What is Dog Agility?
Dog Agility involves your dog learning to negotiate a variety of obstacles (see Agility Equipment) correctly and on command. When competing the dog will have to negotiate anything up to 20 obstacles around a course within a set course time (both determined by the judge), off-lead and without any treats to lure them around just relying on your vocal commands and body language.
The aim of the sport is to get your dog around the course without any faults as fast as possible. Faults are incurred for various errors (see Competing for more details) and you can also incur time faults if it takes you longer than the set course time to complete the course.
The majority of people who start out in agility go on to compete but there is no reason why you cannot just train your dog for the exercise and the fun of agility. If you do start competing you must be warned that it is very addictive and you may soon find yourself at a different show every weekend throughout the spring and summer months.
Currently the majority of shows are run under a Kennel Club licence and conform to their rules, regulations and progression system. However over the past few years a lot more Independent shows have started to be run by private individuals or groups across the country and a lot of these conform to different rules, regulations and progression systems to the Kennel Club and each other.
A Brief History of Dog Agility
Dog agility was created purely as a demonstration event in the late 1970s in the UK. It has since spread rapidly around the world, with major competitions held worldwide.
The first appearance of dog agility was as entertainment at the Crufts dog show in 1978. John Varley, a committee member from the 1977 show, was tasked with coming up with entertainment for the audience between the obedience and conformation competitions in the main ring. Varley asked dog trainer Peter Meanwell for assistance, and they presented a largely jumping-style course resembling something from the equestrian world to demonstrate dogs' natural speed and agility.
Peter's vast practical dog training knowledge plus many years spent as a successful Working Trials competitor soon enabled him to plan the basic principle. The main factors he always kept in mind were it should be a fun event without being dangerous and that it would provide spectator appeal.
The reaction of the crowd being so generous made it obvious that the Kennel Club had for the first time a genuine spectator sport on their hands. All the ingredients of crowd appeal were apparent. Each dog completed a round in under one minute so no spectator had to concentrate on a particular dog for long periods of time. The way a dog was faulted, whilst inevitably not being quite so simple as Show Jumping, was so much easier for the spectator to understand than other forms of dog competition. The fact that the dogs competed against the clock injected a speed element and with all these facts thrown together the result was an all action event that pleased the crowds.
All these points plus the fact that the wagging tails indicated a high measure of canine enjoyment told us that this now official dog sport would not die. 'I am proud to have been instrumental in starting what has become a world-wide dogging activity enjoyed by dogs and their owners in the thousands,' says Peter Meanwell 20 years later, 'and I'm maybe somewhat self-satisfied that the obstacles, working systems and judging system are virtually unchanged since that first event at Crufts 1978.'
Source: The Agility Dog by Peter Lewis (1981)