To understand agility, let’s start with some basics. A number of organizations put on agility trials, but the American Kennel Club puts on the most by far. AKC breaks agility down into three different competitions – Standard, Jumpers with Weaves (JWW), and FAST. Let’s look at all three.
Standard Agility courses use all the obstacles – bar, tire, and other jumps, plus tunnels, chutes, weave poles, pause table, dog walk, A frame, and teeter. Each course uses a combination of obstacles, and each obstacle has a number. The dog must successfully negotiate each obstacle in order within a certain period of time. (The time allowed for each
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Your dog is on her way back to the crating area and a well-deserved treat, and you’re on your way to chat with friends and see how your run looked from the outside. Then it’s off to the scorer’s table to check your score and see how much progress you’ve made toward that next agility title.
Oh, and don’t forget to stop and pick up your dog’s ribbons. Each qualifying performance is rewarded with a green ribbon or rosette, and there are ribbons for first through fourth place in each class as well.
Especially at the Novice level, there are so many classes
within the trial that if your dog does well, you’re all but
guaranteed to go home with a handful of new ribbons for your dog’s growing collection.
It’s no coincidence that agility is the most popular sport AKC offers. And if you’ve ever seen dogs running agility courses on TV and wondered if your dog could do that too, the answer is probably yes. Any reasonably fit dog can learn to do agility, and even handlers with severe physical handicaps can, with the right kind of training, learn to accompany their dogs on the course.
That’s what we offer at Dog Sports at Kim’s – training that’s tailored to make your dog an agility winner.
Jumpers with Weaves courses are a bit
different. They use weave poles and jumps,
and sometimes tunnels, but they
have none of the “contact” obstacles –
course is based on the dog’s height, with smaller dogs getting a little extra.) Handlers are allowed to study
a map of the course and to walk the course before
the run.
the dog walk, A frame, teeter, and table.
Jumpers courses are even more fast paced than Standard courses, but the idea is the same: the dog must perform the obstacles properly and in order before time expires.
Competitive agility is so much fun it can almost be addictive.
With a word or two, a slight turn of your head or a flick of your wrist, you direct your dog from one obstacle to the next. Your dog moves confidently, powerfully, and oh so quickly. You step into the ring and then, 45 seconds or a minute later – because in agility, time flies right along with your dog – the course is done. Your dog bounds to your side and waits as you gather up her lead, snap it on, and the two of you make your way to the exit gate.
FAST class (FAST is short for Fifteen and Send Time) is a relatively new variation that puts a premium on handling one’s dog from a distance. The ring is filled with the usual obstacles, but there’s no prescribed path to follow. Instead, the obstacles can be taken in almost any order, so long as..
