of competition in which the shortest dogs in each class participate.
Whatever your motivation for training your dog, this activity that you share with your pet can bring a lot of fun and excitement. However, most find participation in agility competitions to be the reward for the long hours spent in agility training for both dog and handler. The training itself takes time, and good results are achieved only with the right amount of patience and persistence from both dog and handler. The dog and handler must be in good shape before beginning dog agility training, as they must spend a significant amount of time training all possible configurations of the obstacle course. To get the most out of agility training, closely monitor your dog’s performance and make sure you don’t overexert yourself during training. You must remember that this training is first and foremost a fun activity for you and your pet.
