Does anyone do agility?

[Lloyd45]

I have 2 lively dogs. I can take them for an hours walk and they still come back bouncing all over the house but an hours agility training, they sleep all day afterwards. Anyone else on here do agility?

Or we could finish our runs shouting ‘well done, would you like some naice ham?!

Haha Hennipenni _ I will be doing that next season

I used to do agility and loved it but once I went back to work when my youngest started school I haven’t had the time.
Went to a great place in West London. There’s one right near where I live now but I’ve heard they only really want you if you have a Collie (I don’t) and if you take it seriously (I don’t)

Many moons ago I competed in agility, I still miss it, it was a massive part of my life for nearly 20 years! I do sometimes think about going back to it but the handling styles changed so much over the last few years I wouldn't know where to start!

I would totally agree with the collie comments. Round here absolutely. My wee terrier is the first non collie ever in the club, and they are all collies in every local team.

But as a farmers (bad) wife we have 14 collies and none could match my wee one. Well maybe one could but she's so good at working that would be silly,

I'm desperate to do this or flyball or something! with my dog. She's 8 months old and NEEDS jobs.

muttmad don't let the new handling styles put you off. I started the old way then changed to european handling and now have had knee surgery so am doing distance handling. My dogs are bilingual

Greg Derrett is still winning and using the more traditional handling methods so do what works for you - there are lots of clubs happy to teach both methods.

Collies are good at agility but some are horrendous (looking at the crazy collie who runs through jumps and will always do tunnel obstacle, tunnel obstacle tunnel obstacle - shame the judges dont set courses like that!)so don't let not having a collie put you off. Most clubs will welcome all types of dogs that is what makes agility fun.

We do agility! Used to do it a few years ago with my collie, but he had a serious jump knocking problem. Started up again recently with my 1 year old pup - just doing low jumps and tunnels at the minute and teaching the foundations but was so proud of him last week when he completed a course of jumps and tunnels with no mistakes and fast too!

I'm hoping to compete - there are unaffiliated shows which are less formal and will be our starting point.

I guess if I'd kept my field and equipment I'd be a bit more enthusiastic but to get back to the standard I used to compete at, training once a week at a club wouldn't cut it.
I've a couple of dogs that would have to go back in to grade 6/7 and after such a long break it would be near impossible to train them back up to that standard.
Maybe in a couple of years when new pup comes along I will get my mojo back!

Could you recommend how to get into agility? I've done a bit of googling and there seem to be quite a lot of classes ( I love on the edge of a large city) but I don't know where to start. Pup is 9 months so I was planning to wait till the the Spring, but I think she and I would love it.

pupchewsleg I did a couple of private 1-1 lessons first to decide whether I liked the trainer and class then enrolled in a group class.

Pup I would recommend looking for a class that does foundation skills courses which introduce the equipment and directions etc. This will give a great intro and shows the club knows the importance of good foundation skills.

Avoid classes which just involve setting up a course and letting you have a go - you want instruction and ideally someone who competes themselves. Even if you don't fancy competition yourself, training with competition in mind ensures things are done properly.

kriscringle The Dogs Trust near me runs FlyBall classes, not sure if they’re nationwide or not though.

Sorry for the shameless bump, but for those of us living in London and struggling to find anything within spitting distance, I've found this training school which does fair weather agility April - September in Finsbury Park. Saturdays at 4pm, so no rushing there after work (hurrah!)

alphadogtraininglondon.weebly.com/our-services.html

I have recently started with my very laid back terrier, she becomes electric when given some agility jobs. I am amazed because I thought she would be far too happy go lucky to actually compete but now I’m thinking we may enter a few comps and see what happens.

Oh we did this with my now dear departed Collie. Everyone said “oooh Collie, you must do agility”. He didn’t see the point. At the asking of anything, jump on that table/weave in and out of those poles/go through that tunnel, he just looked at me like I’d lost my mind and wandered off.