# Best resources for agility



## New Day Alert Dog (Feb 5, 2016)

Well, my sweet husband opened a can of worms last weekend ?.

Our two year old kelpie-mix (???), LOVES to jump and darn she is good at it! She is also the quickest, most sure-footed beast I have ever known. So my dh built me some jumps, a teeter board, and an A-frame. A hoop jump, pause table (?) and weave poles are soon to follow :clap2:. It helps to have a husband who was a horse professional for most of his adult life!

Of course now the question is...... how do I get started? In an ideal world I would sign up for classes. But with three kids and a stack of medical bills, that just isn't in the cards right now. Happily, I love to read. I can teach myself just about anything if I have a good book. I am also not looking to make a living at agility. I just want to have some good safe fun in the backyard.

So what is the best resource for someone looking to get their feet wet?


----------



## gingerkid (Jul 11, 2012)

I find a lot of things in dog training are hard to learn from a book. It's easy to get the principles, but actually applying them properly can be tricky. Luckily, there are lots of videos on Youtube about dog training and hopefully someone else knows some links to them because I am just getting started in it myself.


----------



## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

I agree with gingerkid that dvds are probably going to be more helpful. Bowwowflix.com is an online rental company (like Netflix for dogs) that has a ton of videos. 

If you're set on books, Agility Right From the Start is a very good one.

The Fenzi Academy online has some very good agility classes, though if you can't afford in person classes that might not be viable either.

Agility is a really hard thing to teach yourself though. There are a lot of safety issues when you get to obstacle work. There are also a lot of different ways to train certain things and it can be confusing to wade through it all on your own at first. I'd really recommend trying to fit in a class to at least get some of the basics down.


----------

