Friday, August 20, 2010

On Leash Agility

Interestingly, we've had a request for an on-leash agility class at PosiDog. When I was asked if I could teach it, I said "YES!"

This was really exciting for quite a few reasons:


• Since bringing this up, we’ve had several “YES!”es from others wanting to be in the class.
• Because the class is specifically for dogs who need to be on leash, no one will be at risk (the ‘friendly’ dogs in the class who may approach) and the owners of the on-leash dogs will not have to be given different/modified exercises or feel any need to compare to the off leash dogs.
• Many agility foundation skills can be taught with dogs on leash.
• Although most of these dogs will likely never be in a ‘regular’ agility class, we’ll still be as particular about the handling and precision and performance.
• Many of these dogs have been in classes forever and are competent with basic skills. The new challenges will be good for the dogs and owners.
• Agility is very reinforcing for the owners. And these owners probably need more reinforcement in their lives!
• Surprisingly little of the activities will be different than in our normal foundation class.

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