# Considering a change of sport...



## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

....I can't believe this but I'm seriously considering giving up Schutzhund and starting over with agility.

My background: My first GSD I got from a breeder when she was 3.5 years old. She was already trained all the agility obstacles. I started training at a local place that had really good instructors but most of the people taking "agility" were just looking to exercise their dog and run a fun sequence in a circle at the end. I started with beginner's because I was knew and took all three levels there. Then we did a CPE trial and she earned two titles. We also did Rally and a lot of other stuff, so agility kind of took a backseat and I retired this dog from training/competition before doing more trials with her.

Then I got Nikon. When he was old enough we went back to the same place and took all three levels of agility again. He also did CPE trial (Level 1 because I never taught him weaves though we started 2x2 in class). After that, we got more serious about all these other sports. Also the place I was training was outdoor, so being MI we could only take agility class May - Sept. Their space is not large enough for a trial course and their contact equipment is shorter. Both my dogs saw normal A-frames and dogwalks for the first time even in their trials! (but they were fine) So we stopped going there and focused more on Schutzhund and flyball.

Fast forward 2 years.... I'm getting heavily involved in flyball and have no intention of giving that up. Even if I don't have a good dog I like the team and I enjoy box loading. The place where we train for flyball is a newer facility that is now offering pretty much any dog sport and event you can think of. They've already hosted several AKC and CPE agility trials. There's only one ring but hey, it's indoors so we can actually have trials Oct-May! Sometimes at flyball we let our dogs play on the agility stuff (all of us have done agility and so have our dogs to various extents). Last night I let Nikon play with a sequence leftover from the trial over the weekend. He did REALLY good, he loved it, and he seemed faster/more drive running agility than flyball. If I'm not paying attention to him at flyball he will often go take a jump, find a tunnel, or get on the table. He seems to really love agility not just for toys and being with me but he just loves the obstacles. He's not a bad jumper either and was doing well with his contacts while I was training that.

This new training place is really close to my house so I can easily sign up for the next round of classes but I am not made of money. I have no doubt that Nikon can finish his SchH titles but it's so far away. 2.5 hours which means I'm spending about $50 on gas, plus $20/mo and $100/yr in dues (which is actually very good price compared to some other clubs or pay-to-play trainers in my area), and often because of weather and money I can only go once or twice a month. It was different when I carpooled and could at least split the cost of gas and didn't have to worry as much about the weather conditions having someone else with me if something happened. Sometimes I feel like I'm throwing money down the drain. Also because I'm so far away I feel like I'm not really contributing to the club. It's hard for me to get there early, for any two-day event I have to get a hotel room, I can't just pop over to the field and help with maintenance and that sort of thing. I LOVE SchH and bitesports and can hardly imagine not doing it but at the same time it's extremely difficult to be so far away (and I don't even have people in town I can get together with anymore). It's fun to train but I feel like with agility and this new facility there will actually be chances to play and trial. There is also a local agility club I could join. I given the cost of agility trial entry fees and some equipment I'd want to get, I don't think I can do both at least not the level I'd want.

I don't know....I'm sure you will all say DO IT b/c this is the agility forum....has anyone ever had a similar experience? Did you miss it or regret it? Or were you able to manage both?


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## MilesNY (Aug 12, 2010)

*Have to have both*

I came from the agility world before getting into schutzhund. I love both, I have finally had to retire my border collie (who I never competed because I didn't want to jump him at full height) and am now doing schutzhund with him as well. I miss agility and am currently puppy shopping. My next dog will need to be able to do ring, IPO and agility competitively. Dante did all agility foundation stuff as a puppy, but I stopped with him to focus completely on IPO and because he is a big boy and I don't want to stress his body by training more than just fun agility. Dante's heart is in IPO though. Now Miles is loving IPO, so I am hoping he stays happy about it. As a younger dog (he was a rescue) he shut down at formal obedience and really only truly loved agility. 

Rambling aside, I go with what the dog likes most. I can not wait to have another agility dog. Pull out all my equipment and start to train it again. To me it is much more relaxing to train than IPO. Less perfection more communication.

