Taming the Agility Trials with Tribbles - Bearded Collie Club of America

Taming the Agility Trials with Tribbles
by Penny Leigh

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Agility Trials with Tribbles

Ch. Arcadia-Caliburn Smokey Topaz UD MX ROM HC is the first Bearded Collie in the nation to earn Agility Excellent and Master Agility Excellent titles. She Finished the MX in June 1996, becoming one of the first 20 dogs (all breeds) in the nation to earn the MX, and the second in the country to go through every level of AKC agility from NA to MX. She was the first recipient of the Bearded Collie Club of America's annual award for excellence in agility performance in 1995, an honor she repeated in 1996. She also was the first and only Beardie to qualify to compete in the first AKC national agility trial - in 1996.	"Tribbles" is a fawn Beardie, is owned by Penny Leigh and Dale McElrath. She is handled and trained by Penny. Tribbles turned 10 years old on Jan. 9 and is pretty much retired, except for running in an occasional trial just for fun. We are very proud that she came out just five times in 1997 for "fun runs" and qualified in every one of them - three of them with scores of 100. We began agility training when Tribbles was nearly 7 years old, just to see if it would bring more enthusiasm to her obedience. (She was training for her CDX at the time). From the start, she loved the jumps, tunnels and tires, but the tall narrow dog walk (USDAA stature at that time) and the banging teeter frightened her. At one point, I thought she would never compete in the trial. I remember many a day begging Tribbles, frozen in the middle of the dog walk, to complete that obstacle. We finally got the teeter and the walk at home, though, and Tribbles did them every day for lots of treats (sometimes eating her dinner on the walk or the teeter). She did get used to them and even enjoyed them. (She always creeps on the teeter though!) Beardies are natural for agility since they are built lithely and are natural jumpers, making quick turns easily. As all Beardie owners know, they do not thrive on routine, and that is another reason agility is a good sport for them. Courses are always different! And it is too fast a sport for them to get distracted and start scanning the crowd (usually that is!)
*Good schools and Safe Equipment*	If you want to start agility, make sure you go to a good school with quality instructors and well made SAFE equipment. Agility is getting so popular that a lot of schools are springing up, and not all are qualified to teach beginners the sport. A dog doesn't easily forget a bad experience of getting scared on an obstacle.
*Start low and slow*	You should start low and slow with all obstacles, but particularly your contact obstacles: A-frame, dog-walk and teeter. It is tempting to want to run your dog over obstacles at full height, especially if it is the fearless type, but starting slow will lead to less headaches down the road.
*Beardies can be noise sensitive*	Beardies can be noise sensitive so make sure that you catch the teeter for a long while, avoiding the loud bang in the early stages. A tip is to bang the teeter while the dog is new, but not while the dog is on the obstacle so the it gets acclimated to the noise and thinks it's no big deal long before it gets on the teeter.
*The only successful agility dogs* *are the ones that truly love it*	Once your dog knows all the equipment and starts sequencing, or putting together several obstacles in a row, be sure to remember that you are still working a Beardie and they still get easily bored. The only successful agility dogs are the ones that truly love it and to maintain that love, do not drill, drill, drill. Fifteen minutes is plenty time for a practice session. If the dog does it correctly the first time, then praise and move on. There is no need to continue drilling just for the sake of repetition.

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