[nagdu] Agility

[Julie J.]

I've done agility with my English Springer Spaniel when I was in high 
school.  I never competed though.   Your brother could teach the apparatus 
without too much difficulty, I think.  there are a few where the dog might 
have a tendency to jump off too early, like the A frame.  There's a colored 
zone at the end the dog has to contact before exiting the piece of 
equipment.  He might need a sighted spotter to tell that bit.  The other 
difficulty would be in directing the dog from place to place during a timed 
trial.  Sighted people run along with their dog and use a combination of 
hand and verbal signals.  That would be tough as a blind person.  You could 
use a sighted guide, but there would be no point in getting description of 
what the dog was doing, because it would take too long.  I think if I ever 
did agility competition, I would probably teach the dog the equipment by 
name and just call out the next obstacle to the dog.  If he intends to do it 
just for fun, I see no large difficulties.

It is really fun!  I enjoyed it a lot and so did Mickey.

Julie
Courage to Dare: A Blind Woman's Quest to Train her Own Guide Dog is now 
available! Get the book here:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QXZSMOC
-----Original Message----- 
From: Tracy Carcione via nagdu
Sent: Friday, July 17, 2015 7:32 AM
To: 'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users'
Cc: Tracy Carcione
Subject: [nagdu] Agility

My brother wants to know if anyone has done agility training with their dog,
and how a blind person does it?  He has a puppy he wants to do it with, and
he's also thinking of doing it with his young guide.

If you want to reply offlist, my email is carcione at access.net.

Tracy



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