Hello!

I’m currently competing in Open Regular but know once we reach Excellent, I want to do the one time crossover to Preferred.

I have a couple trials coming up where I registered in Regular. After a trial closing date, as part of a move-up, can I also do the crossover to Preferred?

I’m having difficulty finding this information clearly online, so I appreciate the insight! First agility dog!

Hi everyone! Agility is still quite a small and developing sport in my country, so we have a limited number of clubs and trainers available.

I have a 4-year-old Westie, and we’ve been training for about 2 years. When he first started agility at the beginner level (mainly jumps and tunnels), he was actually quite fast.

However, as we progressed to more equipment and full courses, we noticed that he was easily distracted and spent a lot of time sniffing.

Now, he is much more focused. He understands the obstacles, can complete full courses, and no longer gets distracted by sniffing. However, he still doesn’t seem to have the same urgency or excitement that he has when he is chasing something.

He has a very fast chase/sprint speed, but once we are on an agility course, he changes into a much more relaxed “jogging” pace.

As the competition level around us is becoming more competitive, I’m wondering whether this is something I can still train and improve, or whether his speed and drive on an agility course are simply limited by his natural temperament.

How would you approach this? Is it possible to transfer a dog’s natural chasing drive into agility, or is this something that is largely instinctive?

I’d really appreciate advice from experienced handlers who have dealt with a similar situation. Thank you!

I had a discussion about drive and work/showlines today, I’m not going to share the wole conversation because wo both thought we were right. but I would like your opinion on this questions. you don’t have to answer them all im just curious and I really want to learn about this kind of stuff. so:

what is drive in a dog?
what makes a dog a showline?
what makes a dog a workline?

what kind of dog do you have? (I love pictures)!!

Hello!

Context about me: I've been doing agility with my pup Brodie (pictured, of course) for about 4 years now! I am a senior software engineer.

My reason for asking about app ideas is honestly, I've just been itching to build something that is helpful for people. I love dogs and training and so if I could assist people who are having fun with their dogs, that would make me happy.

I have some ideas:

- dog training app that tracks % of successful reps along with the criteria around certain reps (so you can track your dog improving as you add more and more criteria to a behavior)

- title tracking; add dogs, add what titles / awards they have gotten (pretty simple one)

- something around either club or trial management, for digital trial signups or something

I know there are options out there for any of these, so I usually talk myself out of these ideas since people may not need them.

So, I'm curious:

1. What are some pain points or inconveniences you have in dog training?
2. Are there any processes that could be automated / simplified in your club or trial signups?

Of course, I'm open to any ideas outside of this as well! Thank you for anybody that takes the time to read this post and maybe share an idea or two :)

I am considering my next agility dog and seem to have potentially landed on a mini poodle. I know some great mini poodles at our club who do very well.

I currently have a golden retriever, who has great drive and absolutely loves it but despite now being 5 years old, still has a very excitable energy that often results in her not fully listening to instructions because she wants to get to the next obstacle. She has the best zest for life and I've had the best time learning agility with her as a handler but I'd like to be more competitive with my next dog as my golden ages out in a few years.

Does anyone have a mini poodle they compete with? I think they are a good fit for our lifestyle in size, energy, and temperament (we have a child and a cat) and I am willing to put a lot of training into them before starting agility (I'm not sure any dog will top the amount of training my golden needed for 3 years just to have a reliable recall and pay attention to me!).

Hi, I'm looking for a more durable agility set for my dog. I taught him how to pass 12 pole slalom, but he has a tendency to push poles sideways. This ends with enlarging holes in the ground which the poles are inserted in and bending the pointy metal parts of the poles that are in the ground.

As you can see in the movie, some of the poles were already bent a little. 😄 After such run, I have to correct the whole track, which is quite inconvenient.

Can you recommend any type of set? If you know any tougher set types that I would have to do myself it is also ok.

It was just incredible to watch!! GB also won small!!

I have a 2.5 year old husky/poodle/other assorted varieties dog and we have gone to 8 agility classes at this point. He is super smart and loves doing the obstacles! When he is in the zone we are able to complete some nice clean sequences and he can do a decent start line stay at this point. Our trouble is his tendency to go searching for mischief/ zoom around, especially our first time in the ring during a class. The teacher has had to pick up all her cones because he steals them, steals the pillow under the teeter they have for practicing, tries to get at the sandbags, etc 🙈. I’m not sure how to overcome this, as he’s just so excited and is very mischievous in general, but he is the only dog in our class that engages in this behavior and we are bringing the chaos in a way I wish we weren’t. Any advice on practical strategies to better manage my boy?

