Counter Dog Boredom: HOW to Teach YOUR dog Agility at Home!

Dolly, Tyler and Franklin run around the gate 

I teach our dogs agility at home (after having taken our youngest Dachshund Tyler to agility for 2 years) and it really helps combat boredom!  It's especially handy when it's too cold or too hot to walk outside and they go out and back in from the backyard in minutes. It's simple to set up, and in this blog I'll show you how -  (we do this almost nightly!) -  Rob 

NEEDS: 
1)  a couple of chairs, a doggy gate (that can stand up). 

Place a chair away from the gate

2) a room big enough to spread the chairs out and the gate
NOTE: You can put a chair in the middle of an adjoining room.
3) Treats! 
4) Patience, and reward only CORRECT behavior

SET UP 
1) SET UP A GATE near on one side of the room. You'll call this a "Tunnel." If there's something behind it, you can put a blanket over the top of it, and have the dogs go underneath it. 
- HINT: before covering it, get your dog or dogs to SIT on one end of the gate. Take a treat in hand and walk to the other side of the gate and say "GO TUNNEL."  When they get to the end where you are, give them the treat and say "GOOD TUNNEL." 

"Go 'round" (the chair)! 

2) SET UP A CHAIR in the middle of the room.  Extend your hand toward your dog and sweep it around the chair (while holding a treat) 
   - Although you don't see my arm directing them to go around the chair in the photo, I usually do that (I had them pose for you). 
   

3) ALTERNATE- Have them go around the chair, then back through the tunnel. 
Once they get the hang of it, set up a second chair and have them do a "figure 8" around the chairs, directing them with an outstretched hand. When they do it, give them a treat! 

Tyler's Good and Bad Days at Doggy Training!

Tyler was READY for school last week

   It's such a pleasure when your kids do well at school - whether human or canine. This is another short 10 second video of
our 5 year old Dachshund Tyler in pre-agility school on April 1. He did a great job, and I really have to think when I'm directing him. Being a smaller dog he actually watches the direction of my feet more than my hands (larger dogs will watch your arms and hands).
NOT INTO CLASS LAST WEEK -   In the previous class, Tyler was defiant and basically told me he didn't want to be in school. Instead of running through the tunnels he ran around them, jumped on TOP of them and stood there staring at me as if to say "I am just in no mood for this." He did that through the entire hour of the previous week.
BACK ON TOP IN CLASS -   This past week though, on Wed. April 1st, he was back into it and had a lot of fun, as this short video clip shows.

A tunnel

Tux the black dog learning to stop on a ramp

Mike and Cooper

Rob and Tyler

TO SEE THE VIDEO (if not below), CLICK:
https://youtu.be/hPgFfx_Zql0

Tyler the Dachshund at Agility Class!

Tyler and I have been taking pre-agility courses since the Summer of 2014 and he's a different dog. This is the first time we've done jumps and tunnels and he was amazing! March 18, 2015. He's a much more obedient dog and simply awesome!VIDEO: https://youtu.be/cjGSXL7SRKw