Types of Agility & Quickness Training

Agility training is a dog sport in which a dog will navigate an obstacle course while being evaluated for time and for accuracy. Agility and quickness training for dogs breaks down into four different types. While some competitions only focus on one type of training or another, most dog agility and quickness competitions will focus on some combination of all four.

  1. Contact Obstacle Training

    • Contact obstacle training involves training the dog to climb things, whether it is an A-Frame structure or a teeter-totter that will move as the dog walks down the plank. They are referred to as contact obstacles because the dog needs to touch both yellow contact zones on either side of the obstacle.

    Jump Training

    • Jump training encourages the dog to leap over obstacles that may include bars, walls or hurdles. The dog should be confident enough to take the jump even if he cannot see what is on the other side. Though bars are the most common type of jump obstacle that the dog will encounter, the dog may also be required to go through a suspended tire or over a pool of water.

    Weave Pole Training

    • Weave poles are a set of upright poles fixed into a line. In most competitions, the rules state that the dog must enter the set of poles with the first pole to his left shoulder and then weave in and out of the poles without missing a single one. In some cases, the dog must not topple the posts as it passes. This is typically seen as a very demanding and very time consuming type of training.

    Tunnel Training

    • With tunnel training, the dog is encouraged to enter a tunnel and to come out the other end. Tunnels are typically from 12 to 15 feet long and come in two varieties. A rigid tunnel will be made of a hard, freestanding material that will take your dog along several twists and turns, while a chute is a soft, collapsible tunnel that the dog needs to push through.