Series: Training

Most dogs have to overcome a few challenges to learn and maintain independent contact performance. Here we’ll focus on suggestions for tackling those challenges.

Having a reliable lead-out is so important. The beginning of the course should never give you cause to wonder if your dog will understand the challenge or take the correct line. Anyone can teach a dog to understand the lead-out pivot; it just takes practice.

Serious essayists write poignant stories about what their dogs have taught them. It’s time for a new perspective. What have we taught our dogs? Here’s what the author has taught her one and only agility dog, all lessons totally untainted by any previous experience.

Once you have evaluated your current agility performance, it’s time to build on this information and develop a plan for improvement that includes short-term and long-term goals. Here you’ll see the development of a plan for the competition season.

Groundwork training has come to encompass much more than just the exercises we do to teach our dogs to follow us. Perfecting your handling on the ground before you start using equipment is a sure bet that you will have a great working relationship with your dog while performing “real” agility.

Jumpers courses.

If you have tried the grid work described in Susan Salo’s articles and DVDs, you may have some questions. We compiled the questions we get most frequently from readers and asked Susan to respond.

Once you have evaluated your current agility performance, it’s time to build on this information and develop a plan for improvement that includes short-term and long-term goals. This month, you’ll learn about the training cycle, a method of breaking down the agility year in a structured way. Carefully planning your agility year is an important tool for enhancing performance and achieving your goals.

In this article we’ll look at how the technical skills developed for other venues can help to solve NADAC puzzles too. The author describes a handling approach that works for NADACstyle puzzles, but also translates well to other venues where you can handle your dog along an ideal path and the obstacles are presented to the dog because they are in his way. You’ll learn about managing your dog’s path and controlling the variable performance obstacles (jumps, tunnels, running contacts).

At the beginning of a team’s agility career, identifying areas of improvement is relatively straightforward. As the team moves up to higher competition levels, however, performance improvements become more difficult to identify. Here are some tools for assessing your current agility performance and developing a training plan for improvement.

Dogs learn many bad habits in training that we have unintentionally taught them, and these lessons tend to stick with the dog. We unknowingly repeat behaviors that influence the dog, whether we want to or not. Learn how to avoid this trap.

An instructor, competitor, and world team coach shares his blueprint for what is demanded of the “perfect” agility dog and handler, which you can use to develop a comprehensive training program for both handler and dog.

The Tug-N-Treat and other food toys are powerful training tools when used properly. Learn how to avoid the potential pitfalls of food toys and actually get your dog to play. By Nancy Gyes

Having a dog with well-trained turn cues makes your life easier and is also much easier on your dog’s body and brain. In this series, you’ll learn how to teach your dog the seven turn cues. But first you’ll work on an important jumping skills for turn work.

Trainers have successfully used the channel-and-guide-wire method of weave pole training since the early 90s. In Part 2, the author shares her variation on this training method.

Plank work is fundamental for your dog’s initial agility training. Here are 101 things you can do with a plank and you can start when your pup is young.

In this three-part series, the author explains the progression for training a two-on/two-off contact performance, both with and without a nose touch. The final article covers sequencing the dogwalk, training the A-frame contact, and problem solving.

By teaching your dog that he’s in full control of the board, you can have a terrific teeter performance. This month you’ll learn the Bang Game, a great tool for teaching the dog to quickly and confidently move into his end contact position.

With so many handlers seeking to speed up their dogs on course, perhaps it’s time to look at the problem from the dog’s point of view.

Trainers have successfully used the channel-and-guide-wire method of weave pole training since the early 90s. In Part 1, Nancy discusses prerequisite groundwork as well as the pros and cons of the system.