Sheila W. of Grans Pass, OR shared this picture of her dog “Posh”, who is AKC/Intl Ch Winjammer’s Five Star Rated OA OAJ.
It looks like he is running on two legs, doesn’t it? Thanks Sheila, for this great “pic of Posh”! 
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20Jul
Tags: member stories
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15Jul
An AgilityFusion member asks,I have only done AKC in the past and just started CPE events… I have always thought of myself as a smart person – but it is clear that I can’t design my own course in those strategy games (such as Snookers) worth a darn. We may never get out of L2! J Anyone have a video, book or article recommendation on how to improve in that area? At home I don’t have enough room to set up more than about 6 obstacles Thanks. ~L. Keepper
I think I understand what you are asking. It sounds like you are looking for not just how to design courses, but also some strategy on how to do so. I am posting this to the blog, because I only have some limited knowledge of resources available on this subject of course design. I will share what I have, but please, anyone else who has some suggestions, click on “comments’ in the upper right corner to add to this knowledge base of resources!
Free Online Articles:
“Achieving Balance in Course Design” by Stuart Mah
“Baseline Method of Course Building” by Dave HansonBooks:
“Fundamentals of Course Design for Dog Agility” by Stuart Mah, Clean Run Productions
This book deals with a whole load of issues pertaining to agility course map design, including angles and approaches, flow, crossing patterns, traps, etc. As well as how to build them from scratch (which I think is what you are asking). Read a review of this book.Course Analysis for Agility Handlers by Stuart Mah is the second book in this series. This is more about analyzing courses that are already handed to you, than the first one which deals more with the design aspect. Read a Review of this book.
Websites:
http://agilitycoursemaps.com is a new website for pre-planned courses that you can print. It doesn’t have a lot of classes or venues yet (other than AKC and USDAA) but it’s more courses in one place than I’ve seen yet. You can search by Level, Class, and Judge. Once this website catches on, more and more people will be uploading their courses. (they are uploaded in .jpg format)Drag and Play This is just too fun! Immediately start dragging obstacles around the screen. It is UKC based, but still has the basics.
http://www.agility-ch.ch/ The website is in german, but if you click ‘parcours’ and then on the top menu panel, a side panel will come up on the left of the screen, click on alle Parcoursplane, and from there you can click on the various links to the actual course maps. (Thanks Linda! agilityteamair.wordpress.com)
http://www.agilityeye.co.uk/past-courses.htm This is Agility-eye, which is based out of Great Britain. Keep in mind the courses are UKC, which can use different obstacles than North American based courses.http://www.lhbsystems.nl/wc2009/default.asp?open=courses The 14th Annual FCI World Championship is offering the courses for viewing and printing. Try some of them out, and see your dog run the champion’s course!
Design Software:
http://www.coursedesigner.com/ available on Clean Run, with a free 30 day download trial. This is a software program to design your own courses.
Resource article on this software: “Getting the Most from CRCD3″ and Part 2Door to Summer review ?
Flexitrak review ?Tags: agility competing, business tips
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15Jul
Congratulations to “Jester”, who was #26 in a random drawing in our featured contest! Your stories were wonderful! If you ever get discouraged in your agility training, and think that you can’t possibly get ahead in agility training because of this or that (or the other thing), you MUST read all these inspiring stories of overcoming.
And remember… “Agility is like life. You have to take it one obstacle at a time” !
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13Jul
If you are an agility trainer, I just wanted to tell you about some free flyers you can print out and give to your students. They are perfect for beginners, and feature our fun cartoons. THE BEST PART.. at the bottom there is a referral section, so that if any of your class members place an order and mentions your name, you get “doggie dollars” towards obstacles your company needs. Just insert your club name before printing them, so we can match you for your rewards!They are in Word Format, and you are welcome to adapt them if you’d like. But because I’m the author of them, as a courtesy I just ask that you include a credit to www.AffordableAgility.com on it. You don’t have to include the referral data if you don’t want.
Here are the file locations for you to print out! Enjoy.
trainer-handout-1-agility-rules
trainer-handout-2-obstacle-overview
trainer-handout-3-obstacle-namesTags: business tips
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08Jul
One of our members emailed me with the following question. I gave some advice (below), but I would like to ask if YOU have any other suggestions? Click on the “comments” button to the upper right to share your thoughts! This member will be notified that there are responses.
“I am working with Ziva, 2 1/2 year old female Weimaraner who was recently spayed as I am through showing her in conformation. We had no problems getting our Novice titles. BUT, as soon as we moved up to open we started having a table issue. Ziva would run and jump on the table but refuse to sit or down. Now the problem has advanced to her circling the table before getting on it. I haven’t been rough with her or raised my voice with commands. She normally performs the table while as class, training at home or anywhere I tell her table down. I think she knows I can’t do anything while in competetion. I have tried feeding her on the table, generously rewarding her while on the table in the down position. This hasn’t helped at all. I am now fixing her dinner, leaving it at the house, then going to the ring to work. After she does a small series of obsticles, I have her do the table. Then I say in a very happy voice “Good table, let’s get your dinner”. I just started this training method and we haven’t been to any trials yet to see how it’s going to work. Any suggestions of what else we could try??”
Dear Barbara,
Interesting question! Dogs are always keeping us guessing, aren’t they? I have a few suggestions which I’ll share here, but I’m hoping that others will offer their advice too.
First, dogs are definitely known to have behavioral changes after getting fixed, so this could be part of the problem. Another thing that may have caused this is sitting on something uncomfortable which gave her a bad memory. Maybe it was a splinter that she got poked with. Or maybe a bee stung her. Funny girl. She is obviously trying to avoid the table by running around it!
Ziva needs to be reprogrammed. One suggestion is to use a pause box for a while instead of the table. This will allow her to sit or lie down directly on the grass, in a border, instead of jumping on a table. I would even call it the table! The goal is to help help heal the bad memory of the “bad” table. Give her lots of treats or rewards for going inside the border, and I’d also move it around the yard too. After she is happily doing the pause box I’d then progress to asking her to step up on a table - top ONLY. Or use a square board (that has no splinters) with good traction (so that she doesn’t slip off it in a run). The point is to have the table as flat to the ground as possible. You can also subtly prepare her for this by putting the table top (again, top only, no legs) inside the house, in the kitchen maybe, where you can feed her dinner on it. The point is to make it less obvious what you are doing. Eventually of course the goal is to bring it outside and then put some short legs on the table so she has to jump up. But all these steps must be done slowly and methodically, making sure she is confident with each stage.
I hope some of this helps!
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