Puppy Agility!

Sara Carson

Sara Carson

Experienced Member
Just a bit of work with Hero the other day.. :)
He is 5 months old and these jumps are fixed at 4inc.
I do not do this often. This was actually his first attempt at a (sequence)


I know I handled the 2nd jump weird lol
 
tigerlily46514

tigerlily46514

Honored Member
FUN!! Your agility set looks a lot like mine. The only hard part for me was getting Buddy to learn which cue meant which item.
I ended up putting all the 6? 7? pieces away, and bringing them out only one at a time, once he had THAT one piece down by pat by a cue,
then i added in the 2nd thing....and then the 3rd thing...and so on.

That is good you are only having pup jump a few inches, since his hips are not yet mature. Good on you. Hero is one lucky lucky dog!!
 
Anneke

Anneke

Honored Member
Looks great!!
I wish I had access to something like this, when Jinx was young(or now for that matter)
I don't have a yard to set up a course, so I have two jumps and some weave poles I drag around in my car, so I can set them up when ever I am in a place that I can do some training.
It helps so much if you can start handling a dog at a young age!
I asked at my dogschool to start with Jinx when she was young, but they refused. Even when I made it clear I did not want her to jump, just wanted the bar on the floor...:cry:
 
Sara Carson

Sara Carson

Experienced Member
All of my stuff is from Murphies agility :)
I would do barless but they are fixed jumps (The support beam) ugh lol thanks! He enjoys it a little too much lol Hmm I run the only dog training place in town haha The other 2 are both a 35min drive out.. :)
 
tigerlily46514

tigerlily46514

Honored Member
My jumps are very adjustable. The bar is totally removable, too, and will fall off if the dog hits it with his paws as he clear it. I suppose that is a safety feature.

Anneke, it is a myth that adult dogs can't learn anything.
Buddy was 3 years old when he saw his first agility set. He rocks at it. A dog does NOT have to be a puppy to learn agility. They have "online" agility competitions, for dog-aggressive dogs,:rolleyes: and i was thinking of timing Buddy, to see if he could win. He looks fast to me, anyway.
He has a flat tube, and also a long tunnel like Hero has, and a long long line of weave poles,(almost too long!) some jumps, a ring to jump through, maybe some other stuff that i can't think of right now....

You CAN indeed, teach Jinx agility if you want to! AGE DOESNT' MATTER, unless a dog has some type of joint issues or something like that.
Jinx might LOVE it. I wish you did have a yard, Anneke.
How adorable, Anneke, that you cart your agility stuff around! YOu are such a good dog mom, Anneke!:)
 
dogcrazy

dogcrazy

Experienced Member
Anneke, just like Tigerlily said, Jinx can still do agility. Most goldendoodles are ``bad`` at agility but my dog loves it!!! I have a course set up in my backyard like Sara does.
 
Dogster

Dogster

Honored Member
Love the video...like always!!!!!:LOL: I don't have a course....yet. I still have to "perfect" Shivon's agility skills (faster weave and more precise jumps). She's getting better!!
 
tigerlily46514

tigerlily46514

Honored Member
weave is Buddy's "least favorite" agility thing, too, Dogster.

Lol, Dogster, if our 2 dogs went an agility class together, your dog and my dog could sit out the weave parts together...ha ha!
It sounds like you are doing good with your young dog, Dogster! It does take time. My dog did not see the reason to do ALL the poles in the weave!! He seemed to think, if he had done first half of them, that should suffice, let's go do something more fun now, okay?

Buddy can do the weave poles, now, but, that was the hardest one for HIM, and he just doesn't like it that much. Now the ring, and the tube, the jumps, all seem really FUN to Buddy, :D
but he only does the weave poles cuz i ask him to....it's not HIS idea of fun.

all dogs are unique, aren't they? with their own lil preferences, their own lil ideas of what is fun, and what is boring.:ROFLMAO:
 
Anneke

Anneke

Honored Member
tigerlily46514 said:
My jumps are very adjustable. The bar is totally removable, too, and will fall off if the dog hits it with his paws as he clear it. I suppose that is a safety feature.

