What’s your favorite agility training tool?

Posted: April 19th, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: Common Questions | Tags: , , , , | 6 Comments »

In about a year my family will be moving closer to the in-laws in Mississippi. My MIL breeds Australian Shepherd’s and has asked me if I wanted to start dog training with her, focusing on agility.

We are both new to agility training and I wanted to know what are some tools that you suggest and cannot live without?

*We will be building our course at home with the obstacles being the same as a standard course.

Thanks so much!

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6 Comments on “What’s your favorite agility training tool?”

  1. 1 scootersrockin said at 7:26 am on April 19th, 2011:

    bbgun… I’m kidding. Stairs and tunnels, the shalom poles.

  2. 2 Dogluver said at 8:16 am on April 19th, 2011:

    i love agility!!!!!!!!!!! i have a shihtzu and shes pretty good at agility and I’m 8 and were gonna go in agilty and dog shows and my shih tzus the only dog i have and i like all the agility equiment

  3. 3 Karens BCs (living the dream) said at 8:29 am on April 19th, 2011:

    We love the seesaw & the tunnels.

    Hurdles are great to have at home.

  4. 4 ξ Bindi § said at 9:02 am on April 19th, 2011:

    Bindi loves to work for her squeaky duck. Its her favorite toy, she’ll take that before yummy treats. To keep it special she only gets it for a reward when we’re working.

    Max being a lab will do anything for food.

    It really depends on the dog. Find what really gets your dog motivated and use that as a reward.

  5. 5 geminiast said at 9:40 am on April 19th, 2011:

    the Clicker is a great trainng tool.
    you can start clicker training now so you will be ready to start agil training when you move. Here is a site with a bunch of links about clicker taraining http://www.inch.com/~dogs/clicker.html

    Also a lid or target ( small round item). this will help in trianing the contacts on the obsticles. Obsticles with contacts are the A frame, Teeter, and dog walk.
    http://hubpages.com/hub/Agility_Training_2_The_Training

    Also when you go to buy or make your equipement there are lots of sites offering low cost obsticles.
    http://www.affordableagility.com/

    do it yourself agil. equipment book
    http://www.smartpakcanine.com/ProductClassDescription.aspx?productClassId=3642&cmPreserveSource=true&cmPreserveCategory=true

    http://www.weave-poles.com/?crtag=Google&gclid=CNSJu4yChpUCFST7iAodEzLO2A

    Also here is a link with articles about agility and training
    http://www.carlson-agility.com/articles.shtml

    just do a search and you will find all kinds of good stuff.
    I LOVE AGILITY

    http://www.leapdogagility.com/library.htm
    this site has a lot of good video training lessons.
    many you can do now before having all or any of the equipment.
    it has a clicker video, target,beginning training and many more.
    you have to buy the sessions though. But you get like 4 or 5 videos with your purchase.

  6. 6 Agilityshelties said at 10:28 am on April 19th, 2011:

    As far as training tools are concerned, you will have to figure out what works best for your dog, because each is different.
    One of my shelties just loves treats and works best with high value treats for a reward. Her brother/littermate could care less about the food he likes his frisbee, so we reward him with that.
    Our third sheltie is quite shy (he is a rescue) so toys don’t work for him either. He likes treats, but mostly wants to please me so lots of “good boy!’s” works along with pets and sometimes treats.
    I started my first two with a clicker. It works great because you can mark the correct behavior immediately. Most trainers today start their puppies off with clicker training.

    Good luck and have fun. Aussies are great agility dogs!

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