Contact zones are designed to ensure dogs safely transition on and off the A-frame. Missing them can lead to faults in competition—or worse, injury. That’s why consistent contact behavior is one of the most important skills in agility training.
I recently got myself a very nice gift, a sheltie puppy from Sweden. He’s definitely a character and he soon became the creative director of AgiNotes. He’s creative and he’s productive. However, he lacks some education, as regarding his hoped for career as an agility dog. So, I started looking for puppy courses that are safe for a young puppy (I want to keep him healthy), and fun (I want to build a strong team out of the two of us).
I found a lot of courses! They are scattered in different places so I collected them here in one place. I also asked Dan Shaw and Dave Munnings to tell us all what the most important things when training with a puppy are. So, here we go!
Martina Magnoli Klimesova from Czech Republic has had an amazing agility career with her mudi Kiki. They have 7 medals from World Championships, of which three are individual gold, the latest of which is from 2018. Watching them run, one would never guess that people actually condemned Kiki early on: “A lot of people told me that she is not good enough. But I did not listen to them.”
During the almost two years we’ve spent building the concept, there have been several times when I almost gave up. But I didn’t and here’s why: I love dog agility. I really do. And I love dogs. And I love competing. And I think most of us would succeed even better if we had more data and more focus. Here’s how the whole idea of AgiNotes started.
