Contact points on an agility dog obstacle course is where a dog needs to touch the obstacle when running through the course during trials or competition. We can see them because they’re painted yellow on the obstacle but a dog doesn’t see them. You need to train your dog to see it by position on the obstacle rather than color. Here’s a video that clearly demonstrates how to teach your dog about contacts.
With Valentine’s Day coming up, you don’t want to forget your dog! They need to feel loved, too.Show them how much you care by baking them some of these sweet training dog treats. Chocolate is what they’ll be craving but we all know that’s bad for dogs so try this recipe that uses Carob instead. They’ll never know the difference!
You can save money and protect your dog’s health with these nifty recipes for training dog treats. These treats are out of the ordinary so maybe you save them for trials and competitions. That’s up to you but either way, your dog will love them and you’ll feel good about giving them something healthy and homemade.
An agility dog’s nutritional requirements are going to be a little bit different than a regular dog. They need higher amounts of protein and fat in their diets. They need more protein because they’re feeding their muscles and repairing injuries. They need higher amounts of fat because it’s a more efficient source of energy than carbohydrates.
You want the quality of the fat they’re eating to be good so look for dog foods that have Omega 3 fatty acids which is a healthier source of fat. Don’t add supplements because too much fat can be harmful. A dog food that has a balanced amount should be fine.
Teaching your agility dog the tire jump obstacle can be challenging because the dog doesn’t see it as a jump and doesn’t understand what you want him or her to do when they get to it. First, use treats as a motivator to get them through the tire. Starting your dog at low heights and then increasing them as they learn to jump through the tire can help you avoid the problem of a dog walking under the obstacle to get the treat.
Once you’ve got your dog trained to respond to basic agility commands and hand signals, you need to teach them how to conquer the obstacles. All of them are challenging in different ways for different breeds of dogs. Champion agility dogs make it look so easy on TV as they go up, over and through the different obstacles but if you look at it from a dogs point of view, there are specific “fears” that have to be overcome before they can perform well.
Many dog owners who are thinking about getting involved in dog agility training are concerned about the time commitment it takes. Well, that all depends on what your goals are for your training and what level you’d like to achieve.
If you are doing agility training just for fun, you only need to spend about an hour or two a week at the most. Spend about fifteen minutes a day teaching them the basics and then when you feel they are ready for the more complicated aspects of dog agility, you’ll want to bump up your time a little bit to accomodate.
Your agility dog must learn how to follow your hands if they are going to be successful at going over jumps and through tunnels. You also have to teach your dog right and left so they know where to go after completing an obstacle or jump.
Teaching them to follow your hands is as simple as placing a treat in your hand and making the dog follow your hand. When the dog touches your hand, you click and give them a treat. Pretty soon, they’ll be eating out of your hands and learning to follow them, too.
One of the most important things you need to teach your agility dog after the basics are learned is how to focus on the obstacles and on you, the handler while they’re running through the course. Using the clicker method helps a lot and in this video, you’ll see how a good agility dog should be able to run through the obstacles and still keep tabs on the handler’s directions.
Get Your Dog's Attention During Dog Agility Training -- powered by eHow.com
Teaching your dog agility commands like how to “go out” from you is a lot more difficult than other obedience commands because you’re teaching your dog to go away from you instead of towards you. But you have to teach your dog this command because that’s what they need to know how to do when they go through a tunnel or into another obstacle in agility training.
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