Dog Agility

Our volunteer instructors offer training lessons for beginners and more experienced dogs and their handlers. We organize practice sessions and fun meets. Sometimes we bring in a professional trainer to work with the club dog and handlers.

There are several obstacles on the course.
• Aframe
• Dog Walk
• See-Saw Pipe Tunnel
• Collapsed Tunnel
• Pause Table Weave Poles
• Tire or Hoop Jump
• Various Types of Jumps

The obstacles used in agility have been designed with both safety and spectator appeal in mind. All jumps have easily displaceable bars so that the dog can't be injured. In competition, the obstacles are arranged in various course configurations to offer levels of challenges appropriate to the class and experience level of the dogs competing. The handler must direct their dog around the course in the sequence that has been predetermined by the judge. The rules are fairly simple; handlers may give an unlimited number of commands or signals to their dogs, but may not touch either the equipment or the dog. Dogs are "faulted" for actions such as taking down a jump bar, taking obstacles out of wequence, and running past or stopping before the next obstacle to be performed. Time penalties can be assessed.

Dogs compete only against dogs of similar height at the withers within a fixed number of jump height divisions. The dog with the lowest number of faults and the fastest time wins the class or height division.