How I Trained For AKC Events
by Kaitlyn

Before I started agility with my dog Roxie, a Shetland Sheepdog, she was hiding under chairs when people came near her. So, if I was going to start agility this would need some fixing. The first thing that I did was I took her to puppy socialization class. She learned how to be social with dogs and this also taught me some techniques on grooming, how to identify if she is sick, and of course how to open up to people as well as other dogs.

Then, I took Roxie to obedience class; this was going to start teaching her basic commands along with off leash training. Also, of course we practiced these exercises twice a day for about 10 minutes, once in the morning and once in the afternoon or evening. I also still practiced her socialization by taking her places and letting people attempt to pet her. This helped tremendously.

So, with all of that hard work and training, Roxie was finally ready to start agility. We first started in the beginner’s class, where we both learned the commands, equipment names, and different techniques, such as crosses and turns. We also practiced with jumps and tunnels.

Then we started training in Intermediate classes where we learned and worked with all of the equipments one by one, then all together. Once we made it into the advanced class, we really started pushing ourselves and working as hard as we could to prepare ourselves for the AKC agility trials. We improved greatly from the beginning class to the advanced class.

It has really been a challenge to work on showing at the AKC trials; although, it has been fun every step of the way. We are now entered in many trials and plan to keep training and competing.