The Benefits of Non-Agility Dog Sports – Bad Dog Agility Academy

The Benefits of Non-Agility Dog Sports

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  • dandee15@msn.com says:
    March 25, 2020 at 8:37 pm

    Thanks Elsa!

  • phosenfeld@wowway.com says:
    March 22, 2020 at 2:23 pm

    good post. I’ve always thought that, to our dogs, it’s all games – games they play with us. Admittedly the ‘games’ have rules, but it’s all games. Think that it helps that the games are played in different contexts: an obedience ring, others in an agility ring, and some in the great outdoors. Dog learns from the environment which game is at hand.

    I’ve not really seen that playing one sport interferes with another sport – maybe timing is important. For example, obedience teams are advised to teach scent discrimination before pile work (for field). I don’t know if there are other issues like that. But imho, all the games build relationship, teach the dog how to learn and be your teammate. You can pick and choose from all the dogs sports to find the ones that your dog enjoys the most and that you find fun, too. curious to hear others’ thoughts.

    • elsa@incrediPAWS.com says:
      March 23, 2020 at 4:18 pm

      That’s a really good point about obedience vs field work! I would be tempted to say, in general, teach the more precise/complicated version first, so you can then take those (good) habits into the “easier” version. Thought?

      • phosenfeld@wowway.com says:
        March 24, 2020 at 3:53 pm

        that is a good thought, and it certainly would be the case in the scent discrimination/pile work example.

        here’s another thought – it’s minor, but might be important to keep in mind: be careful what you name a behavior. I didn’t realize I had the same name for two behaviors until we did a drill in agility class where you either told the dog to jump, or get a toy lying nearby. Copper Sun happened to be sitting on my left side (in heel position) and I said “up” (his jump command). He looked at me strangely for a second, then bounced in heel position. Only then did I realize that I had named both behaviors (jump and bounce in heel position) with the same name. I think the latter will become ‘bounce.’ A field trainer also cautioned me not to name backing up ‘back’ because that means something very different in field work. I like ‘beep’ so Zippity will learn ‘beep’ not ‘back.’ so the message I guess is be careful about your cues!

  • janicelcrall@hotmail.com says:
    March 22, 2020 at 1:40 pm

    Great connections made. I do some rally and obedience and always treated them separately. Nice to see how they work together

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