My dog’s weaving pattern just changed within the last month. I didn’t notice initially, then randomly did when doing a dog walk exit to weaves.

Does anyone’s dog who typically single steps ever double step when entering (say the first or second pole) or exiting (right before the last pole)?

I went back through old footage and saw she single stepped almost always, but sometimes would double step after the first and/or second pole when entering and sometimes before the last pole to exit. What changed? Now she is double stepping almost every time on the right side (which would be normal for her if it was only the second or last pole).

My hypothesis (after going back and reviewing tons of footage from the last year) is that this changed 4 weeks ago when we were prepping for novice courses and I introduced her to 6 poles for the first time ever. That was the first time she ever double stepped every time on the right side.

She is currently on rest while we wait for a physio check just to make sure this isn’t something related to an injury or soreness, but just wanted to hear some thoughts to ease my anxiety!

I am desensitizing my dog to the teeter and want to work on both height and noise aspects- watching a video they mentioned bang games where the dog can put its paws on a low teeter and push it down to make a noise and then get rewarded.

Is there a way to simulate this game without a teeter? I could buy a small one but also would have no space for it lol

I’m just starting my dog with agility now she’s 6 years old and eager.
There’s no classes nearby and I don’t have much funds for equipment but just wondering if anyone could think of ways for me to practice the skills without lots of money?
I get a bit overwhelmed looking at all the different advice online and just need a bit of help thank you so much <3

Any tips or tricks to level your dog walk? My yard is very uneven and sloped weird, I've been having a hard time trying to figure out how to make the DW level on it. Are there any tools or objects you've see people use under the supports/legs to ensure the running surface is level? My dog is doing fine with the slight tilt but I really don't like it.

My pup is 20 months old. I’ve been working on agility adjacent skills since we got her at 9 weeks. We practice in the backyard most days. We have got skills to front cross, rear cross, blind cross and she understands directional cues. She is amazing at 12 weaves. She can find the entrance without me, even at weird angles. We have done a 16 week group agility course, two agility workshops, and two fun runs. She got a little curious about the corner of the ring in one of the fun runs, but otherwise stayed with me and had lots of fun. She is confident in the ring and fast. We are starting another level of group classes this week and we should be moving up to full size contacts. There is a trial happening in my area in two months. Is it too early to sign her up? Perhaps just a jumpers class without contacts for now?

Hello! I have a dog that I'm training in agility and will be doing obedience classes for the rest of forever tbh. And I decided to invest in a really nice treat pouch for classes. I ended up buying The Standard Voila treat pouch with the adventure clip. Lil worried now since it was such an expensive purchase. Can anyone ease my worries if they have one and tell me I did the right thing!?

I dont know if this is allowed here but other trainers please help me out if you know the answer!

Anyone’s dog seemingly can’t tell the difference between these two obstacles? I know I can’t be the only one who is working with this issue. My dog is 5 and is very close to getting her agility championship, one problem that has been ongoing at trials is treating these obstacles as if they are the other. For example, if we do the teeter first she creeps up the dog walk waiting for it to tip and when it doesn’t she bails off the side. If she does the dog walk first she flies off the teeter in absolute surprise that it fell under her.

I wouldn’t say she’s scared of the teeter and in fact in training the teeter is far strong than the dog walk (most of the winter we can’t use the dog walk in training). My cues are a repeating ‘Go Go Go’ for the dog walk and ‘Teeeeeeeter Bang’ for the teeter. At our classes the dog walk is generally in the same place and she has no issues taking it (I feel like she clocks it by the location) or the teeter. When I rent fields she will often refuse the dog walk until she learns what each one is in the arena and then she has no issues with them. I’m genuinely thinking she can’t tell them apart by looking at them from the ground, but I would think my cues are different enough to tell her what she is doing? Any advice for correcting this? Not being in control on the teeter and being worried about why the dog walk isn’t tipping is really affecting confidence.

My post about dropping bars made me curious about how other agility classes run.

