Dog Agility Training: Getting Competition Ready
Ask anyone who has watched, let alone been involved in, a dog agility contest and they will tell you that there is nothing like it when it comes to seeing what a dog can achieve. Maneuvering over, around and under obstacles at high speed, accuracy is very important.
When it comes to the competition, the judges pay close attention as to how the handler and the dog work together to get through the often pretty complicated course of obstacles. No dog is to large or too small but each will compete in a specific category.
The agility competition has dogs clearing several major obstacles. They are: Contact, Tunnels, Jumps and Miscellaneous obstacles. Training the dog to clear most obstacles will indeed have its benefits come race day. Handlers are generally given a map of the obstacle course prior to the day of the competition. Training the dog to respond to this map will not work well; the map is basically to teach the handler where to call the dog.
Training a dog to maneuver through obstacles does not have to be as difficult as it sounds. The easiest method is to get the dog’s favorite toy or treat and throw it through a tunnel for tunnel training or to have the dog jump a small hurdle to come to you and get a treat. You typically do not want to bore the dog so it is best to keep the initial training limited to a few minutes per day.
There has to be good communication between the dog and handler. Competition day will be a noisy affair and the dog must know and understand exactly what its handler is communicating to it at any given moment. Everything happens at speed so there is little room for error.
The handler and dog do not come into contact with one another during any stage of the agility contest and so its extremely important the handler, who may not neccessarily be the owner, knows exactly how to get the dog to perform to simple commands in order to get thru the various obstacles.
Much like a coach feels pride at watching an athlete succeed in a competition after having put in all the neccessary hours of training, so too will the handler feel about a dog that succeeds in an agility contest.
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