Agility

Question
I am working on teaching my rat terrier (Shelby almost 1year old) how to do agility stuff.  I personally have never done this or had a dog that has done this.  Where I am from there are no compititions locally but I know that she can be more than just a hyper dog that can sit, lay, roll over, shake and switch hands, and give high fives.  She has learned to jump through a hoop and over a pole.  She will also go under the pole.  Do you have any suggestions on the weave poles and the objects that she has to climb and go down?

Answer
Agility is not my strong suit. I've only done it with a couple of dogs. I'd keep the dogwalk and aframe low until she's confident. For the dogwalk, you get just put a 1x12 on some bricks, to give her the idea of keeping her footing off the ground. Here's an excellent article on teaching weave poles
http://www.click-l.com/Gems/HowTo/fog0000000011.html
You'll also want to teach your dog to touch a target with her nose or foot. I do that with shaping as well - click the dog for interaction with a target (could be a margarine tub lid)and gradually work towards only clicking behaviors which will lead to the one you are looking for, until you have it. For information on clicker training, check out www.clickertraining.com. Check www.cleanrun.com for good books and articles on agility, and do a search for trainers in your area. If you can't find anyone specifically doing agility, check out positive obedience trainers. Truly, our local agility trainers send their dogs to me first for obedience, because you can't run agility very well without some basic skills. And those trainers will know who is doing agility near you. You might check out www.ccpdt.com apdt.com and karenpryoracademy.com to see if there is anyone local to you. Good luck and have fun. Sandy Case MEd CPDT www.positivelycanine.com