So I finally made contact with a woman who does agility about a 1/2 hour from my house. She offers lessons for $30 per hour and has a very nice large privacy fenced area with all the agility equipment. She had 3 of her dogs with her --2 shelties and an adorable staffordshire Bull terrier.
No one else showed up so it was a private lesson for me and Zippy (2 1/2 yr old Manchester Terrier). I had no idea what to expect as my only agility knowledge is seeing it on TV and of course all the great info I get on here--but I have zero hands on experience.
So this is what we did and I'm curious as to what people opinions are about it. We kept Zippy on leash and she had me place him in a sit in front of a small jump. She placed a treat on a "target" plastic lid on the other side of the fence and we encouraged him to jump over and get the treat, which was no problem. Then she put the treat after two jumps and we did the same thing. He needed a bit of encouragement to figure it out, but then was fine. Within in a few minutes we did this at the tire. She then had me do a series of 3 jumps and the tire, giving him a treat at the end. She then had me take him off leash and he was fine at first but then got distracted with snuffling around the place so we put him back on.
Next we went to the tunnel and made it as short as possible. Zippy was scared when the trainer had his leash and was trying to send him through the tunnel to me--once we tried with me getting him started and running to the other end he did fine. She then talked to me about the contact equipment and how we would start by placing him on the contact area and giving him a treat on the target at the base and then would gradually put him higher on the incline and have him go to the treat target each time at the base. We didn't anything much with this for now except for placing him on the contact zone and letting him walk a step or two to the treat.
We then went to a pause table that was only a few inches off the ground. He got on it no problem and is usually pretty reliable with his down command. The instructor was pleased with his "wait" command (Zippy is so food motivated its unreal and every meal he has to do a decently long wait--he wants it so bad he does this intensely staring at me not moving a muscle waiting for his release signal rock solid wait! LOL!) So we practiced the pause a few times. I would drop his leash walk around him a fair bit away from the table count it down and then call him to me.
She then had us do a combination--the jumps, tire, tunnel, pause table. So, we actually got to do a lot more than I would have thought, but I'm not sure I have real clear understanding of things yet--I thought there would be doing more preliminary work for some reason--but I have no idea of what! I guess I was sorting hoping for her to lay out a "strategy" of how you go about doing certain things at certain stages and why--but I don't think that is completely this persons style. So how does this sound for a first lesson? Is this typical? Any critical questions I should be asking? Thanks for any input. I think I'm really going to love this once I get going!
No one else showed up so it was a private lesson for me and Zippy (2 1/2 yr old Manchester Terrier). I had no idea what to expect as my only agility knowledge is seeing it on TV and of course all the great info I get on here--but I have zero hands on experience.
So this is what we did and I'm curious as to what people opinions are about it. We kept Zippy on leash and she had me place him in a sit in front of a small jump. She placed a treat on a "target" plastic lid on the other side of the fence and we encouraged him to jump over and get the treat, which was no problem. Then she put the treat after two jumps and we did the same thing. He needed a bit of encouragement to figure it out, but then was fine. Within in a few minutes we did this at the tire. She then had me do a series of 3 jumps and the tire, giving him a treat at the end. She then had me take him off leash and he was fine at first but then got distracted with snuffling around the place so we put him back on.
Next we went to the tunnel and made it as short as possible. Zippy was scared when the trainer had his leash and was trying to send him through the tunnel to me--once we tried with me getting him started and running to the other end he did fine. She then talked to me about the contact equipment and how we would start by placing him on the contact area and giving him a treat on the target at the base and then would gradually put him higher on the incline and have him go to the treat target each time at the base. We didn't anything much with this for now except for placing him on the contact zone and letting him walk a step or two to the treat.
We then went to a pause table that was only a few inches off the ground. He got on it no problem and is usually pretty reliable with his down command. The instructor was pleased with his "wait" command (Zippy is so food motivated its unreal and every meal he has to do a decently long wait--he wants it so bad he does this intensely staring at me not moving a muscle waiting for his release signal rock solid wait! LOL!) So we practiced the pause a few times. I would drop his leash walk around him a fair bit away from the table count it down and then call him to me.
She then had us do a combination--the jumps, tire, tunnel, pause table. So, we actually got to do a lot more than I would have thought, but I'm not sure I have real clear understanding of things yet--I thought there would be doing more preliminary work for some reason--but I have no idea of what! I guess I was sorting hoping for her to lay out a "strategy" of how you go about doing certain things at certain stages and why--but I don't think that is completely this persons style. So how does this sound for a first lesson? Is this typical? Any critical questions I should be asking? Thanks for any input. I think I'm really going to love this once I get going!