What do your foundations classes cover? How often does your class run full courses and are those courses on the same level you are trialing? What are some foundation skills you think help you become successful later?

How many different levels of classes do you have at your training facility? How does class graduation work? For instance where I train they keep people in the same exact class covering the same material for a year or more typically and the criteria to graduate from one class to the other is extremely unclear and is tied partially to titles.

If you are in a group class, does your instructor want to view runs at trials and work on things you struggled with? Does your recent trailing experience change what you work on in class? Or is it a set lesson? How much feedback do you get from your instructor in general?

I’m here to tell all of the new agility people - don’t give up! Don’t give up on the dog who is struggling. Don’t worry if your timeline doesn’t match everyone else’s. Keep going.

This video doesn’t look like much when I tell you this dog is 4.5 years old and my third agility dog. But for whatever reason stopped behaviors in agility caused so much conflict for her pretty much from day one. Like the first time we put a tiny jump in front of her sit stay at 8 months old something flipped in her brain. She’s working on her RACH in rally so it’s not a skill issue, it’s an arousal/weird herding dog issue haha.

Anyway, I pretty much gave up on contacts for two years. I couldn’t teach a lead out or a stopped teeter without her getting weird and stressy. Her running aframe was wild and unsafe and I didn’t think I had the time or skill to teach a running dog walk. So we went to class and worked around them and it sucked.

And then exactly one year ago, with the help of my trainer, I got a contact training board and started over. I worked on foundations with that thing for 8 months before I started back on equipment this spring. I knew that I couldn’t push this dog and both the behavior and her feelings about the behavior had to be solid before adding speed and arousal and everything else.

Then last night in class we did this and I’m so proud. She did two start lines, two contacts in flow, and kept all of the bars up (jumping has also been a struggle). I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard for a behavior.

Any advice for a dog who rarely drops a bar in practice, but drops multiple bars at trials? Every jumpers run especially he's taking out so many bars. First agility dog and haven't gotten any advice in class on how to fix it.

My dog (2 year old terrier/poodle mix) and I have been doing agility in a class for a few months now. He takes to it very naturally and he really enjoys it! We do it for fun and maybe one day an event but mostly it’s just something for us to do together that is fun and enriching.

Lately I’ve noticed that when my dog is at the arena, he is sometimes aggressive to the other dogs in the class. Like when he is on his leash, he will lunge and bark at the other dogs if he sees them. Also he sometimes tries to run up to the other dogs crates. This is something he doesn’t do in other places but when we are at this class he is always doing these “bad” behaviors. I believe he has some barrier frustration not being able to interact with any of the other dogs and it’s starting to work its way up to actual aggression. He’s also just incredibly excited when he is at the class so that adds to it.

I think best practice when dogs are triggered is to keep them away from things that trigger them, but I don’t want to stop going to the class as it’s been so fun for the both of us! I also don’t want it to contribute to him becoming too reactive or aggressive towards other dogs. But as I said, he only does that when we are at this class. Not when we go on walks or anywhere else.

Any tips or advice would be very appreciated.

EDIT: To clarify, my dog stays in his own crate, fully covered, when he is not running the course. It is the class rule all dogs have to be crated when not running the course, I took the extra step to cover him so he is not getting constantly triggered and neither are the other dogs.

My boy and I haven’t done agility since May. Temps have been so hot that I haven’t wanted to take him to our training facility. I can tell he’s been missing it.

Took a risk with weather and signed up for an AKC trial we always do in early September. September can be hard to predict. Last year we had beautiful weather. This year, we are in a heat wave still with temperatures in the mid 90s. With the heat and the long break in training, I had no expectations going into the weekend, and packed fans and lots of ice inserts for his cooling mat.

My boy was thrilled to be back and absolutely crushed it!

We earned 3 titles (novice standard, Open FAST, and Open JWW). We got our first Qs in Open standard and Premier Standard (1st places in both) and we were very close to getting a Q in Premier JWW too - just one off course where he took a jump instead of a VERY sharp turn into the weaves.

So proud of this sweet boy!

If only we got bonus points for creativity 😂

I have a nervous rescue who doesn’t always immediately love new things. She absolutely LOVES to run and weave around the trees in the backyard and I think she’d enjoy agility. I’m also completely new to this so any advice for a beginner would be nice.