The Athletic Dog

There is another way of training your dog that will let him participate in a fun and action packed sporting activity, and it is called the Dog Agility Training. Dog agility training is another awesome way in training your dog. Agility training will test and strengthen your dog’s physical abilities, sense of balance, patience, control, and most of all the ability that you and your dog have to work well together as a team. Dog agility training is a good activity for you and your dog to spend quality time together.

Dog agility is an exciting sport originated in England in 1978 in which a handler directs the dog through an obstacle course.  After a widespread success of it, it is now gaining big time popularity and known worldwide.

The sport of agility needs several various accessories and obstacles in which your dog must pass on over, under, around, and in and out of, in the best possible time, with the least amount of mistakes in order to win the competition. The course may have your dog weaving in and out of poles, literally jumping through hoops, skillfully mastering the art of a balance beam or teeter totter type object, crawling through tunnels, leaping over bars and practicing patience on a pause table.

Engaging your dog in this kind of activity for the first time needs a good and right preparation. There are agility training schools that your dog might be in for proper understanding on the basics of obedience and know how to properly behave around many other dogs and people. Dog agility training classes are offered for many different skill levels including classes that cater to the puppy, beginner, intermediate, advanced, master and competition level dogs.

There is a training method that most of the dog agility training centers or schools  are using to easily catch your dog’s interest on the activity, it is called the positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is a dog agility training method in reward basis, meaning, When your dog has successfully performed a specific action or maneuver upon being given the proper cue, you can then reward him with a treat. Dogs are easily motivated by food related treats, whereas others prefer a favorite toy or tennis ball. Either way, it doesn’t matter, as long as you can determine what your dogs motivating factor is and incorporate that into his agility-training program.
Dog agility training also helps in strengthen your dog’s health because it keeps your dog on being active all day and be active.

It may sound hard and needs a lot of time in training but always keep in your mind that with patience and persistence any dog can learn to skillfully master an agility course. Just take it as another playful day every time you and your dog are on training.