The training and tasks that are experienced by agility dogs and their handlers all require a great deal of discipline and speed. But these same rigors of dog agility also pay off, providing several significant benefits to both members of the team:

1. It’s more fun for you and your dog than almost anything else you could do together. The atmosphere surrounding dog agility training and competitions is so charged, it’s almost electric.
2. It’s great exercise. Dog agility places a premium on fitness. If you and your dog aren’t in tip-top shape when you start, you soon will be after taking up this exhilarating sport. Running, jumping, twisting, and rapidly turning, all required of both team members, provide a whole-body cardio workout for both you and your dog. Your legs, arms, heart, and lungs will all get stronger, you’ll tone up many of your muscles, and you’ll probably lose some weight along the way, too. Many people and dogs alike could use a bit of that!
3. You’ll get to know a whole new set of people, and your dog can safely interact and play with other well-behaved dogs.
4. You’ll gain a strong sense of accomplishment and pride. You’ll be proud of your dog, proud of yourself and proud of your accomplishments as a team. It’s likely that your dog will be admired by a number of spectators, and that will make you proud, too. Your dog will be happy, satisfied, and content to be fulfilling the job you’ve given to him or her. If you watch an agility dog in action, you’ll see lots of tail wagging and otherwise merry, animated behavior.
5. You’ll end up with an extremely well trained dog. A highly obedient dog that listens to your every command, knows a variety of hand signals and even understands your body language. A dog that loves you and eagerly watches you and your movements, living solely to please you.

See what we mean? These benefits all come out of teaming up with your dog so that you can do dog agility. But putting all these benefits aside, there’s one more, and it’s the most meaningful benefit of all: the strong bond and sense of trust that forms between the agility dog and its handler. The bond’s strength increases as you work together, and in the end, you’ll be an inseparable team, on and off the agility course.

Dog agility, when done well, is poetry in motion. It’s exciting to watch, and even more exciting to do. Best of all, its many benefits will mentally and physically invigorate you.

Dog agility is a very competitive “sport” where dogs compete with each other through obstacles. There are many strict rules that must be followed in order for the competitors not to lose points. The dog and trainer work very close together as a team.

Although the dog is the one running the obstacle, the trainers are right along side them. Unable to give any physical touch type of cues, the dog relies on the trainers to tell them with voice command where to go. Trainers run the obstacle course showing their dogs with body cues and voice commands where to go.

The obstacle course is outdoors in an area of 100 yards or more. Each one of the agility obstacles is designed to test a certain skill. These purebred canines of any breed are tested on their balance, quickness, and listening, and like the challenge implies, agility. The dog and trainer must go through the course in a specific way and order. These competitions can also include a team of dogs, where dogs and trainers work together in unison as they pass each other some form of stick or flag.

Some of the obstacles most people are familiar with are weave poles, tyre jumps and hurdle jumps. Weave poles are exactly that, soft poles that stick up from the ground. The dog must run through them in a weaving motion without skipping any, going back or bending them down or it will cost points. Tyre jumps are tyres or hoops that are held up with stands and a dog must jump through them without touching or knocking them over or going under them. Hurdle jumps are just that, poles adjusted to the size of the dog to be jumped over properly without knocking anything down.

Some of these are called contact obstacles, because the dog must touch these. These include the teeter-totter where the dog must keep stable while walking up the ramp, while the ramp lifts and changes positions to then let the dog walk off but the dog must not jump off before and must touch the teeter-totter all the way down till it gets off. The same rules apply to “A-Frame”; this particular obstacle looks much like a triangle. Dog walk has the same rules but it can be tricky because it can be reversed, so the way the dog comes up might be the way he comes down next time. It’s up to the trainer’s ability to make sure the dog does not get confused.

Lastly tunnels, which seem like great fun for a dog, are long rigid tunnels or tunnel that begin rigid and end with a soft parachute like material. The dogs must go all the way through the tunnel.