I drive 3 hours each way to my IPO club too, and have my agility club 2 miles down the street so if i had a dog I could run, the pull would be there. I also love training high level agility, I had pervious instructors who compete at national events. The amount of things I learned was huge! And they were always such nice teachers. It sounds like Nikon is willing to take a break from IPO. You can always go back to it in 6 months or a year if you decide the change wasn't what you want. Once Dante has his 3, I plan on going on to ring sport and maybe a bit of agility. To me IPO needs so much percision work that it's a full time sport! Really it is 3 sports in one.


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## KristiM (Oct 18, 2011)

I had a pretty similar situation to you, I started doing agility in the off season of schutzhund (my club didn't meet from November to April or may) so I wanted something to do in the winter. Odin LOVED agility, was a total natural. I got more and more into it and schutzhund started to take a backseat, there were also a lot of other things about the club that were really starting the get on my nerves. Pretty much exactly a year ago overnight I decided to dump schutzhund and focus entirely on agility and I am super happy that I did! One thing about me is I am a little obsessive with dog sports you can't really do that with schutzhund because you are dependent on someone else working your dog (for protection anyways.) With agility I can do it how *I* want it (also a little bit of a control freak lol) and I can do it as much as I want and not be dependent on a club to get me to where I want to go competitively. 

So for ME it is a perfect fit! I did miss the social aspect o the club a bit, but now that I'm in a flyball team that is totally taken are of. (Plus the flyball club is just a better fit for me as well.)

And then there is the obvious, agility is the best sport ever so ya of course you should switch!


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## martemchik (Nov 23, 2010)

I feel like since you're already questioning it, you know the answer. My closest club is an hour away and I can't even do that. Actually has little to do with money and more to do with the time. Like you said, if they asked me to help with something I probably wouldn't because of the long hike just to get there.

I know dogs learn to love things...but its really what you expose them to. My dog loves to run, he'd probably love Schutzhund if we tried, but he's just happy doing most things in life. He loves running through the woods, hiking with me, swimming. Now that we started agility he clearly loves everything about it (way more fun than obedience). But the reason I do the sports I do is because I can be dedicated to them 100% without feeling like I'm letting my dog down if we miss a practice or a training session due to something else that comes up.

I'm also extremely competitive (I think you are too) so I like to win, I like to succeed, and the only way to do that is to practice and train a lot. It sounds to me like you'll have a much bigger opportunity to succeed in agility and flyball than you would in Schutzhund.


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## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

I can't really offer much to this conversation, as I simply don't have the experience you're looking for. But when I read this:


MilesNY said:


> To me IPO needs so much percision work that it's a full time sport!


And this:


KristiM said:


> with schutzhund because you are dependent on someone else working your dog (for protection anyways.) With agility I can do it how *I* want it (also a little bit of a control freak lol) and I can do it as much as I want and not be dependent on a club to get me to where I want to go competitively.


...I just had to comment. Something that turns me off with SchH is that it requires two people (or more) for training. I can just walk into my backyard and do agility-- at any time-- and that makes me very happy. And you know I often do just that with a quick lunch session. Though I don't have the SchH experience (and yes I realize there's more than just protection), to me that's a major win for agility over SchH. 

That's about all I can contribute for what you're asking. I'm sure you already well know my opinion though!


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## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

Yes protection (at least for my dog) always involves two people and tracking requires a considerable amount of land.

I do really love my SchH club which makes it that much harder....I don't think the agility club would quite be the same, but I just can't afford to do both.

I suppose I could always focus on finishing Nikon's titles and THEN switch but he's 4 years old.


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## KristiM (Oct 18, 2011)

Liesje said:


> I suppose I could always focus on finishing Nikon's titles and THEN switch but he's 4 years old.


I quit in February last year and was planning to go for Odin's IPO A1 that May (his tracking wouldn't have been ready simply because it was a spring trial.) I don't regret not getting that title one bit! Odin is soo much happier doing agility and so am I I often wish that I had started agility when Odin was younger, we started when he was 2 and he's almost 4 now and all I can think is OMG I hope he lasts longer than your average GSD so that we can achieve all that we are meant to achieve in this sport.


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## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

KristiM said:


> all I can think is OMG I hope he lasts longer than your average GSD so that we can achieve all that we are meant to achieve in this sport.


Off topic, but try having a seven year old dog...  I have the same feelings. 

