Please work with a trainer to get your dogs started in agility. There is so much foundation work to be done before your dogs ever touch obstacles, and obstacles must be introduced properly or your dogs can severely injure themselves. Do you know how to back chain contacts, for instance, to make sure your dogs don't leap off the A frame midway up and hurt themselves?
I am going to a training facility for obedience and agility in back to back classes on Fridays and Saturdays. My trainer teaches agility as a part of obedience and as a exercise/bond/have fun with your dog. I have a 2 year old Siberian b*tch that has surprised everyone with how serious and skilled she is at agility. She is off leash and already takes the teeter, she loves the dang thing. She needs work on her weaves and tunnels. I'd like to take her further in agility. this dog made our agility demo team. Our demo team isn't about speed, it's about showing people that anyone and any dog can do this and show people how much fun the dogs have. Our fastest speed is a light jog, and the dog stays next to us, off leash, as we work the coarse.
My 10 month old male Siberian also shows promise, he is great at weaving. But he needs work on the contacts, keeping focus, and slowing his turbo jets down. I am his only handler in agility, for his own safety. He is still a puppy and sometimes does incredibly stupid things. Once he took off in a case of zoomies after weaving and nearly summersauled when he jumped over the chute, and once he tried to jump off the apex of the A-frame (he saw a dog just off to his left on the other side of the fence and decided to go play right then). I was able to catch him and push him back on the A-frame. I then immediately removed him from the training ring that had the contacts. I have never allowed him on the full sized dog walk, or on the teeter. After his display of stupidity I keep him on a tab, I let go on tunnels, and chutes and grab it again when he emerges to prevent a repeat. I hope he will settle down with maturity, he has a lot of promise as a conformation show dog, and an agility dog.
My 12 year old son's Siberian is 3 years old, slow, but steady. She was a rescue. She is also off leash, but she takes her time and is very careful when doing obstacles. She made our agility demo team, not for speed, but because she is steady and works well. She is perfect where she is, she just don't have that drive to compete. But she perfectly compliments my son, who can sometimes get reckless. For them, agility is fun and has brought them closer together.
My Belgian Malinois, also a rescue, is actually very athletic, he is an amazing jumper, and he can out sprint our Siberians easily. But he doesn't seem interested in agility. If I had his jolly ball he would run through fire to get it, but without his ball he just don't care. I haven't decided yet if I want to try and get his attention for agility. The dog is 5 years old and is slightly dog aggressive. He thinks our Siberians are his "herd" to protect and keep in line. He is the alpha dog in our house, but he does obey me and both my sons, as we worked him really hard in obedience when we discovered his aggression. He has been fully trained in obedience since he was 1 year old and is just getting a refresher coarse as he tends to get above himself from time to time. This time it is my 13 year old son taking him through obedience class.
I do have a 5th dog, a 1 year old Siberian who was a rescue. But she has way to many social issues to even consider her in agility. She is a very fearful dog, she is terrified of people and strange dogs. She will either pee on herself in fear, or become fear aggressive. She is going to obedience classes only.
What I would like help with is how to teach cross overs, distance handling, building my own obstacles here at home, and teaching my 2 year old Siberian how to add speed to her runs. She has learned heel a little too well in the agility ring, she sticks to my side like glue now. Of all my dogs, she is the one I'd like to concentrat on right now.
Here is a photo of my 12 year old working his Siberian Sasha on the dog walk at our training center. The trainer was just off to my side and slightly in front. He was spotting them as they did the walk.
In the second picture you can see the surface of the dog walk. It has no traction. I would be terrified of letting my dogs hit that at high speed. This is one reason I want to build my own coarse here at home. I know where to buy the rubber grandules and would apply them to my contact. My training center does offer compitition agility training, but it is on that dog walk. We can't add speed until we have traction on their contacts. The teeter is the only contact at our training facility that has the rubber surface. The A-frame has sand in the paint for traction, and the dog walk is so worn the sandy paint has mostly come off,
