Agility dog training produces dogs that competitively race through obstacle courses containing A-Frames, dog walks, jumps, pause tables, teeters, tunnels and weave poles. What makes these courses particularly challenging is that they change in every event. No two obstacle courses are ever the same. Fortunately, participating dogs have a handler to guide them through. The winning dog is the canine that gets through the course with the least amount of faults – a feat that’s accomplished through quality dog agility training.

If you’re interested in having your dog participate in agility sports, you’ll fare pretty well if you start training a puppy rather than an adult dog. Puppies that are trained on and exposed to agility dog training equipment at a young age can become experts by the time they're adults. Some of the things you’ll want a puppy to master are basic obedience commands, climbing and walking on various surfaces (plastic, wood, brick, etc.), and of course walking through tunnels. And the tools that you use needn’t be as elaborate as what you see in the actual competitions.

A cheap plastic tarp for example, will get a puppy used to walking on plastic, and a pile of bricks or stack of flat dood will get a puppy used on jumping onto higher planes. A string of connected cat tunnels is sufficient for training a dog to walk through passageways, but once a puppy reaches six months of age, it can train with more sophisticated pieces of equipment available at agility class.

You can find an agility class appropriate for puppies through a local dog trainer or agility club. After graduation, your dog can proceed to regular weekly agility classes for competitive training. Just don’t think a little schooling will be sufficient. You’ll have to do your part and practice with your dog every day. When practicing at home, use positive training. One of the things that judges look for in agility competitions is enthusiastic dogs. A dog that’s training with negative methods isn’t going to be enthusiastic at all, and it may not win because of its attitude.

At this point, you may want to invest in obstacle equipment for daily dog agility training at home. You can find such equipment on internet websites, or you can simply build it yourself. You could invent a make-shift course, but your work may confuse the dog that’s used to training with professional equipment by now. Use your own discretion on this – we obviously believe in consistency. One thing that you must be consistent with is your training voice and body language, since both will influence the way your dog responds to you on its way through an agility course.