Flying Poodles

Starting Agility….

I will be teaching a very beginning agility class–Fundamentals of Agility–starting this week. I’m very excited, I haven’t done any teaching since last spring, when I had to stop for my surgery and subsequent healing.

But of course, it’s got me thinking about why I like teaching, what’s really important to learn about agility, and how I got started. I was fortunate to fall in with an excellent instructor, who stressed not rushing the dog and really building trust and teamwork. Elly was ten months old, unruly and headstrong (oh wait! she still is!), and Pritamo taught me a lot about working with the dog. I’d been clicker training for a while, but she helped me refine my skills.

Since then, I’ve worked with other instructors, and I always find I have more to learn. I like that about dog training and about agility. It never gets boring!

So what is important, at the beginning? Building trust, building teamwork, teaching the dog to understand moving directions, helping the handler learn the dance that is good agility… and more: building enthusiasm for training in both the handler and in the dog.

Agility is addictive, and it’s addictive for two reasons. There’s the mental challenge (and physical challenge) of training–and there’s the excitement of a successful agility run with your dog.

No other animal–not even other humans–is as willing to work with a human as a dog. Which is what makes the agility game both possible, and addictive. True teamwork is exciting.