In my last post I talked about building an agility course for my dog. Now that I have it all set up, the fun part is trying to get my dog to interact with it. I have two jumps and a set of six weave poles for him to run through.
The first thing I tried to teach him was jumping. My dog is a three-year-old chihuahua mix named Jett, short for Jonathan Taylor Thomas, after the 90s teen hearthrob. I'm not sure what he's mixed with, but he's about fourteen pounds, so he's on the big side for a small dog. When he's excited he can jump really high, but when he's confused he tends to sit still and do absolutely nothing, so I wasn't sure how training would go. I set the jump to a low-ish height to start, probably about seven or eight inches. He cleared it easily several times, which we were both excited about. I raised the jump a little bit, and he started just walking under the bar. I lowered the bar back to where it was in the beginning, but now he was really confused. He crawled on his belly to get under the lowered bar. He looked so cute that I gave him a treat, which probably confused him even more. I decided to take a break and try the weave poles.
The weave poles went okay. I have to make Jett sit and wait for me to go through each space between poles, then call him through and give him a treat. If I don't make him sit, he gets confused and runs back to the beginning of the obstacle. Luckily we have all winter to work on it.
I took a break from training, and then later that night tried the jump again. Luckily he started jumping over the low bar instead of trying to crawl under it. I haven't tried raising it again, but I'm thinking when I do decide to raise it, I'll put another bar under it so there isn't space for him to crawl through. For any dog owners who have trouble thinking of ways to play with their dogs inside, I would highly recommend building a small agility course. It's really cheap, and it's lots of fun.
The first thing I tried to teach him was jumping. My dog is a three-year-old chihuahua mix named Jett, short for Jonathan Taylor Thomas, after the 90s teen hearthrob. I'm not sure what he's mixed with, but he's about fourteen pounds, so he's on the big side for a small dog. When he's excited he can jump really high, but when he's confused he tends to sit still and do absolutely nothing, so I wasn't sure how training would go. I set the jump to a low-ish height to start, probably about seven or eight inches. He cleared it easily several times, which we were both excited about. I raised the jump a little bit, and he started just walking under the bar. I lowered the bar back to where it was in the beginning, but now he was really confused. He crawled on his belly to get under the lowered bar. He looked so cute that I gave him a treat, which probably confused him even more. I decided to take a break and try the weave poles.
The weave poles went okay. I have to make Jett sit and wait for me to go through each space between poles, then call him through and give him a treat. If I don't make him sit, he gets confused and runs back to the beginning of the obstacle. Luckily we have all winter to work on it.
I took a break from training, and then later that night tried the jump again. Luckily he started jumping over the low bar instead of trying to crawl under it. I haven't tried raising it again, but I'm thinking when I do decide to raise it, I'll put another bar under it so there isn't space for him to crawl through. For any dog owners who have trouble thinking of ways to play with their dogs inside, I would highly recommend building a small agility course. It's really cheap, and it's lots of fun.
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