Anneke, it is a myth that adult dogs can't learn anything.
Buddy was 3 years old when he saw his first agility set. He rocks at it. A dog does NOT have to be a puppy to learn agility. They have "online" agility competitions, for dog-aggressive dogs,:rolleyes: and i was thinking of timing Buddy, to see if he could win. He looks fast to me, anyway.
He has a flat tube, and also a long tunnel like Hero has, and a long long line of weave poles,(almost too long!) some jumps, a ring to jump through, maybe some other stuff that i can't think of right now....

You CAN indeed, teach Jinx agility if you want to! AGE DOESNT' MATTER, unless a dog has some type of joint issues or something like that.
Jinx might LOVE it. I wish you did have a yard, Anneke.
How adorable, Anneke, that you cart your agility stuff around! YOu are such a good dog mom, Anneke!:)
Click to expand...

Ooooh I am not saying that you can't teach an old dog new tricks!!!!!:D You should have seen my Shane, learnig new tricks at twelve years old! Even right before he died(he was blind by then and hard of hearing) he still mastered some new tricks;) And Cooper will be six in april and he is still learning!
What I meant was, that the handling part of agility(telling the dog where to go) would be so much easier as most pups naturally look more to you than older dogs, who will be way more distracted by smells, other dogs, and those kind of things.
I don't think it is wrong to start doing jumps(without the bar or the bar placed on the floor) just so the dog can get used to all the complicated moves you have to make.
What I notice now, is that Jinx gets so excited about agility, she often forgets to look at me.
Teaching a pup to go over the dogwalk, teeter, through the tunnel is easier than to get an older dog to do this. Puppies have no fear and have complete faith in their handler. So IF done the right way, they will have less problems in learning this as older dogs.
Jinx and I will start competing in agility this year. In march we will do our first training competition, which is more training than competition. We are allowed to use treats and if something goes wrong you are allowed to try it again. Training with the pressure of a real competition!!Really excited about that!
 
Dogster

Dogster

Honored Member
Even though I haven't started on the ACTUAL weave poles or jumps, I use my legs. There is a really great dog park close to where I live, in which (all fenced in) rhere is a small forest, an open area with no trees, and AN AGILITY COURSE. So when Shivon gets better at agility (and listening to me off-leash, I'll take her there to practice.:D
 
tigerlily46514

tigerlily46514

Honored Member
//"What I meant was, that the handling part of agility(telling the dog where to go) would be so much easier as most pups naturally look more to you than older dogs,"//

Lolz, i dunno if most puppy owners would agree or not. :ROFLMAO: When i first got my agility set, within a day or so, i realized, THE HARD part of agility,
was going to be,
successfully assigning a NAME/CUE/ to each item.

Getting a dog to DO the item, pretty easy.

Getting a dog to know WHICH item, lot more work!!

So i quickly boxed up all my agility items, leaving only ONE item out. We spent a week or two, on just the ONE item,
so Buddy solidly knew "ring" meant jump through that circle.

Even though he was 3 years old, he quickly understood, "ring" = mom wants me to jump through this circle.
THEN
we brought out second item. Buddy learned "tube" meant run through the tube. We practiced, back and forth
"ring"
"tube" ........"ring"........."ring"........."tube"........"ring"
"tube"........"tube"........."tube".............
"ring"
and so on, with zero pattern,
and re-arranging the 2 items placement often,
forcing my dog to listen to which item he should go to.


I didn't really want Buddy looking at me, but listening to me.

THEN i added in 3rd item, and so on.
I think, puppies or dogs, of any age, MIGHT find learning 6 or 7 words all at same time, kind of hard, so i set my dog up for success,
and only taught him one item at a time.

