Where to Start in Agility?
So you want to start your dog in agility! Maybe this is your first ever agility dog, or maybe it's your 14th - it doesn't matter how long you've been doing agility, you want to start with a solid foundation. Advanced skills are just foundation skills put together, so if your foundation is weak, your advanced skills will be weak as well. Whenever you have an issue in training you can trace it back to an issue with foundation. Take your time with your foundation skills, make sure your dog really understands their job, and make sure you really understand yours.
The bad news is that there is not a magical formula or roadmap for success in agility, there is no one recipe you can just follow blindly that will magically get you and your dog to the ultimate team. The good news, you don't have to go far to find what you need - because when you ask what you need to do to train a fabulous agility dog, you need only ask the dog. Every dog is different, doesn't matter how many dogs you've trained, how related this dog may be to other dogs you've had - they are all individuals and must be treated as such. What might be the perfect training approach with one dog may be an absolute disaster with another. Open your eyes and make sure you are training the dog in front you, not the dog you've had before, not the dog you wished you had, but the wonderful creature right in front of you. They will let you know if you're doing it right, they will let you know if you're doing it wrong - LISTEN TO YOUR DOG. You may not have a magical formula for training success that will work for any dog - but you have something better, you have an amazing partner right in front of you, ready to learn.
I say this now because I am going to lay out some possible roads for you to take with agility, maybe they will work for you and your dog, maybe they won't. It's important to recognize that your dog is special and unique and may require you to say, "This is not the right approach for my dog, I need to try something different." And THANK YOU for recognizing and changing your approach rather than trying to stick a round peg in a square hole. Be creative, be adaptable and know that while you may have forge a new trail in your training journey, you WILL get there. Be patient, be kind, be understanding and support your dog as much as they need.
So with it said that there is not just one cookie cutter recipe to make a good agility dog, what skills will your dog eventually need to be successful? Below you can see the different 'chapters' I've split the Foundation Program behaviors into. Maybe you'll progress through them linearly, maybe you'll need to put some skills on the back burner until your dog is ready for them - they do not have to be approached in systematic fashion, you can always come back to things later.
The fun of agility is that there is a lot to it, the dog skills, the handler skills, the training skills, training the dog, learning the moves, putting your skills with the dog - there are a lot of moving parts. It's important in the beginning not to feel overwhelmed by the information and the amount of things you have to train, and I'll let you in on a little secret - agility is really not that hard. You can make the sport as complex or as simplistic as you want. You can train a lot of independent and complex skills ... or not. YOUR DOG HAS FUN JUST THE SAME. I put this is in especially for those that have been doing agility for a while now, sometimes there is so much pressure to do it 'right' with this dog. I see a lot of analysis paralysis, where people don't train anything because they're afraid of doing it 'wrong'. Don't worry about it, you can fix it, dogs are forgiving, they have just as much fun playing agility with someone that has no clue how to handle as they do with a world team level athlete. It's not about being perfect, it's about enjoying the journey with your dog without feeling pressured or putting pressure on the dog to be perfect.
So where to start in agility? With making sure your dog is having a good time - always. If you lose that, then you have a problem. Maybe that's the only thing you work on for quite some time, finding out what makes your dog happy and teaching them that their behavior is what makes fun things go in life. Teaching them that playing with you is the most fun they can have, helping them develop a passion for problem solving and the high that comes with solving a puzzle. A dog that has those skills will find agility easy, and training new behaviors fun and exciting.
The bad news is that there is not a magical formula or roadmap for success in agility, there is no one recipe you can just follow blindly that will magically get you and your dog to the ultimate team. The good news, you don't have to go far to find what you need - because when you ask what you need to do to train a fabulous agility dog, you need only ask the dog. Every dog is different, doesn't matter how many dogs you've trained, how related this dog may be to other dogs you've had - they are all individuals and must be treated as such. What might be the perfect training approach with one dog may be an absolute disaster with another. Open your eyes and make sure you are training the dog in front you, not the dog you've had before, not the dog you wished you had, but the wonderful creature right in front of you. They will let you know if you're doing it right, they will let you know if you're doing it wrong - LISTEN TO YOUR DOG. You may not have a magical formula for training success that will work for any dog - but you have something better, you have an amazing partner right in front of you, ready to learn.
I say this now because I am going to lay out some possible roads for you to take with agility, maybe they will work for you and your dog, maybe they won't. It's important to recognize that your dog is special and unique and may require you to say, "This is not the right approach for my dog, I need to try something different." And THANK YOU for recognizing and changing your approach rather than trying to stick a round peg in a square hole. Be creative, be adaptable and know that while you may have forge a new trail in your training journey, you WILL get there. Be patient, be kind, be understanding and support your dog as much as they need.
So with it said that there is not just one cookie cutter recipe to make a good agility dog, what skills will your dog eventually need to be successful? Below you can see the different 'chapters' I've split the Foundation Program behaviors into. Maybe you'll progress through them linearly, maybe you'll need to put some skills on the back burner until your dog is ready for them - they do not have to be approached in systematic fashion, you can always come back to things later.
The fun of agility is that there is a lot to it, the dog skills, the handler skills, the training skills, training the dog, learning the moves, putting your skills with the dog - there are a lot of moving parts. It's important in the beginning not to feel overwhelmed by the information and the amount of things you have to train, and I'll let you in on a little secret - agility is really not that hard. You can make the sport as complex or as simplistic as you want. You can train a lot of independent and complex skills ... or not. YOUR DOG HAS FUN JUST THE SAME. I put this is in especially for those that have been doing agility for a while now, sometimes there is so much pressure to do it 'right' with this dog. I see a lot of analysis paralysis, where people don't train anything because they're afraid of doing it 'wrong'. Don't worry about it, you can fix it, dogs are forgiving, they have just as much fun playing agility with someone that has no clue how to handle as they do with a world team level athlete. It's not about being perfect, it's about enjoying the journey with your dog without feeling pressured or putting pressure on the dog to be perfect.
So where to start in agility? With making sure your dog is having a good time - always. If you lose that, then you have a problem. Maybe that's the only thing you work on for quite some time, finding out what makes your dog happy and teaching them that their behavior is what makes fun things go in life. Teaching them that playing with you is the most fun they can have, helping them develop a passion for problem solving and the high that comes with solving a puzzle. A dog that has those skills will find agility easy, and training new behaviors fun and exciting.
