Hi all,
I belong to a obedience and "agility" dog club that has major issues with the head agility instructor. Everyone who is training their dog in "agility" has been told, no agility only jumping. We are disgusted at this, because we believe that a dog needs to learn agility first to get the contact points right. Jumping is good, yes but it's speed and all dogs know how to jump.
My friend owns a 19 month old Australian Shepherd and that dog has never seen a weaving pole, let alone a dog walk or an A-Frame. The agility instructor says she wont start training the dog in weaving until next year!! To me this is wrong, anyone who has any nous knows weaving is the hardest part for a dog to learn and they need to learn it at an early age. I feel sorry for my friend, as she has an extremely good dog but they have gone to waste through this head instructors mismanagement.
My dog, a border collie has done minimal work on agility equipment and the last time she did anything was way back in 2006! We have also been told that "we" me and another woman need to get our JDX titles before the others can even begin in agility! That puts pressure on us to push our dogs, and my friend with the Aussie feels like she is holding us back. Believe me it's a volcano that's ready to erupt.
There are a lot of disillusioned people at the club and I am one of them, unfortunately ours is the only club in this town, the closest is about 300 kilometres away. Does anyone out there agree with me by saying that if the handler is interested in agility, their dogs should start as puppies in puppy agility? Not when the dog is nearly three years of age.
I got told I wasn't qualified enough to be a head agility instructor, let alone assistant agility instructor, yet I'm the only one who has had two state champion novic agility dogs in the past?
Hmmmm, any questions and comments are welcome.
I belong to a obedience and "agility" dog club that has major issues with the head agility instructor. Everyone who is training their dog in "agility" has been told, no agility only jumping. We are disgusted at this, because we believe that a dog needs to learn agility first to get the contact points right. Jumping is good, yes but it's speed and all dogs know how to jump.
My friend owns a 19 month old Australian Shepherd and that dog has never seen a weaving pole, let alone a dog walk or an A-Frame. The agility instructor says she wont start training the dog in weaving until next year!! To me this is wrong, anyone who has any nous knows weaving is the hardest part for a dog to learn and they need to learn it at an early age. I feel sorry for my friend, as she has an extremely good dog but they have gone to waste through this head instructors mismanagement.
My dog, a border collie has done minimal work on agility equipment and the last time she did anything was way back in 2006! We have also been told that "we" me and another woman need to get our JDX titles before the others can even begin in agility! That puts pressure on us to push our dogs, and my friend with the Aussie feels like she is holding us back. Believe me it's a volcano that's ready to erupt.
There are a lot of disillusioned people at the club and I am one of them, unfortunately ours is the only club in this town, the closest is about 300 kilometres away. Does anyone out there agree with me by saying that if the handler is interested in agility, their dogs should start as puppies in puppy agility? Not when the dog is nearly three years of age.
I got told I wasn't qualified enough to be a head agility instructor, let alone assistant agility instructor, yet I'm the only one who has had two state champion novic agility dogs in the past?
Hmmmm, any questions and comments are welcome.