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ABOUT JAG AND AGILITY

Jersey AGility (JAG) Association was formed in 2000 as a club to bring together agility lovers and to spread the word about the fun of agility in Monmouth and Ocean counties in central NJ.  JAG provides training classes, a place to practice, regularly-scheduled agility trials, and the camaraderie of regular meetings with others who have similar interests.  For AKC events, JAG is known as Agility Association of Central NJ.

We’ve provided some basic information about agility here for those interested in learning more.

What is agility?

Agility is basically an obstacle course for dogs and their handlers (you).  In response to your instructions, your dog will perform by jumping over jumps, running through tunnels, and weaving through poles.  The trick is to run the obstacle course in the order specified, within a specific amount of time, and without missing any obstacles.  There is no standard course – it’s set up differently every time by your instructors or the trial judges.

Why get involved in agility?

Agility is fun!  Agility training is good for you, good for your dog, and good for your relationship with your dog.  Running the course and training gives both of you needed exercise.  As the handler/trainer, you have the challenge of determining the best way to communicate to your dog what you want him/her to do.  Agility emphasizes teamwork. The handler directs the dog through a course of obstacles using a strategy that he or she thinks is best suited for his or her dog; the dog performs the obstacles in the order and direction determined by the handler.

You and your dog become a team and learn to better listen to each other (verbally and through body language).  Most importantly, most dogs love running the course.  You can see the smiles on their faces, see their tails wagging, and hear their joyous barking. 

How can I get involved in agility?

JAG offers agility training classes.  If you are a beginner, it is best to start with an instructor to be sure that you’re doing things safely.  Safety for the dogs is our highest priority.  If you put your dogs on equipment without preparing them, you can frighten them and they’ll never want to try it again.   So, we recommend that you take a beginner class and practice what you learn.  Your instructor will give you tricks to practice at home without equipment as well to get dog accustomed to listening to you and watching your body language.

Once you’ve completed the beginner training, you have a choice of classes to take.  It can take a year or more to be ready to compete in a trial, and some teams never compete.  They just have fun in classes or practicing on their own.

In the United States, four national organizations and several breed clubs sanction agility trials. The national organizations include: AKC, NADAC, UKC and USDAA. Dogs can participate in NADAC, UKC and USDAA regardless of their gene pool, however, only AKC recognized breeds can participate in AKC trials.

What are the different agility obstacles?

One of the first obstacles that your dog will learn is to run through a tunnel:  Kinda like a car tunnel.  The tunnel obstacle tests the dog's ability to work without seeing its handler and to test the dog's ability to re-orient itself to its handler when it emerges from the tunnel.  Similarly, there is a tunnel with a collapsed fabric at the end, the chute tunnel, that additionally tests the dog's ability to push; the dogs have to push themselves through the fabric.  The dogs must  leap over hurdles or jumps. 

Hurdles test the dog's ability to jump and clear an obstacle and its agileness. There are several different kinds of jumps including Single Bar, Spread Jumps and the solid wall jump (the panel jump).  The Tire Jump is a special hurdle that requires the dog to leap through a hoop.  This takes different skills than the other hurdles and normally requires the dog to focus slightly higher.  The contact obstacles, the dog walk, the A-frame, and the teeter,  test a dog's ability to safely and quickly work at different heights while its center of gravity is changing.  They are crowd pleasers and it is fun to watch as dogs tip the see-saw.   One of the hardest obstacles for most dogs to learn is the set of weave poles that a dog must weave through. There is a table where the dog sits or lies down for 5 seconds; the objective is to test the dog’s willingness to listen to its handler and pause in the excitement of the run.

Every agility course is different. At a trial, the courses are designed by the judges and are not shown to competitors until the day of the event. Handlers are given a short "walk-through" period before each event to learn the course and plan their strategy. Teams may incur faults during their run for incorrect obstacle performance or by taking obstacles out of order or in the wrong direction. Time faults may also be incurred if the team takes longer than the standard course time to complete their run. Courses typically include 15-20 obstacles with allowed times of 30 - 60 seconds. Some common types of courses include: 

LINKS

Titles

What titles can be earned???

Click Here to look at the different Agility Titles that Can be Earned

Click Here To see awards JAG members earned 

Copyright 2002-2005, Most clipart from BC Buddies Click here, Some Graphics from Danny's Clipart