Get Your Dog's Attention During Dog Agility Training

Video Transcript

" Hi! This is Elise Paffrath with Breeze Thru Agility. I am talking today on behalf of Expert Village.com. We are talking about beginner agility for your dog. In agility training, it is very important that your dog not only focus on the obstacles that you are teaching but also have a really good focus on you, the handler. Remember the handler is the trainer, the owner, and you are going to be directing the dog around the course, they are going to look to you for guidance. One of the things I like to do to teach my dog to focus on me is a very simple hand-touch exercise. Sprite, this is Sprite. I have taught her to focus on me by rewarding her for looking at me and doing a little hand touch, yes. Okay, she touches my hand, she gets a reward. Yes! So that is a very good incentive for her to come in to me. I also want her to focus on the obstacles and then me. I am going to send her through the tunnel and then call her, okay… Sprite here, good! I am rewarding her for looking at me. This time I am going to have her look at me and do another obstacle. Sprite, okay, jump, Sprite. Again, I am rewarding her for coming into me. We do not want the dog to look at you every time they do an obstacle, but we want them to be focussed on both doing the obstacles but checking in with you, the handler. Agility is a combination of handler focus and obstacle focus and if you work on both, you can come to the right middle ground of being able to handle most efficiently."