# Starting Agility



## TaraM1285 (Sep 24, 2009)

Our first agility class is tonight! I'm super-excited and can't wait to see what we're doing. I'm supposed to bring lots of small soft treats and a tug toy. Any tips from the pros here?


----------



## tkarsjens (Nov 30, 2009)

Have fun! Don't compare yourself to the other people in the class and don't compare your dog to the other dogs. Sometimes the dog who struggles in the beginning ends up to be the best agility dog and vice versa. Also some people have a natural feel for agility more than others. So focus on you and your dog and having fun together.

That's the best advice I have - that and listen to the instructors. It's easy to be focused on your dog and the thing you're doing and not hear the instructor. It's important to focus on listening.

Tracie
www.atlaskennels.com


----------



## GSDBESTK9 (Mar 26, 2002)

Have fun. You'll be hooked in not time!


----------



## lylol (Feb 18, 2009)

Have fun and dont worry about the mistakes, human and pup, thats how you learn. For most people its us humans that seem to have the most to learn  I like the advice above about dont compare yourself to others ...its about how you and YOUR teammate build a relationship and learn together. It is an incredible bond that you develop with your dog. I guess I will also say dont let an instructor talk you in to doing something you arent comfortable with... each dog is different and you know yours the best. Cant wait to hear stories


----------



## MaggieRoseLee (Aug 17, 2001)

Hope you had a great time! If you make sure you listen and make sure your dog has fun...........you can work out the confusing bits when you get home and come back the next week with a clearly BRILLIANT dog! 

Keep it super fun for your dog, skip the dog's dinner so they really want to 'work' for the super yummy treats, and play tug as much as you can in class!


----------



## TaraM1285 (Sep 24, 2009)

Last night was a blast! :happyboogie: There are three trainers and around 10+ dogs in the class. I didn't note exactly how many, but it seemed like a lot. I had been a little worried about Tara's reaction to being around so many new dogs all at once because of her reactivity lately, but it seems our hard work is paying off. She barked at a dog once outside the training facility when we first got there, but wasn't too reactive and responded immediately to "leave it." Inside the ring she didn't once react negatively to other dogs, even the dogs who were doing a bit too much staring by her normal standards. That alone was a huge success for us for her not to react even with her being on leash around that many new dogs and not being able to greet them.

There is only one border collie in the class, a poodle or two, a few mixed breeds, a springer spaniel, and some others that I didn't pay enough attention too to note. There's also another female 7 month GSD who is supposed to be in the class but is in heat right now and won't be there till the third class. Her owner commented to me after class that she has hopes for a calm dog some day after seeing Tara. :rofl:

For class, we first had an introduction to the trainers and the structure of the class. It seems like it will be a very gradual introduction to obstacles with a lot of focus on handling exercises. We then broke into three groups to work with the three trainers and rotated through three different focus areas.

The first thing we did was stays. Our trainer was actually in our last class there, which was fun. Tara has a pretty solid stay, so she rocked at all the exercises. We also worked on releases to us in front of them, which we haven't worked much with, so that was new, but she caught on really quickly. I didn't really see how the other people were doing, but I think there's a wide-range of skill in this area. It seemed like a lot of the other dogs are pretty young and may not have as much impulse control as Tara.

After stays we moved on to beginning one-jump work, working only with a single jump wing. The first thing we did was shape a send out to go away from us around the wing. Tara almost immediately figured out the going around the wing bit. I'm not entirely sure she completely understands that it's going away from me that is what I want, because she was trying to interact with the base of the wing a lot and putting her paws on it. Working on this at home is part of our homework this week and I think mostly I need to be better about tossing the treat away from me to help her understand. I'll just use a chair, and she usually generalizes this type of thing fairly well, so hopefully it translates to a jump wing at our next class. The next thing we did was recalls from a stay to heel position on both left and right sides. Again, she did superbly at this. I was the one having issues here! For some reason I kept forgetting to actually put her in a stay so of course she would come with me out of the sit as soon as I walked away from her. The last thing we did was release them to come to us at a 90 degree angle, working both sides. We were supposed stand in front of them facing the perpendicular direction to them, either left or right. Then we released them from their stay to come to our back leg (closest to them) and bring them forward to heel position on that side as we moved forward. It took us a couple tries to get this because I am not coordinated at such things at all! Of course once I got it, Tara was again perfect. It's amazing how quickly she learns when I am actually able to get my act together. Our homework is to practice all the things we did in class and practice with her going through two jump wings over a "jump" on the floor. In our case, it will probably be two chairs with a broom on the floor between them.

Our final station was a bunch of different objects to work some shaping with. Most of them we had worked with previously in our shaping class. There was a perch, and the object was to have them pivot with their front paws on the perch and advanced object to pivot around their back legs on the perch. Tara can do her front legs on the perch in both directions already, so we worked on pivoting around her back legs. We've done a little of that previously so she picked up on what I wanted pretty quickly. Our only struggle was that she wanted to sit on the perch, but I just called her off of it and sent her back when she did that. We also had her walk through a ladder, she has also done that before so no issues there. There was a longer board to walk across, which she did with no issues and the trainer suggested trying to get her to turn around on the board without stepping off as an advanced version of that obstacle, but we only managed to do that once. We also did some work on the longer board with staying in position with her back feet on the board and front feet off for contacts. And she went under a small hoop also. 

The new thing that we did was try to teach her to back up between two low barriers. She defintely showed off how "operant" she can be at first and offered me about 20 different behaviors interacting with the barriers before she figured out that she just needed to stand between them. Figuring out that I wanted her to step backwards was a bit of a challenge. She offered a sit and a down and a jump up in the air on our first attempt. After calming down a bit. She was back to her standing position and I managed to capture a small step backwards when I stepped toward her. Two or three steps later she had that light bulb moment and figured out that stepping backwards was what I wanted and I pretty sure I could have had her backing up across the whole floor! 

Our homework for the week is to teach a trick and work on the things we talked about and practiced in class. I think I'm going to work on getting her to spin, which I've tried in the past but not been very consistent about working on with her. Any tips on teaching this? Is using a lure the best way?

The one thing that I didn't remember to do this class is tug with her!! I can't believe I forgot to do this, and I think it really could have helped with her focus a bit. She was very easily distracted, which isn't surprising with the amount going on, but it was harder to bring her back than normal and I think a few good tug games throughout the class would have helped a bit for her to release a little energy and bring her back to focusing on me. Next week I'll have to remember this!

As you can probably tell we had a ton of fun and I can't wait for next week! Sorry this is so long! When I'm excited about something, I like to talk about it and I have few friends who are as crazy about their dogs as me.


----------



## MaggieRoseLee (Aug 17, 2001)

> For class, we first had an introduction to the trainers and the structure of the class. It seems like it will be a very gradual introduction to obstacles with a lot of focus on handling exercises. We then broke into three groups to work with the three trainers and rotated through three different focus areas.


LOVE the sound of your class and the fact it's working on focus and foundation stuff primarily, then adding the equipment as you go. 

Sounds like you both are doing really well, and having fun fun fun. Think you'll be amazed how much you progress with tons of real treats coming frequently, adding the tug toy some of the times, and learning fun new things every week.

I do use treats to lure the spin initially. But if you are using the clicker with this, you can quickly fade the treat in your hand to just a hand motion and then just a verbal. I even have a 'left' spin and a 'right' spin.

If you go to the following video and to :50 in (less than a minute) you can listen to my instructor teaching the left/right and how to hold the food/clicker and footwork. Also watch me pathetically trying to follow!


----------



## TaraM1285 (Sep 24, 2009)

Thanks, MRL!


----------

