30/04/2025
How to make the most out of your agility classes:
1. Take your dog to toilet beforehand. Toileting in the agility area takes up time, so for maximum time efficiency, please ensure your dog has been beforehand.
2. Please do not let your dog toilet on the equipment, I know accidents happen, but once one dog does it, every subsequent dog will do it, teaching your dog it’s an okay behaviour. If you want to compete, you are immediately eliminated if your dog toilets in the ring, so it’s really important for your own journey that your dog doesn’t learn to do this!
3. If you have different height dogs in your class, help with putting jumps up and down if you can. This will ensure classes move more smoothly and you can get more goes!
4. Try to be ready when the dog previous to you has finished- the quicker you are in and ready to go, the more time you’ll get!
5. If you aren’t sure on the course, watch the other dogs in the class when it’s their turn, so you can pick up on what we are doing. Again, this will mean you will get more time because less of it will be spent going over the course.
6. If you want to compete (and unless you adamantly don’t want to, I want everyone to assume they will at some point, even if you’re currently on the fence), practise in the agility area what you want to see in competition. That means no going off sniffing, no messing around, no running off etc. your dog can do all of that outside the agility area. What you practise in training, you’ll get in competition, so we want to rehearse good habits!
I understand that not everybody wants to compete, and for a lot of you agility is a fun, social hobby, so please don’t think these are strict rules or that anybody is in trouble! But as everybody is getting better, classes seem to go by so much quicker, so any time saved will mean more time to train and neater learning, which is a win-win for everyone!