I also chose words that did not sound the same. LIke, when i added in "chute" he oftne thought i'd said "tube", and i could see how the two words DO sound the same, especially if you are running fast,
so i renamed "chute" to be "flat" (flattened tube) just so it'd easily sound different to Buddy's ear.


I think it is just easier the way i did it, if one really wants a dog to learn the NAME of the item, with teaching only one item at a time. Even for puppies.
 
tigerlily46514

tigerlily46514

Honored Member
//"I don't think it is wrong to start doing jumps(without the bar or the bar placed on the floor) just so the dog can get used to all the complicated moves you have to make."//

Most ppl see it just that way. almost everyone, seems like, sees jumping as something puppies should get started on...to be good at it later.(?)

I do not think teaching a dog to jump is difficult, at all. At least, it wasn't for my dog, took him one day maybe, to learn to jump over a stick. I don't think jumping is something a dog won't excell at, even if he never jumped as a puppy. Many champion dog jumpers were forbidden from doing much more than a few inches of jumping til they were 18 to 24 mos old, (to protect their hip development)



still, they became champion jumpers.


My whole concern, is the little known knowledge, that many dog health experts advise, that puppies NOT be doing any high jumping, as their hips joints are not mature. They think, a lot of high jumping before 18 to 24 mos old, contributes to bad hips as an older dog.

So that is why i was glad to see Sara only having her puppy doing very low jumps only at this age.

Most ppl seem unaware of this info. I never knew it til not long ago.
Having had a dog whose joints did fall apart, which broke my heart,
has made me cautious about protecting Buddy's joints better than i did with my last dog.
 
Dogster

Dogster

Honored Member
Thanks!!! Shivon can jump really high (when she plays with Carmel or the cat) although I don't know if it's good for her. When I practice over with her though, she gets REALLY LAZY and won't jump more than a couple of inches (sometimes she goes under instead of going over).:)
 
Anneke

Anneke

Honored Member
tigerlily46514 said:
//"I don't think it is wrong to start doing jumps(without the bar or the bar placed on the floor) just so the dog can get used to all the complicated moves you have to make."//

Most ppl see it just that way. almost everyone, seems like, sees jumping as something puppies should get started on...to be good at it later.(?)

I do not think teaching a dog to jump is difficult, at all. At least, it wasn't for my dog, took him one day maybe, to learn to jump over a stick. I don't think jumping is something a dog won't excell at, even if he never jumped as a puppy. Many champion dog jumpers were forbidden from doing much more than a few inches of jumping til they were 18 to 24 mos old, (to protect their hip development)
Click to expand...



I think I'm probably not explaining myself the right way:D Thinking in dutch, writing in english.... reading in english, translating to dutch..... brain overload:giggle:

Just to be on the safe side: I don't think puppies should do actual jumping!
But with the bar placed on the floor, they get used to going in between the jump. Jumping will come later, much later.

I have been watching Susan Garrett's vids of her competitions and I have noticed agility is a little different from agility here in europe.
Our courses focus much more on difficult turns, where I feel agility in America and Canada focuses much more on distance controle, more straight lines.

For me, the most difficult thing about agility is, to get Jinx to understand my cues to go left, right, to have me cross behind her, or in front of her.
It's not the actual teaching her to jump or to get her to know the name of the teeter, the tunnel or the ring. That was, at least I think so, the easy part:D
Also, she clings to me, so getting her to go ahead of me(work at a distance) is soooo hard:eek:
We are working on her reading my bodylanguage, following my pointing arms, instead of me shouting jump, left, right(I always mix those up:oops:) So I want to keep my vocal cue's to a minimum, only using it, when there is a change in direction with a jump in sight, which she is NOT supposed to take.

So I was thinking, if I could have started this, the actual giving cue's to which way to go, at an earlier age, it might have been a little easier. But in no way, it decreases the fun we are having right now! Just today we had a fantasic training, a small, difficult course, which she did perfectly!! Whooohooo! We are getting so much better, as I am finally getting what I was doing wrong:D Too much waving my arms around:rolleyes:
 
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