March Madness
This contest is now closed- stay tuned for another great contest coming soon!
Agility season is just around the corner! Get in shape and get moving so you’ll be ready when it’s here! You need to be ready to run when you can see the grass!
Not only is it time to get in shape- it’s also time to start prepping your course for spring and summer, and to start filling out your competition entries.
The contest questions are: What obstacle do you want to update or add to your course? How will it help your dog progress in agility?
To help you get your course on course, we’re offering a prize of a Clean Run Course Source book from Affordableagility.com! This book will help you figure out how best to challenge your dog and set up your equipment to full effect.
The winner will be selected by a random number generator, and notified via email (providing you are a registered user here). Deadline is March. 20 (the first day of official spring!). Good luck and have fun!
CONTEST HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO THE 31st OF MARCH!
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How to enter this contest:
- If you have never done so before, you must first register your email address on this blog. We will then notify you if you are a winner of this contest. You only need to do this once, and you will be good for all future monthly contests (and get priority notification of when they occur)!
- Scroll to the bottom of this page and enter your comment/answer. Or, if there is no box, click on the “comments” in the upper right corner.
I’d like to add more jumps and a sway bridge. I’d like to get a sway bridge even though I don’t do UKC agility because I think it would be a good way to teach my dogs to be aware of their bodies more–where their feet are, how to hold themselves and control of their bodies.
What I’d like to add to my agility equipment is a mini A-frame. For the smaller dogs it really is an effort to ‘climb’ the A-frame. Just being able to practice, even a smaller version A-frame, would increase our endurance for trials.
We just watched the last of our snow slowly disappear. We had a total of almost 23 feet of the white stuff so far. It was a record year for the far western mountains of Maryland.
I would like to add a new set of 24″ spaced weave poles to my equipment. I have noticed that my dog is a lot slower since her timing is off when running in trials that have the new spacing. I think the 24″ spacing is better for the larger dogs but it needs to be trained to be efficient.
We need an A-Frame of our on so we can resolve several “frame” issues. Emme has started creeping down it at trials, and today she skidded to a stop instead of going up it, then looked at me with a “You want me to that? I don’t think so” look. It took several attempts to get her to go up it. Having our own A-Frame will also help with tunnel/frame discrimination and with sending to a traditional jackpot that has an A-Frame.
We’re both newbies. I’d like to add the dogwalk to my toy collection because my girl is hesitant to use it. She jumps up on barricades and stone fences on her own and fearlessly walks along them, but hesitates with the dog walk perhaps because of the texture.
I would very much like to add an A frame to enhance our course. I have many dogs here and need more contact equipment to practice decents on. The JRT’s love to show off their jumping ability and it sometime carries them over the contact areas…….Hummmmmm. We also need to think about adding longer tunnels to help our K-9 friends make decissions on tricky courses!
I would like to add a set of weave poles at the new 24″ spacing. Some of the clubs where we compete already have and are using these. Having my own set at home would allow us to work on speed through the weaves that would hopefully transfer to competition.
I would love to get a new pause table. Our old wooden table top is warped, the hinges on the top aren’t holding any more, and the fabric over the wood is freyed. Since my master agility dog had cancer removed from her elbow, that leg is bare (no hair) and tender. A new top will be more comfortable for her and encourage a fast and solid performance on the table. She’s a bit reluctant to down on the table right now, possibly due to her tender elbow and old practice table.
I want to practice jump grids this summer.
We are currently working to conquer the dogwalk. Both my dog and I are new to agility, and so just have jumps, a chute, and a practice tire. A dogwalk would be a great addition — if only we ahd the space!!
I have pretty much a full set of equipment, but i would like to add a 20 foot tunnel as then I can set up better challenges withthe tunnel under contacts. My field Lab is really driven and has decided that staying at the start line is an option, so we are working on that. He had a solid stay and lost we, we are looking for it back again.
We need a regulation chute to be completely up to date. We share a practice field and everyone pitches in on the upkeep and maintenance. This year we got new skins for the AF and replaced the rickety teeter and added a panel jump and broad jump.
We have big dogs so the cheaper practice version wont work. We are seeing the chute being used as a challenge for direction change quite a bit lately.
But then the weave pole will have to be replaced soon with the new specs. coming out.
It never ends. LOL
Our agility club has been hampered with space issues (both in square footage and height). Also, our instrutor has to load the obsticles, unload them to school, load them afterwards and unload at her home. We recently found an indoor horseback riding arena that is not in use. We have permission to use it! We need obsticles that we can leave there. We’re very excited about our new space.
Yikes! Your little corgi jumps off the A-frame contact? Guess I’m lucky my corgi and my husband’s Scotty just run all the way down.
When we first took agility lessons that instructor wanted everyone to do two-on,two-off, which I though would be hard on my corgi back — so I never tried that. Fortunately our current instructor says the running contact is fine for the long-backed dogs.
I assume you’ve tried setting up a jump bar not as a jump) at the end of the A-Frame set up so its in the way if they try to jump off and forcing the dog to run under the jump bar –and down the contact yellow. This is what we did after the first time my corgi tried to take off too early.
Good luck on the Q’s
We need an A-frame. I’ve got a serious contact jumper, but he’s a short/long dog (corgi) and the steep angle of the A-frame makes it a hard stop. We seriously need to practice decent without bailing, so he can Q already. Everything else is just about perfect, but he always NQ’s for not hitting the contact on the frame.
I’m hoping I can add a competition grade tunnel to my practice course this summer. I don’t have a big tunnel sucking dog and think practicing with a heavier weight tunnel rather than the lightweight one I have would encourage a more aggressive tunnel. Already practiced our weave poles for breakfast this am!
While we’d LOVE LOVE LOVE to see some green grass out there (just the thought of walking barefoot on the agility field is enough to make me smile). We’re very lucky to have indoor space to train in the winter – Once we get outside though I want to start pushing for the speed in training that we have in trial. I’m seeing a confident (and competent) dog in trial, but he’s running so much faster in the larger spaces that I’m not getting where I need to be in time for my front crosses. It’s always something!
I am so excited for this agility season!!! My border collie was 9 1/2 when I started her in agility and my retriever mix was 6, but very timid. It was a lot of fun, but not very successful. Now that my dear Taffy has passed on, I got a new puppy: Muffin, 3/4 poodle, 1/4 maltese. She is only 6 months old, but at least we start training next week. She is a lot of fun–and fast. I just hope I can keep up with her! I would love to win the Clean Run Course Source book to give me ideas on how to set up a small practice course in my backyard.
Hi Agility Fusion,
I would love to get your new awesome dogwalk to my agility course. How would it help us? Because my dog is slow and hesitant on the dogwalk. I need to boost his confidence by practicing more. It’s not enough time at class!
Oh boy the smell of fresh cut green grass! The call of the agility course!! Yikes and I’m not in shape, not yet. I would like to add more jumps to have succesion in our practice coarse. Seems like I do have a tendency to set things up the same. Suggestions would be very helpful! Right now we are still looking at snow here in Colorado, but are very hopeful that soon things will be looking green again and the pavement will be dry and free of snow!
Well, at least we have plenty of grass here in Southern California as we’ve had more than usual rain – the good.
The bad? It’s been too wet and rainy to practice some days, and being SoCal, there are no indoor facilities. We’re lucky enough to have a good size back yard, but unfortunately it’s an odd shape so it can be a challenge to set up a course.
Hope we win the prize which would help us set up the back yard for training.