Kuiper places his front two feet on a training ramp.

Intro to Agility Training

“It must not be supposed that in this contest the question of speed is the only requisite to be considered. It would be possible for an ingenious mechanic to construct a machine with which he could easily outstrip all others in this contest, and yet that device would be of no utility and the outcome of no value to the world from a practical point of view.” Terms and Conditions of the Horseless Vehicle Race, Chicago to Milwaukee, 1895

As you may have seen with our weaves video, we’ve just started to do some agility training with Kuiper! Our trainer calls puppy adolescence the “BMX phase”; we’re trying to keep him moving and excited so he doesn’t get bored. In this video, we are practicing “contacts” with a ramp that a previous tenant left in our garage.

The bottom of some agility obstacles, like the A-frame or the teeter, is painted yellow. The dog is required to touch these zones when getting on and getting off. This is a safety precaution meant to help prevent dogs from leaping onto (and more importantly off of) equipment. One way to train this is to teach the dog to pause with just their front paws on when getting on, and pause with just their back paws on when getting off. This is called “two on/two off.”

Neither of us have done agility before, so I’m excited to learn! What would you be excited to learn more about? (Either dog or non-dog related)

Original post: https://www.instagram.com/p/BZuq75wA8IY/

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