# agility training at home?



## kellykelly (Jan 27, 2012)

anyone have experience with that? books, DVDs, Internet resources, etc?

wanted to do something with xerxes, he was interested in a agility set we went through at a park recently. there's not very many agility classes around but I looked at every one...

every one was discriminating though. 4 groups, didn't allow bully mixes, german shepherds, boxers, dobermans, rottweilers, huskies, sight hounds, terriers or hounds. the excuse for them was "they have violent tendencies so can't be trusted"... -_-

which I thought was ridiculous. most living things are capable of violence..."good" breed or not. ><

not really a pitbull thing but I've seen some do it. still want to do it, though. help?


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## lauren43 (Feb 6, 2011)

I heard Susan Garrett videos are good. It part of what my trainer bases her training from. 

I'm sorry to hear many of your classes have breed biases, Avery and I have been lucky not to run into that.


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## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

We do all our stuff at home. Mostly because we 1) we live out in the country 2) I don't want to drive forever to get to a 'professional' place 3) I have multiple dogs and don't want to pick just one to do it with 4) I don't have the extra money to pay to take the dogs to a 'professional' trainer just to use their equipment.

I make my own things for the dogs to use. Some of the stuff doesn't even look like the 'real' article but the dogs love it. Examples:

We use a two foot high tree stump as a 'jump table'
two concrete blocks with a broomstick on them becomes a pole to jump over (and you can make it higher or lower)
a clothesline strung low between two trees had a tarp thrown over it like a tent. This became our 'tunnel'. 
We jumped in an out of the kiddie pool
ran around trees like weaving,
Jump onto the lawn chair and sit there, etc.....you get the picture

There's almost unlimited things you can do in your own backyard if you don't just think in terms of 'real' agility equipment. Since my dogs weren't actually competing in contests, just learning obedience and having fun, it's all wide open for me. They just love anything that's a game and involves running around the yard with me! I make sure that some of it involves stopping and sitting for a minute so they have to actually think. 

I did do the real agility lessons with two of the dogs when they were puppies, so they knew the basics. One was kept separated from the other dogs because he was a chow (he was 4 months old at the time !!!) We didn't go back to that place again. :smile:


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## Maxy24 (Mar 5, 2011)

Depends...is it something that will remain at home (you'll only ever want to do it for fun at home) or are you hoping to maybe someday try him out at competitions? If you want to compete someday I'd say you need to make sure equipment is correct. Also keep in mind there are some safety concerns involved so do be careful with jump heights and contacts and whatnot. In an agility class you'd also learn foundation skills (hind end awareness, balance, go outs, front and hind crosses, etc.) and handling skills (how to communicate with the dog on course) which are key to competing. But if it's purely fun and the courses will be simple then it matters a bit less, though those foundation skills would be helpful for safety reasons.

If you want to go all out and actually build legit equipment here are the specifications:
NADAC: NADAC Equipment Specifications
AKC (chapter 3): http://www.akc.org/pdfs/rulebooks/REAGIL.pdf
USDAA: http://www.usdaa.com/binary/files/Rules_ebook_2011_appA.pdf

I think it's ridiculous that the classes are discriminating based on breed, pit bulls, at least properly built pit bulls, are awesome at agility. They are agile, driven, fast, all around good sport dogs.


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