# Puppy "Agility" Classes?



## packetsmom (Mar 21, 2013)

A highly recommended local training facility has a "puppy agility" class coming up and I'm trying to find out from the trainers if it has any jumps involved. If not, I'm thinking it might be a good class for Sam. I was wondering if anyone else had taken any of these kinds of classes? From what I understand, it's very informal and more focused on the puppies having fun with the equipment and gaining confidence with it than much hardcore training for agility. My only real concern is that it will end up having more vigorous physical work than Sam should be doing for his age and being a giant breed, but I think it might be good for his confidence.

Thoughts?


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## Kayla_Nicole (Dec 19, 2012)

Our local training facility also offers a similar thing for puppies and beginners for agility. They actually incorporate the agility obstacles in normal obedience classes as well, to give the dogs a quick mental break and to get them used to the obstacles. I definitely recommend trying it out. Alannah loved it, but we haven't done an agility specific class in a little while. If there are jumps available (there probably will be small ones), you can just avoid those with Sam. Since the classes are informal, you wouldn't need to ask him to do anything that you felt uncomfortable with at his age. Have fun!


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

One issue with "for fun" agility classes is that it can involve immediately pointing the dog at equipment and obstacles without any foundation work. I wouldn't even be so concerned about the jumps (I have never heard of an agility class that expected puppies to jump) but more that it would progress too quickly without the foundation work to get Sam up to speed. Introducing equipment the wrong way to a sensitive puppy can backfire. 

So that would be my concern. As long as they are properly building things up for puppies, and not expecting you to just walk them across dog walks and through tunnels on the first day, I think it would be fun. I wish we had a good foundations class here that was geared towards puppies. The intro class my facility offers requires dogs to already have a level of impulse control that Watson won't achieve for a while.


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## packetsmom (Mar 21, 2013)

I think I might check it out. I don't seriously consider agility as something we'll do in the future, so I'm less concerned about him learning bad agility habits or with it being a serious introduction and more looking at it as something fun, a good socialization opportunity, and a confidence builder.  I'm thinking this class could be a fun thing to do while I'm polishing all those basic obedience commands and waiting for him to grow into himself a bit more.

The puppy obedience class we briefly took part in used agility equipment and Sam actually loved it. They introduced the tunnel on the very first day and he was timid, but by the end of class he was barreling through it and when they introduced a kid slide he was quicker going for it than most of the other dogs.  He does have the problem of thinking any obstacle in front of him should be gone "through" rather than over, under, or around. I think he could have a lot of fun and we could use something lighthearted and fun this summer.


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

If he's already confident about obstacles, then I think he'd have a great time! I would check to see that the class focuses on building rear end awareness in puppies, since this is something Watson has struggled with for a while.


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## DJEtzel (Dec 28, 2009)

I love foundation class work for puppies. Even if they do advance on to some small stuff, you can say that you don't want to do it. 

I entered Recon in an intermediate agility class around 5 months, all of the students in the class were already doing small sequences, etc. We just dropped the bars and worked on the same stuff as I had already trained foundation flatwork at home, and put an emphasis on doing everything safely and right and taking time to acclimate them to the equipment.


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