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Agility (sort of)

1K views 10 replies 6 participants last post by  WorryWart 
#1 ·
Unfortunatly there are no dog related activities where we live. The is one dog trainer, she is a very nice woman but she took a course 30 some odd years ago and when we enrolled Soter in her class, she admitted I knew more about training then she did. We attended anyway for socialization. We tried to get an agility class started but there were no takers. Plenty of "sure we'd love too" but no one actually followed through. No SAR training and the local dog park is only an empty out of use ball field.

I want so badly to do things with my dogs, they're so very smart and so willing to work and learn. So to this end, my husband and I built a little play agility set. It's fully expandable for when they get better, it's fully movable too and I can take it apart and put it back up in just 10 minutes or so. Here's some pics.

There may be some hope on the horizon for SAR training. There's a new vet tech in town who did take a SAR trainer course not too long ago. Unfortunatly it was really old and outdated teaching methods. Yank and crank other rather harsh methods. She was complaining that no one was interested in town, I told her we would love to learn SAR BUT we use praise, treats and shear happy excitement to train. She's willing to give it a try and adapt her training techniques so we'll see how it goes. I'm really excited. Sorry about the quality of the pics, I need a better camera.













 
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#3 ·
lol, that's exactly what it is! We have a tunnel too but so far the only one who's gone through it is me :rolleyesww: If anyone knows how to get them through, I'd love suggestions. They both will jump all day, they tolerate the weave poles but will have nothing to do with the tunnel. I tried getting them to follow me and chucking treats inside it but no go.
 
#4 ·
Do you have a standard collapsable tunnel?

If so you collapse it all the way so it's very short and build from there with click, treat, praise, for touching and general association with it in a positive way.

(mabel's a very suspicious dog...it took 4 training times, and a 20 minute click treat praise for just touching the tire for her to learn to love it)
 
#5 · (Edited)
Is it an expandable tunnel? If so, we trained Deacon by shortening the tunnel so he is not going such a long distance, and we continued to increase the length of the tunnel until it was its normal full length. Of course using tons of treats and praise the entire time. After about 5-10 minutes of that technique, he was running full blast through the whole tunnel with no problems.

ETA: the trainer was guiding him into the tunnel and I was by the end of it so he could see me, waiting with a treats.


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#6 ·
Thanks guys, I'll try shortening it and have my husband stand at the end.
I think it's the wrong kind of tunnel to have started with. My friend knows how much we wanted to try agility so when she saw it she bought it for us. It's open for about 4 feet or so then it's just a collapsed chute. I think it was kind of expensive so we really want to keep it. I think I can probably rig it so that it's just the open tunnel then maybe pull the chute part out bit by bit.
 
#7 ·
That's actually called a chute then not a tunnel, and yeah not the best for starting with, roll the chute up so it's just the open tunnel section and go from there, then uroll it half way and have someone hold it open, then proceed from there to full, to full and half closed, and etc...

Taken from photobucket....

TUNNEL


CHUTE
 
#9 ·
check out clean run or anything susan garret :) pretty much can't go wrong! lol

You can also google and build some pretty cheap but sturdy PVC, jumps/tires that can stand alone :) you can make a weave set too.

A-frames, dogwalks and tunnels are the hard and expensive ones to make (tunnels especially ;) ) but a teeter probly wouldn't be to hard.
 
#10 ·
ah the chute is much more difficult. Pull all the fabric up and bunch it up so it's like a tunnel. When they are going through that, have someone open the chute up and HOLD IT OPEN so they can see though. The holder will slowly let it drop. First right as the exit, then slightly touching the butt, etc etc but it's a SLOW process.
 
#11 ·
I love the agility equipment you've fashioned. So creative! When I started weave training, I bought some electric fence posts (from Lowes, I think) for about $2.00 each, I think. They have these pointy spikes you can easily shove in the ground. Also, you can easily transport to other locations to work on weaves with distractions, etc. Another silly thing I did...found a big cardboard appliance box (refrigerator box). Cut it down to a smaller size, duck taped it together and fashioned a "tunnel" of sorts. We played with that in the living room floor and by the time we got to the real tunnel on the agility field, he was in love with tunnels. I could hardly keep him out of them! :)
 
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