Perhaps it _isn't_ off topic. If you want to move up to higher levels of agility competition, it takes TIME! Sometimes I very much regret starting Pimg at CPE Level 1. We practiced master's level classes, and competed at level 1. What a drag... And it's taken a long time to crawl out of level 1, through 2, and finally we are 100% into 3 in all classes. With perfect trials and Q's in every run- it's going to take 144 more runs, and 14 trials in order to earn Pimg's CATCH, putting her at 8.5 years old if we trial once per month. And again- that's perfect runs for every trial (not going to happen). So yes, there is something to be said about making the decision sooner rather than later.

And since you did say you're thinking of starting over as a beginner, I will elaborate and say that only sometimes do I regret starting at level 1. As a true beginner, there were MANY lessons learned there, for both me and my dog.


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## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

I don't ever anticipate being CATCH or MACH, I just don't have the $$$ for those types of entries, and I do a flyball tournament almost once a month already (flyball will probably take priority, competition-wise, because it is SO much more bang for the buck, I just paid $35 total and my dog gets to race 3-4 heats per race, 6 races per day, for two days!). But I want to be able to WIN his classes or whatever it's called, even if we're just entering Novice. I want to start *training* at the beginner level because our previous classes focused more on teaching the obstacles and not on real handling, but if I go back to CPE it probably won't be Level 1. I think Nikon won every time he Q'd in CPE but we did Level 1 simply because he'd only trained agility for 6 weeks total and did not know weaves,lol.


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## martemchik (Nov 23, 2010)

That's my goal...I want a MACH, and a MACH in jumpers whatever that's called. Training is so much closer, once I get a back yard it will be super close, and trialing is much simpler (IMO). We have trials pretty much every weekend around here and at a single agility trial you can do 3 or 4 things (you'll pay but you can).

I also started tracking...might go back to it this summer, it takes so much time, and so much patience. There is also very little instant gratification...I did it for about a month and was very on and off with how well my dog did with it. Maybe a year in age will help him be more focused or maybe its just too boring for him lol.


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## AgileGSD (Jan 17, 2006)

wildo said:


> Perhaps it _isn't_ off topic. If you want to move up to higher levels of agility competition, it takes TIME! Sometimes I very much regret starting Pimg at CPE Level 1. We practiced master's level classes, and competed at level 1. What a drag... And it's taken a long time to crawl out of level 1, through 2, and finally we are 100% into 3 in all classes. With perfect trials and Q's in every run- it's going to take 144 more runs, and 14 trials in order to earn Pimg's CATCH, putting her at 8.5 years old if we trial once per month. And again- that's perfect runs for every trial (not going to happen). So yes, there is something to be said about making the decision sooner rather than later.


 Yeah, that's why Savvy is in Level 3 CPE even though he may not be quite ready for all the Level 3 stuff. If you start in Level 1 it takes forever to get through Level 3!



Liesje said:


> I don't ever anticipate being CATCH or MACH, I just don't have the $$$ for those types of entries, and I do a flyball tournament almost once a month already (flyball will probably take priority, competition-wise, because it is SO much more bang for the buck, I just paid $35 total and my dog gets to race 3-4 heats per race, 6 races per day, for two days!). But I want to be able to WIN his classes or whatever it's called, even if we're just entering Novice. I want to start *training* at the beginner level because our previous classes focused more on teaching the obstacles and not on real handling, but if I go back to CPE it probably won't be Level 1. I think Nikon won every time he Q'd in CPE but we did Level 1 simply because he'd only trained agility for 6 weeks total and did not know weaves,lol.


 LOL my flyball friend has been trying to sell me on competing in Flyball with my dogs on this same basis - it's so much cheaper than other sports!

ETA: I have done agility for a long time. With Jagger, I wanted to get into SchH and we started going to a club. He did well, definitely had the aptitude for the sport. But it quickly became obvious that there was no way I could do SchH and any other dog sport. It just seem pretty all consuming, the trainings are really long and as was mentioned you can't work on stuff at home in your yard. I still like the bite sports are cool but definitely hard to do them and "other stuff".


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## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

Honestly it's the number one draw! Even the places we travel to are generally cheap. Hotel rooms for this weekend were under $50/night. Usually fair grounds in the middle of nowhere and when it's warm out you can camp for $10/night. The only new gear I've bought for Nikon was his flyball tug and it was $18 (I plan to use the same one for agility). The pushboards I make for training I make money off of (I make three for $75 total and sell them for $50 each). Oh I plan to buy a canvas tool belt for box loading and those are a whopping 79 cents!!


