Getting a puppy ready for agility training

I know that there are a lot of things that you aren't supposed to do with young pups as far as agility training goes but what can I do with him at an early age to help him along later?

I thought about putting a board on the ground flat and walking him around on that. I have read to put two poles up that can later be used to make a jump with and to just get him used to going through the poles.

What else can I do?

There is lots you can teach a young pup. You can teach targeting, then teach go, get out, left and right (or flip) You can teach a contact behaviour like a 2 on/2 off. Planks on the ground are good. Hind end awareness exercises are very helpful too.

Hind end awareness?

Google it. There is lots out there on it.

I found Cleanrun.com to be a great resource of books and really like "From the Ground Up -- Agility Foundation Training for Puppies and Beginner Dogs" by Kim Collins

I'm almost afraid to Google "hind end awareness":yikes: :lol-sign:

Thanks for the url and I'll Google cautiously.


I Googled and found some good stuff. Ladders,progressing to boards etc.

Thanks!

I agree with Speed, go to CR. The foundations book by Cullens is excellent and worth every penny. Especailly to anyone new to agility.

Good luck
Lynn

if you search "red puppy agility" on youtube, the first vid should be a red BC puppy learnign the basics of agility at home. he's relaly very good.

then go to "more form this user" and find one of his adult vids, he turns into quite the impressive agility competitor

Yeah, you could always try youtube.com . I know someone who trained her dog using all youtube vids!

Thank y'all!

I hope everything works out and you are able to do agility - its great fun!

You can teach them jumps.

What we did was we had the jumps set up but with no bars to really they learned "over" as going through the jump standards. Or it just had a ground line so they stepped over like 1in not actually jumping.

Tunnels are great for puppies. They LOVE them

A lot of people on Youtube do more with puppies than they should, so be careful. She shouldn't be jumping at all until 6 months, and shouldn't jump above her elbow height until the growth plates close (the safest is obviously not to jump at all until the growth plates close). Some people use x-rays and some people just wait until 14 months or so because they're most likely closed by then. It's also not a good idea to have her on full-height contact obstacles until then, or doing weave poles where she has to bend her spine until 12 months.

Yeah I heard that they shouldn't be doing jumps or weave poles until a certain age. It's not even reccommended that they climb stairs before a certain age.


I read that you should start teaching them to go through the poles rather than jumping and with weaving to go through them toward you and away from you but don't actually set the poles up for weaving.