This six week program is designed to be a foundation skills class to prepare the dog and handler for the sport of agility. In order to enroll in this program your dog should have prior experience within a group class setting and should have achieved a minimum of one to two levels of basic obedience classes. We will be fine-tuning the obedience skills by working on focused stays with distraction, go to your mat, and heel work as well as tailoring these skills to what you will need for agility. Toys will be introduced as a way to motivate and reward the dog as an alternative to food.
We do some tricks that are prep work for a warm up routine for your dog and to teach balance and control, including: sit pretty, weaving through legs, spinning right and left, and take a bow.
The concepts of targeting will be introduced with both nose and foot targets being covered. This is to help the dogs learn more body awareness before getting them on the regulation-sized equipment. This preliminary target training will be used to teach you the basic concepts of handling prior to the sequencing that will bein in the next level of training.
Introductory level equipment, such as low planks, tables, wobble boards, tunnels and ladders will also allow the dog a chance to experience different obstacles and build confidence. This will help us identify any aspects that your dog might be having trouble with, so we can start working on resolving these problems right away.
The Beginner Agility Level 2 class takes the basic skills learned in the foundation class and starts applying these skills to individual obstacles – jumps, tunnels and table. Dog and handler teams learn to direct their dogs to the obstacles through body language and gradually start working through 2 and 3 obstacle sequences.
At this level, prep work is begun for the contact obstacles – teeter, dog walk and A-frame. The nose touch targeting behaviour initiated in level 1 is systematically transferred to the dog walk, and A-frame and different elements of the teeter totter performance are introduced.
As the class progresses, the dogs and handlers will be moving about the room from station to station to allow maximum training time for each team. Dog/handler teams will start to build short sequences of tunnels and jumps, helping them learn more about how to navigate a course together.
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