How To Train Your Dog In Agility: 12 Tips & Tricks
Are you looking to get off of the couch and on the move with your dog? Does your dog respond well to your commands?
Agility might be just the activity to combine sport with communication. Best of all, your dog will enjoy an agility course regardless of breed or size. With a few adjustments to obstacle heights, almost any dog can participate.
The most important of these are the benefits to your dog’s coordination, as the skills learned in agility training will obviously be essential throughout their life.
A dog with excellent coordination skills is also likely to get far more out of play with other dogs. Since play between dogs often involves fine motor skills, an agile dog will be more likely to thrive during playtime – especially with highly active dogs.
Agility dog training is also great for your dog’s fitness and musculature. As there is a large component of stop-start exercise, your dog will be gaining the health benefits of stretching their joints and increasing muscle tone.
Since agility training is an intellectually demanding activity, your dog may need some assistance engaging with it. Fortunately, we’ve created a step-by-step ‘dog agility training for beginners’ guide you can follow, which will help you expertly guide your dog through the many challenges of agility training.
A good trick to start off with is getting your dog to touch your hand with their nose, which will begin down the path towards more refined control.
After they’ve learned that, you could step things up a bit by taking them around you in a circle. And when this has been done successfully, try increasing the stakes by getting them to do a figure eight around you.
Weaving that figure-eight shape will come in handy when you get to the next stage – teaching your dog to closely go around an object. They’ll use this technique in an obstacle course, and it will develop their fine motor control.
When your dog’s mastered these basic moves, they’ll be more aware of their body – and prepared to go the next step.
Agility might be just the activity to combine sport with communication. Best of all, your dog will enjoy an agility course regardless of breed or size. With a few adjustments to obstacle heights, almost any dog can participate.
What Is Agility Training For Dogs?
Dog agility training is where you sharpen your dog’s abilities by teaching them to navigate around an obstacle course. With its mix of obstacles such as jumps, teeter-totters (see-saws), tunnels and poles, agility hones your dog’s physical skills, speed, competitiveness and mental acuity. Agility engages the whole dog and person, who work together to beat the clock (not other animals) by navigating the course with as few errors as possible.What Are The Benefits Of Agility Training For Dogs?
There are many benefits to be had from agility training your dog.The most important of these are the benefits to your dog’s coordination, as the skills learned in agility training will obviously be essential throughout their life.
A dog with excellent coordination skills is also likely to get far more out of play with other dogs. Since play between dogs often involves fine motor skills, an agile dog will be more likely to thrive during playtime – especially with highly active dogs.
Agility dog training is also great for your dog’s fitness and musculature. As there is a large component of stop-start exercise, your dog will be gaining the health benefits of stretching their joints and increasing muscle tone.
Steps For Training Your Dog In Agility
If you’re wondering 'How do I start my dog in agility training?’, read on.Since agility training is an intellectually demanding activity, your dog may need some assistance engaging with it. Fortunately, we’ve created a step-by-step ‘dog agility training for beginners’ guide you can follow, which will help you expertly guide your dog through the many challenges of agility training.
Step 1: Focus your dog’s attention
Before your dog can begin participating in the obstacle course, they need to know what to focus on. So, make sure they’re 100% ready to learn, with no distractions (e.g. other dogs around). This will get them off on the right foot.Step 2: Teach your dog basic obedience commands
Before you can progress to complex agility training, it’s important that your dog has a grounding in the basics. While there is no universally agreed number of commands considered ‘essential’, a sensible list is ‘sit’, ‘stay’, ‘come’, ‘down’, ‘heel’, ‘no’, and ‘off’. Once you’ve progressed past those basics, you’re ready for something more complex – agility.Step 3: Teach Your Dog New Tricks
When you start off with dog agility training, there are a bunch of great tricks you can teach them before you move on to the more complex stuff.A good trick to start off with is getting your dog to touch your hand with their nose, which will begin down the path towards more refined control.
After they’ve learned that, you could step things up a bit by taking them around you in a circle. And when this has been done successfully, try increasing the stakes by getting them to do a figure eight around you.
Weaving that figure-eight shape will come in handy when you get to the next stage – teaching your dog to closely go around an object. They’ll use this technique in an obstacle course, and it will develop their fine motor control.
When your dog’s mastered these basic moves, they’ll be more aware of their body – and prepared to go the next step.
Step 4: Consider your dog’s flexibility & fitness
When considering how to start dog agility training, be realistic about their fitness levels. It’s no good starting your dog on boot camp if they’ve never done anything more strenuous than walking to the front door! If you’re worried about your dog’s fitness levels, gradually build them up by extending their daily walks, steadily picking up the pace, and perhaps even walking more frequently.
STEP 5: WORK ON HANDLING
This is one of the cornerstones of agility. For your dog to be comfortable with agility training, they first have to be very comfortable with you. You can improve your handling skills with rewards. Hide some treats, then say a positive word (e.g. ‘good’), touch your dog, then feed them a treat immediately afterwards. This will teach your dog positive associations with being touched and is particularly useful if your dog is shy. Handling is a great way of bringing your dog out of their shell, which they’ll need when developing agility.
