Obstacle Height

When introducing obstacles, the classes I've been in have always started with them lower than full trial height. How fast or slowly do you raise them?

Lower is safer, obviously, and is also lower criteria. But I'm wondering if getting them up to full height quicker (as long as the dog can take the obstacle safely, of course) would build better muscle memory? Or is it a matter of the dog's going to go over so many A-frames in his lifetime that a little bit at the beginning doesn't make as much difference.

IMO muscle memory is really not that helpful for agility. It's more about the mental process of how to correctly and safely perform each obstacle, be it a jump or a teeter or an a-frame. Besides, unless all you ever do is trial in one place on the same equipment forever, it's not going to matter. Take the teeter for example: each teeter is going to be calibrated differently for the pivot point so it may fall a bit faster or slower, AKC still allows for two different surfaces (rubberized contacts or just texturized with sand) so they will feel differently, the height at the pivot point has a range of four inches, is the actual obstacle made of wood or aluminum? and so on. All of this may not seem like much to us as humans, but to dogs it can be a world of difference as to their perception of how an obstacle feels.

So it's not going to matter if your dog has great muscle memory for running an aluminum, rubberized teeter set at exactly 24" at the pivot point which drops in exactly three seconds if you then go to a trial with a wooden teeter with sand texture that is set at roughly 23.5" and drops in 2.5 seconds. But if you work your dog on 30 different teeters with 30 different variables, they may never develop significant muscle memory to the obstacle, but they are going to have a firm mental process of how the teeter is performed, hopefully regardless of the various physical variables involved.

Good post, flyball is all about muscle memory. Agility thus far doesn't seem the same.

We don't raise obstacles until the dog is very secure on them.

Cider teeter surfed for a year, without it ever fully dropping on it's own. Partial height and full height. Getting her used to the bang and revved up liking it was more significant than doing it full height on her own really. I care more about availability to as many peoples equipment as possible than endless repetition on one.

Both my kids have lost their heads over chutes they didn't like as well as what they'd practised with, tunnels they felt were too dark and might eat them, and variation in teeter bangs than much else.

I care more about practising lowered jump height not to stress joints than worrying about contact equipment height.

In my opinion, working on handling - communicating to the dog what to do and where to go - is much more important than jump height. Practicing at low heights can remove a distraction (and avoid the potential for injury) while you are training placement and direction - this really is about you figuring out how to properly do your part of the team effort. It's easy for the dog to shift to a higher jump height once he/she can read your signals so as to get set up properly and be confident about where he/she is going next. Build confidence and enthusiasm, and the jump height will take care of itself.