An Overview on the Sport of Agility
by Kathy Lash & Wyndrunhr Lashonti Jessie, NA, CGC
If you are looking for another way to spend some fun time with your Ridgeback, you may want to try agility. A warning though…agility can be addictive! My start in agility began with my first Ridgeback a few years ago. Jessie was digging a hole in our backyard, which prompted a call to her breeder. The first thing she said was that Jessie was bored and suggested we get involved in agility. With that she provided the phone number of an instructor in our area, and the rest is history. Once we started training, Jessie never dug again. I will admit that I felt quite overwhelmed at first because I saw dogs from the excellent class and thought we would never get even halfway to that level. It was simply amazing to see the dogs and their owners going through many obstacles at such a high speed. When you first begin you will feel overwhelmed, because not only do you need to learn a new language, but you also must remember what order the obstacles are in. Agility is a sport that is very casual and the atmosphere itself is upbeat and fun. The intent of this article is to give a brief overview and to provide some information about how you can get involved.
Before You Begin As you probably know, agility should only begin when your dog is 18 months or older. This however should be a decision between you and your dog's breeder. The requirements for the agility instructor in my area was that Jessie needed to have some basic obedience skills such as stay, sit, and down. It is also a good idea for your dog to be in pretty good shape in order to minimize the risk of injuries.
The Obstacles There are approximately eight different obstacles to learn in addition to various jumps. The obstacles include the A-Frame, dog walk, see-saw, pipe tunnel, collapsed tunnel, a pause table, weave poles, and a tire jump. The A-Frame looks just as it sounds, like an "A". The dog must ascend one side, and descend the other. There are two yellow contact zones that the dog must touch before moving on. The dog walk looks much like a balance beam and the dog must touch both of the yellow zones. The see-saw is exactly what it says. The dog ascends on one side until it tips over, and then descends. When the dog comes to the table, they are to pause for 5 seconds (or until the judge says go), and they are either in a sit or down position which is determined at each show. I will warn you, RR's aren't much for cold weather, so you may get some evil stares when asking your dog to down on a table. There are two types of tunnels in agility, the pipe tunnel, and the collapsed tunnel. The pipe tunnels are usually bent so the dog cannot see the other side, and the collapsed tunnel has a nylon fabric attached to the entrance. The tire jump is set at 24 inches high and the opening varies for AKC and USDAA. There are multitudes of jumps that are encountered at the different shows. They can be as simple as a single, wingless jump, a broad jump, or as complex as a winged jump and a triple bar jump. For AKC purposes, the Ridgeback must clear a jump that is 24 inches tall.
The Language In addition to learning the obstacles, there is a whole new language that you will acquire. One of the wonderful aspects of agility is that it is flexible with what commands you choose. In other words, you are free to use whatever command will work for you and your dog. For instance, on the A-frame, I mostly hear people say "scramble", I use "wall" simply because it's short and one syllable. Personally I am doing good to remember the order of the course without tripping or falling, so I need simple commands for my dog. For both the dog walk and see-saw I use the command "walk it". I realize it is best to have a different command for each, but this is what works for Jessie. Most people I know say walk it for the dog walk, and teeter or see-saw for the other. It is also suggested to use different commands for the two tunnels. The typical command for the pipe tunnel is simply "Tunnel", while the collapsed tunnel is "Chute". Most of the commands are just calling out the name of the obstacle such as weave for weave poles, tire for the tire jump, and table for the pause table. If you are encountering several jumps at one time, it's usually suggested to call the command "go jump" and simply say "over" or "hup" for the rest of the sequence. Body language also plays a big part for the success of the course, and this will come in time once you and your dog become comfortable with agility. I have been told that 90% of the time, if a mistake is made, it's usually a handler error. I can assure you that's an accurate statement because Jessie (& the other dogs) learned agility a whole lot faster than their handlers did.
Scoring Once you have been training for awhile, it's now time to enter a show. The scoring in agility really isn't difficult once you get the hang of it. The best advice I was given was to attend a fun match before entering a sanctioned show. Fun matches are great because the entry fee is minimal and it provides an opportunity for you to learn what a show will be like once you begin competing. For AKC, agility starts with the novice classes and works up to excellent. Faults can include knocking a bar from a jump, not touching a contact, or running an obstacle out of sequence. Also, you are not allowed to bring food into the ring, or to touch your dog once you begin running the course. A fault can also result from exceeding the time limit or a dog stopping before or running past the next obstacle. For the novice classes, a team can have as many as two faults and still qualify for a leg. The judge will lift one hand up for a fault, but if two hands go up at once, there will be no leg earned for that day. Two hands in the air equal an elimination. Once you and your dog earn three legs, you obtain your title and can then proceed to the next class. The courses are usually very simple in novice, and become increasingly more complex in open and excellent.
Finding Information In agility there are two main organizations the AKC and USDAA. AKC is for purebred dogs with either an AKC or ILP number, which the latter may be obtained for those who do not have the original papers. For more information I would suggest going to their website at www.akc.org. For USDAA, which stands for United States Dog Agility Association, any dog can compete. They also have a website that can be found at www.usdaa.com. I recently found The Dog Agility Page, which is an interesting website that is very useful if you're just starting out and want some information. That website can be found at www.dogpatch.org. It contains several good articles, information, club listings and other agility links. I hope you will consider agility because it is fun for not only you but your dog too.