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## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

Ha!!!! I won't even _begin_ to think about how much money I've invested in agility training! Nope- not going there. Just don't care. But yeah- ummm... WAAAAAAAAAAAY more than you have in flyball! hahaha!

(I'd say I'm atypical though- I think. Probably not everyone is as interested in the training DVDs, online classes, etc as I am. I just love that stuff!)


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## Lauri & The Gang (Jun 28, 2001)

Liesje said:


> He seems to really love agility not just for toys and being with me but he just loves the obstacles..


Does he show the same love for Schutzhund?

Personally, I like to do what my DOG likes to do. It makes it easier and much more *fun *to train and trial.


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## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

Yes he does love SchH (all three phases really) but I would say he has more potential for agility simply because the training is so much more accessible. Even if his structure and temperament are better suited for SchH, I can only work with a helper once or twice a month and the land I can track on during the week is very different than the land we'd track on in trials, whereas with agility I can do all sorts of training at home with just 3-4 jumps, I can start 2x2 weaves, and I could quickly build something for cheap for training contacts (don't need a real a-frame). I can even get 45 minute private lessons for only $20 with a full sized indoor ring and all the equipment (you can do it as a lesson, or just use it for floor time). He really loves everything he does, even dock diving which he sucks at but yet I will enter at $20 a jump just because HE thinks he is the best!


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## FG167 (Sep 22, 2010)

Liesje said:


> It was different when I carpooled and could at least split the cost of gas and didn't have to worry as much about the weather conditions having someone else with me if something happened.


I just had the same convo with Jason. We both miss you but I miss you more because he's pretty much lost interest in SchH and I don't have anyone to train with near me   

I'm driving 2.5 hours as well plus I work every night from 8pm-12am and then during the week during the day too (usally 6am-3pm). I try to do obedience 5x a week and track 3x a week, and I'm also trying to run 3-4x a week...and it's just overwhelming. I miss flyball...I love agility...I wish SchH was simpler for me to train for  

If I were in your shoes, I would drop SchH and do agility - because Nikon is 4 and he's had lots of fun doing SchH but I think he'd love to focus on agility. Plus, I think agility will help you in flyball (with times). 

I decided to try to get Kastle's SchH titles because he's young and (hopefully) I'll have plenty of time. But, I'm also going to continue to dabble in agility because again, he's young so he won't be mentally ready for SchH trialing (besides BH) for awhile yet.

I wish that I had more time and my training friend


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## MaggieRoseLee (Aug 17, 2001)

I don't think you need to make a permanent decision right now just cause you are taking a break to just do agility/flyball for awhile. 

Cause of course I'd say agility is the best  . To be honest, if I was rich and had tons of free time and a close local Sch club I'd probably be doing that too (or trying it). But I don't have any of that, so it's agility all the way.

One of the hardest things about 'agility' is to find a great place to train with instructors who trial (because they know how important foundations and HANDLING is, not just doing equipment) as well as a facility that you can use year round. So anyone has that is so lucky that they should take advantage of that.

And if in a year or so you want to go back to Sch then it's still an option. Our dogs are smart enough to work it out


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## Thayna (Mar 25, 2013)

I trained my dogs in Schutzhund 16-17 yrs I switched over to Agility a little over a year ago and I've never had so much FUN!!! My girl Freeda loves the obstacles and jumping. I had started her in Schutzhund but she couldn't figure out why I wanted her to play with somebody else(helper), she was quite willing to bite him if he needed it but it wasn't a game to her. I don't miss the politics ,macho mediocre helpers, or training all year and then having only a few opportunities to actually trial. I've got half dozen different clubs/facilities within an hour of me AKC,UsDAA and I guess CPE too. 

I'm obviously still new to this sport but we've done a few fun runs and hopefully will start matching or trialing this summer. I'm the hold up trying to get my handling skills honed enough that I'm actually physically communicating what I really want. I'm thinking we will start in usdaa the indoor facility that I train the most at has been hosting those trials on a regular basis so will take advantage of home field comfort.

You all seem much more experienced than I in this sport why have you chosen the organizations that you have?
Trudy


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## MaggieRoseLee (Aug 17, 2001)

Welcome to the forum and to agility! Keep posting and course we need more pictures and videos


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