STEP 6: IMPROVE YOUR DOG’S BODY AWARENESS
Body awareness is one of your dog’s key assets in agility training. These types of exercises are designed to make your dog more conscious of their body’s capacities, preparing them for the agility training to come.
Bodily awareness exercises can be anything that provides your dog with the opportunity to make precise movements – for example, walking slowly backwards on a leash, using a balance disc, placing their front feet on a prop (and all four feet, if they do well with that), or stretches (using a clicker to reward the dog when they stretch naturally until they begin offering the behavior).
These simpler exercises will prepare your dog for the more complex task of agility training, which involves more complex behavioral steps
Step 7: Introduce Obstacles
Help your dog direct their attention towards the first obstacle by gently leading them, then unclipping the leash when they’re directly in front of it. Then, gently encourage them to proceed through the obstacle.
This may be daunting for your dog at first – so never force the issue. If they don’t feel like attempting an obstacle, just try again a little later when they’ve built up their confidence.
Step 8: Teach your dog to jump
Jumping is one of the most important skills of obstacle training. It’s best to start small, then build up to bigger jumps as their confidence increases.The easiest way to teach your dog to jump is to place an obstacle in their path when they’re on the leash, which will prevent them from going around it. Start very slowly, and say ‘up’ or an equivalent command when they’re near the obstacle. As soon as they’ve got the idea with a small obstacle, go round for another pass with a slightly larger challenge.
Step 9: Try out tunnels
While some dogs enjoy going into tunnels from the word go, others are much more apprehensive. (Understandable, given that tunnels can often seem dark and scary.) Fortunately, there’s a lot you can do to make the experience easier on your dog. Place them on one end of the tunnel, then go around the other side with a treat. While you wait there, calmly call your dog to come through. When the dog does go through the tunnel, reward them immediately.Step 10: Test out weaving poles
Going through weaving poles can be an ideal way to increase your dog’s dexterity because it involves frequent changing of direction. Set up several poles in a straight line. (You can buy weave poles from a pet store.)Start with one pole. Lead your dog past the pole, so it’s on their left. As soon as they’ve passed the pole on the correct side, give them a treat. Then, get your dog to repeat the activity without leading them, offering another treat as soon as this has been completed.
When you’re confident they’ve got the idea, add another pole. Remember, you’re trying to get them to pass the next pole so it’s on their right.
Every time they’re able to go through another pole while passing on the correct side, reward them with a treat. Soon, they should be able to get through the entire course of (say) six poles, going through on alternating sides.
Step 11: Introduce the ‘pause’ table
This obstacle is all about restraint and control, rather than agility. Your dog is required to jump up on the table, and then stop for a predetermined amount of time (e.g. 10 seconds). After that time has passed, they’re free to progress to the next obstacle.Step 12: Combine your dog’s newly learned skills
Now that your dog’s learned the separate skills in an obstacle course, it’s time to put everything together. Go through each obstacle one by one, giving your dog a treat when each is completed. Remember, they’ll probably find this draining the first time (or few times), as you’re asking them to perform a very intellectually demanding task.
COMMON PROBLEMS & PROOFING BEHAVIOR
Teaching your dog agility skills sounds straightforward, right?Not so fast. Sometimes, things can go wrong. Remember, teaching agility is a new and difficult skill – so it’s understandable that your dog might feel a bit ‘over it’ at times.
There are several common problems your dog may encounter during agility training – but fortunately, there are also things you can do to help. Let’s go into them below.
One of the main problems with agility training is when your dog has trouble with the setting. This happens when your dog doesn’t want to perform in a public setting, even though they were enthusiastic at home. That’s understandable – after all, not everyone feels comfortable in every situation.
To help your dog, you could try introducing a ‘high-pressure’ situation at home.
Nutritional Needs of Agility Dogs
Dogs that participate in high-impact activity have extra stress on their joints, which can affect joint cartilage health - Glucosamine and chondroitin help keep that cartilage healthy. Lots of factors influence performance out there on the course, but no dog can reach their full potential without a proper diet.
Carbohydrates are another key factor when it comes to fuelling active dogs. Anaerobic efforts are fueled by carbohydrates for intense bursts of energy and this is the type of energy most used during high-intensity exercises like agility courses. Fats are also needed, as with longer duration, fats will eventually be burned and are also the most concentrated source of energy.
Eukanuba™ Premium Performance is specially formulated to help meet the unique needs of your agility dog, with the added benefit of DHA which helps to improve your dog's cognitive responses and overall performance.
Attend an agility class with your dog
Once you’ve taught your dog some of the basics in agility, you might find it beneficial to attend classes. Even one weekly class of dog agility training exercises for a few months will improve your dog’s agility significantly. You can begin in your own backyard, building jumps and obstacles to get your dog used to the activity.If you have questions about your dog’s abilities or would like advice on building a course, contact your veterinarian or an agility expert.