AGILITY TEACHING STRUCTURE
When teaching Agility, there are so many flatwork skills and proofing basics we can do before getting to the obstacles!
Below I have a brief description of the structure of my teaching throughout both seminars and classes.
I also offer workshops on specific skills or obstacles.
Stage One - Fundamentals!
Our Fundamentals stage is where to start! Here we work with teams who have no agility experience or very little experience. The key to fundamentals is all about our foundations - it's working on the fundamental skills needed to thrive in agility (and other dog sports!)
The main themes of our fundamentals are building relationships, focus and engagement.
Here we work on
- body awareness
- shaping
- Value building
- engagement
- focus
- reinforcement
- games
- impulse control
Stage Two - Beginners
Beginners is where it begins to look like 'proper' agility! Suitable for those who have done fundamentals or have previous agility training, or high level training in other sports.
This is where we really start to get into agility specific skills such as:
- intro to obstacles
- jump grids
- introduce verbal cues
- teaching dogs to read body language
- independent thinking
- grow on all of our fundamental skills
Stage Three- Level Up!
Our Level Up stage is where all those learned skills get tested before we begin sequencing. Suitable for those who have done our Beginners class or those who have a lot of agility foundation experience.
Here you will create proofed skills that are unstoppable on course! Work on:
- proofing
- discrimination
- testing verbals
- advanced handling skills
- linking obstacles
- distance work
Stage Four- Handling
Now you can start sequencing! Add all those skills together and start course running.
Suitable for those who have completed Level Up or who are currently trialling. We have a few different stages - 1 to 4 that reflect competition levels
Level One - Basic novice handling
Level Two - increase the difficulty with excellent level
Level Three - Masters level skills
Level Four - Challenge yourself with elite level skills