All the Creatures

The sport of agility has been around for 20+ years now. I remember watching in person at least 22 years ago when the tunnels and other colorful agility equipment first came on the scene. Before then it was all the plain wooden obstacles like the jumps and ramps. In those days the fitness equipment for the dogs was hard to come by. Much of it was expensive and the mainstream pet stores were not carrying any of it.

As the sport became more popular more equipment became available. You can also see in the photo above that the bending poles are no longer stuck in the ground like they use to be, equipment has come a long way. I will also be adding a section in my online pet store to include agility equipment for dogs as well as videos and books on training your dog for agility.

We have 3 dogs and every one of them has a different “vice”. Sparky like to bark up a storm when ever he hears the other dogs bark or even hear a truck go by on the road 3 properties away. He thinks he is the one in command of protecting the home front. Katie likes to chew and will chew up anything left out or within her reach. She has wandered into out toolshed and destroyed a few handles on some tools. She also has gotten ahold of a garden hose and tore it to shreds. At one point I put out a couple of outdoor pillows for the dogs to sleep on and Katie shredded them both within 24 hours. Pillows and plastic seem to be what she likes to chew. Foxie likes to dig holes. Thank goodness we have a big property as I would never want a dog like Foxie in a small backyard. Foxie not only digs holes but he digs BIG holes. She can disappear down some of them. What I don’t understand is the part when she goes into those holes she barks down into them too.

Yes our dogs have some habits. We have learned how to deal with them rather than trying to retrain the dogs. Does your dog have a interesting habit?

I love watching dog agility competitions. The equipment used had often puzzled me as to where they got the stuff. Most of it I assumed was made by the people putting on the competition but I was wrong. There is a whole industry that caters to that dog sport. The manufacturers are coming out with new designs all the time. Everything from the teeter totters to those long nylon tunnels. In fact you can find those nylon tunnels on sale at this link. The tunnel is pictured below:

I would really like to see if I could train our quick Australian Shepard mix to see if she could handle the course. She is very quick but I worry about her getting distracted during the competition. I know there are several clubs in our area that I could join that will help us work as a team.

If you get the chance you might be able to catch an agility dog competition on TV. The Animal Planet channel often shows them and USA channel is also start to show more animal related programming too. Also you can watch a few of them on YouTube from people putting videos from their local competitions. You can get a good idea of what you need to do to train your own dog to compete.