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.

To teach them right from left, they should already know how to jump. Set up 2 hurdles side by side at the lowest height or on the ground. Direct your dog with your hand to go over the jump and say “touch, over” as your doing it. When he does it, click and treat so he knows that’s what you want him to do. Once he’s mastered that, substitute the word “right” for “touch” but make sure he’s going over the right side when you do that.

Once he is doing the right side fairly well, teach him the same way to go over the left side. Start with “touch, over” and then substitute “left” for the word “over”. Every once in a while, you can say “right, over” to make sure he doesn’t forget about the right side command.

Once your dog is confident in the jumps, do both sides and mix them up, back and forth, until he learns to respond to the word “right” or “left”.

If your dog is having difficulty with learning these commands, you could break up each step in smaller increments by using a target stick. Use the same command and when your dog comes near the target stick, click and treat. Then, direct him over the hurdle using the target stick, click and treat. Once he puts these 2 together, combine them so you are only clicking once for him to perform the action and get the treat.

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1. Clicker and Agility Training Part 2
2. Simple Commands Using Clicker Method
3. Go Out and Go Over Agility Commands


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When you teach the “go out” command, you’re going to reward your dog by tossing their favorite treat or toy away from you when they leave your side. I know this is hard to envision but imagine when you are playing “catch” with him to know what this training will look like.

Throw the treat away from you and click when the dog moves toward it. Let him get the treat, then call him with the “here” command, click and treat. Repeat this exercise but click before he gets to the treat. Once he gets the idea that you want him to go away from you, add the words “go out” when you toss the treat and click as he goes away from you. You want him to associate the command with going out (or away) from you. Next, you say “go out” and wait for a moment before tossing the treat and clicking. You want to see him move away from you before clicking and the treat.

To teach the “go over” command, you are finally getting in to some agility training. Use the simplest hurdle and set it at the lowest possible height. Put your dog on a leach and lead him over to the hurdle. If he steps over it, click and treat. Repeat until he learns that he will get a treat when he goes over it and then add the command, “go over”. Continue to click and treat. Once you feel that your dog has mastered this, you can raise the height of the jump by one notch.

The next post will focus on using hand signals in agility training and teaching your dog the difference between left and right.

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Get a treat or target stick and hold it over your dog’s head. As you tell him to “nose it”, bring the treat or stick backward until the your dog’s rump lands on the floor in the sit position. Click, treat and repeat several times until she’s sitting at the sound of the clicker. Then, you can gradually remove the treat or stick as training aid until she sits just at the sound of the clicker.

If you dog backs up instead of sits, do the training exercise against a wall so the dog can’t go anywhere and must sit.

For the “down” command, use the same technique only put the treat or target stick under the dog’s nose and move it towards your dogs chest until her elbows land on the floor. Click, treat and repeat.

Teaching the “here” command is different in agility than the “come” command in obedience. In agility,  you want your dog to come towards you but not necessarily close to you. For instance, if your dog is moving towards the wrong obstacle, you want him to come near to you so you can redirect him but you don’t want him to come right to you.

Start in an enclosed area. When your dog comes to you, click and treat. Use his name along with the command “here”. If he goes away from you, that’s okay. Repeat the click and treat sequence along with using his name. Let him know that he’s not required to stay with you.

In the next post, we’ll cover the more difficult “go out”,  “go over” and directional commands that are necessary for good agility training.

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Get your bag of treats, clicker and a target stick that’s available online. Or you can make your own by getting a 12-inch dowel and covering it with colorful tape. Show the target stick to your dog and let him get acquainted with it the way dogs like to do. If he happens to touch it while sniffing it, click and then give him a treat.

You might have to shape your dog’s behavior if he’s reluctant to touch the target stick. You do this by rewarding every time he looks at the stick until he touches it. Eventually, he should get the idea that touching the stick means he’ll get a reward.

Help your dog to know the difference between “nose it” and “paw it” by using those cue words, then clicking and giving him a treat. Knowing how to do this will help your dog later when he’s learning how to respond to your commands as he navigates the agility obstacles.

Clicker training may not work for every dog. You can use another positive reinforcement technique that suits you both better. No matter what technique you use, it’s important not to coerce, or force, your dog into doing something he doesn’t want to do. The best agility dogs are the ones that enjoy what they’re doing with their handler.

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2. Using the Clicker for Agility Training
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Step 1: Start when your dog is hungry, right before mealtime. Show your dog the clicker, click it and then give him a treat. He might be startled by the sound of it so you can muffle it in your hand at first until he gets used to it. Once he associates the click with a treat, he won’t mind it at all. Do this activity with your dog no more than 5 – 10 minutes a day until he associates the click with a treat.

Step 2: Once they’ve learned the association between a click and a treat, you need to vary the amount of time between the click, treat and receiving the treat. To do this, click, wait 5 seconds, then give the treat. Change the amount of time to be more or less each time. Your dog may be impatient or confused but once he learns to wait patiently for the treat, you can move on to the next step.

Step 3: Now they must learn that they can receive the treat anywhere, not just from your hand. You do this by clicking and then tossing the treat in the air for them to catch wherever it lands.

Whenever you spend time doing clicker training with your dog, always do it in 5 – 10 minute increments and have some playtime afterwards. My next blog posts covers the final steps in clicker training.

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First, you should attend a match or trial without your dog to see if agility training is a sport that you would both enjoy doing. What looks like fun on TV may not appeal to you once you see it up close and in person. You also want to do this before investing in any equipment because it would be a shame to spend a lot of money on agility equipment only to realize that you or your dog just don’t like agility training.

Make sure your dog is healthy and fit before starting agility training with a trip to the Vet. Let them know what you are planning to do so the Vet can check the dog’s joints, gait and weight for any problems.

Once you’ve decided to start agility training, you’ve got to teach your dog the rules of the game. If your dog has already learned obedience, this might not seem that hard to do. The difference is that you want to use positive reinforcement when training a dog to do agility.

Many trainers use clickers to train their agility dogs because it’s fun and easy to do. Basically, the dog learns that if he does what his handler wants him to do, he’ll hear a click and then get a treat for responding correctly. If he doesn’t respond correctly, no click and no treat.

You don’t have to use a clicker to train your dog for agility. You can make another sound or a simple command like “Good Fido” instead when they do the required behavior. But if you do that, make sure you only use that phrase or noise when you are training. Otherwise, plan to have a treat handy so that you won’t disappoint your dog. A clicker is good to use because you’ll always and only use it when training.

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1. Using the Clicker for Agility Training
2. Clicker and Agility Training Part 2
3. Go Out and Go Over Agility Commands