Agility Training
by sands904
on 2/16/2009 at 8:13 PM
in Training
Well, I haven't posted in a while but we have been busy lately learning some new things. Lance is about 6.5 months old now and a very good puppy. He has even been sleeping out of his crate the last few nights and has come upstairs in the morning to wake us up to go outside to potty.
We decided to start some agility training with all three of the dogs. Logan is very shy and skiddish around new things. I saw on 'It's Me or the Dog' and 'Underdog to Wonderdog' that shyness is usually connected to a lack of confidence in the dog. Both shows have said that agility training can help get the dog's mind busy and help them build their confidence and overcome some of their fear.
So, this weekend my husband and I decided to build our own agility equipment and set it up in our basement. I looked on ebay and other sites for agility equipment but it was out of our current budget. We went to Lowes and bought some pvc pipe and the needed connectors. We build three small jumps in a matter of about an hour. It was really very simple. I will post an article soon detailing our steps for any who wish to try this.
We have used these for 2 days and Logan is already has a different spring in his step. Lacey loves it too! Lance is still a puppy and not too into it yet but we will keep working with him on it. I just purchased a tunnel on ebay this morning as I don't think we can build one of those ourselves :) I can't wait to add that to our course! More to come...stay tuned....
View Comment
|
Login to Comment |
Login to Subscribe
Comments
I think it's great that you are agility training your dogs. I have an 18 mo old terrier mix who is very busy and agility has been a great experience for the two of us. The only thing I will caution is that it is not wise to start your dogs jumping until they are 12 months old because their growth plates in their legs are not fully formed and it can cause damage. My Rowdy started at just 12 months and the trainers cautioned me not to have him jump higher than 12 inches. he is over 12 inches at the shoulder. I would caution very low jumps for your dogs until they are over 12 months. I would also recommend a high-quality training facility at least until you are familiar with the basics. A couple of other fun experiences we had was I made use of a wobble board to help Rowdy get used to moving equipment, and things really clicked for him when I started using 'clicker training' (no pun intended). Check it out on the internet for training ideas - it works great!
Anonymous
on 3/1/2009 at 9:37 PM
|
|
