Agility is a really great way to teach people to train their dogs, to improve the human-animal bond, and to teach dogs new skills. It used to be that agility was recommended as an outlet for active dogs and as a confidence builder for shy dogs. With a good class, those definitely are dogs that can benefit from agility. Teams that need to develop more communication can benefit from agility. Kids or adults who do inappropriate rough play with dogs benefit from agility (an opportunity to learn fun, appropriate ways to interact). People who need to be able to set goals and work on new things with their dogs can benefit. Handlers who need more confidence in their dogs can benefit.
Every time I’m told that “he likes agility best” I give the same answer. Your dog does a great sit stay or a beautiful response to a Down cue? Nice. You give him a treat or a pat on the shoulder. A dog barely walks over a jump? There’s a party! A ton of treats! So much excitement! It’s way easier for people to be excited about agility than for basic training. The people like it more and then the dogs typically seem to enjoy it more.
Anyone can do agility. In training classes you see all sorts of people. And even at trials. Here’s an article about an 89.5 year old competitor. And watch her! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWx5t1yiQb0
Here’s a…6 year old? handler: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnxw5mfw19s&feature=plcp (there are several videos of them competing!)
A handler in a powerchair with a beginner dog at one of their first trials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGdMBAc4I0E
Any dog can do agility. Go do a youtube search and you can pretty much find any breed. Sure…some are faster. And some may be easier to work with. Dogs of all breeds, sizes, and ages participate.
Any experience level can do agility. And that’s what is especially cool about local agility trials. You have very beginners participating and people who are extremely experienced. You have casual participants and others who more seriously pursue agility. And you can see it all at the same trial!
Agility is appropriate for “just for fun” and for serious competition. You can modify activities, jump heights, lengths of sequences, (etc!). Anyone can enjoy agility, whether it’s at classes, seminars, or working towards competition.
Yes people do arguably dangerous things at home (jumping dogs too high, jumping on concrete, etc). But when I see these videos, I also remember it’s people and dogs doing things together, and the interaction improves the quality of life for both parts of the team.
Agility is accessible. It used to be that classes and trials were very sparse. Classes became more available but the quality of instruction varied dramatically (and that’s still the case in some areas). Agility equipment could be complicated and expensive to build or buy. There were only a handful of books. Now there are a million books (almost) and DVDs. You can build or buy equipment or use every day objects to teach the foundation concepts. Books and DVDs can give you a solid foundation before driving further to classes or practice opportunities. There are more and more online classes, providing top level instruction access to everyone, everywhere. There are youtube tutorials and online articles (of various quality levels!) for teaching many agility concepts.