Now that you know that there are so many dog sports to choose from, how do you pick?
General Research
Reading about the experience of other pawrents, or talking to friends with experience in dog sports, can be one way to familiarize yourself with the sport. So can watching YouTube videos of classes or competitions.
The websites of the various venues can also provide a wealth of information, including connecting you with dog clubs in your area that host competitions and/or classes.
Here are the websites of various groups I’ve referenced this past month.
Ziggy and Cookie waiting their turns in an agility class, circa 2019.
Research dog trainers or dog clubs in your area. Sign up for classes to better gauge what the sport will entail long term. If you take a class and the sport interests you, but you’re unsure, consider trying classes with another instructor. Everyone has different teaching styles and personalities. Look for someone you’re comfortable with and that prioritizes the well-being of your dog.
Assess Personality & Interest
Cookie at a CPE agility competition in March 2019Ziggy competing in Barn Hunt instinct 2019. Credit: Pix N PagesChip goofing off at graduation time for his CGC certificate, November 2023
A good place to begin is assessing you and your dog’s personalities and interests. Is your dog high-energy? Agility may be a great fit. Does your dog have a knack for sniffing? Perhaps barn hunt or nose work would interest them. Can’t keep your pup out of the pool? Give dock diving a try!
If you recently adopted your dog, or perhaps your dog is still a puppy, you may not know their interests. Obedience is always a great place to start, even if you don’t compete, because obeying basic commands will be important in any sport, if for no other reason than good behavior in classes and competitions.
Safety
Safety and physical well-being is also important. This may be true of all sports, but the one that I’m most familiar with is agility. The high speeds, twists, and turns can put a strain on your dog’s body. If you’ve never used any agility equipment before, don’t introduce your dog to them without guidance from an instructor. Young pups are developing their bones and muscles. Introducing them to tight weave poles too young can cause long-term damage. This is an excellent article about preventing orthopedic injuries in dogs that compete in sports.
Budget Considerations
Depending on your goals for your dog, some sports are more expensive than others when you add up classes, entry fees for competitions, travel expenses, and any equipment you may choose to purchase for at-home training.
Start slow and make sure you want to commit to the sport before investing heavily.
Bottom Line
There countless canine sports available to try. Take your time to find one that best suits you and your pup. And, remember, the competition and titles are a distant second to having fun and bonding with your pup!
This week, I’m touching on several sports. A couple of them we have some experience with, while others we have only heard of. As always, this is based on my knowledge and experience with the sport (more limited than usual), and I encourage you to do your own research.
Tricks
Are you familiar with videos of dogs performing silly activities or even dancing a whole routine with a human handler? Well, that’s what the American Kennel Club’s Trick Dog title is all about.
Similar to other AKC sports, tricks have multiple levels in which you can title. In our experience, it’s not a competition like agility but a test like Canine Good Citizen (CGC). Some dog clubs will host classes where you learn a variety of tricks for the given level. Other times, they only offer the test, and it’s up to you to train your dog.
The qualifying tricks at the novice level are mostly your basic obedience commands. In fact, if your dog has their CGC certificate, they only need to perform five novice tricks to earn their novice trick dog title!
Cookie earned her advanced trick dog title virtually during the pandemic. Depending on your patience and motivation, you may plan to train certain tricks but pivot to others depending on how easily your dog picks up the tricks. I did that with Cookie at the more advanced levels, and also with Ziggy.
Cookie earned her advanced tricks title virtually in 2020.
Nose work
Several years ago, we did an introductory nosework class with Cookie. The aim is to train your dog to find certain scents that are hidden. Training starts with finding the scents within boxes and progresses to scents hidden elsewhere in a course. This class was harder for Cookie. Since none of us enjoyed it much, we didn’t pursue it further.
During Chip’s reactive dog class, our instructor shared that nose work is an excellent activity for reactive dogs. In our last class, they showed us how to introduce the concept using boxes and treats. While Chip did OK in class, when I tried at home he was afraid of the boxes! I hope to dig up some patience and try again, consistently, with him because I really do think he would be good at this (and enjoy it!).
Since my experience is incredibly limited, I don’t know anything about how competitive nose work operates. The National Association of Canine Scent Work is a great resource to learn more.
Tracking
Similar to nose work, we only did one class in tracking with Cookie a long time ago. She did well and seemed to enjoy it, but classes were a bit far and offered infrequently, so it was hard to keep up with.
Instead of searching for specific scents, in tracking dogs search for dropped articles outdoors. Tracking is another AKC sport. It’s non-competitive and simply a test with different levels.
Rally
Once again, rally is an AKC sport. We have never tried this with any of our dogs, but it’s one that I contemplate trying with Cookie since she’s a senior dog and the most obedient of all our dogs.
From what I’ve observed, rally is similar to agility in that there is a set course, but instead of obstacles, you stop and do various obedience actions at each “stop” on the course.
While this appeals to me for Cookie because of her age and the fact that she’d crush it, it appeals to me with Chip as it’s an opportunity to practice obedience, but in a new light.
Dock diving
I have never considered dock diving with any of my dogs because they all hate water! Dock diving is exactly what it sounds like – dogs jump into a long pool. The farther they jump, the better. While a Google search showed that there are multiple venues that offer dock diving, North American Diving Dogs is the organization that a friend and mentor has taken her pool-loving dogs to compete in.
To my knowledge, training involves having your dog jump in your pool. Cookie is the closest to a swimmer that we’ve ever had. She can be bribed to step (yes, step) into our pool and swim a semi-circle. If there are no high-value treats involved, she will not step a single paw into the pool.
Cookie swimming a lap in 2021, with Ziggy keeping a protective eye on her.
The Bottom Line
As you can see, there’s a dog sport for everyone. I know that the sports that I’ve written about are just the tip of the iceberg. There are sports involving frisbees, farming (perhaps that’s herding?), and more. Finding a sport that both you and your dog enjoy will help strengthen your bond and be a more effective and healthy outlet for them to tire out their body and mind.
Next week, I’ll share some advice on how to find the dog sport that’s right for you.
Next up for National Train Your Dog Month is barn hunt!
As always, these posts focus on my knowledge and experience of the sport. Consult the various links in the posts for more information.
What is it?
Cookie competing in a barn hunt trial, January 2020.
The essence of barn hunt is hide and seek with rats in a maze of hay bales. Fear not; the rats are safely secured inside plastic tubes with holes. Depending on the level your dog is competing in, the number of rats hidden will vary. There will also be at least one tube that is completely empty, while another will have “litter” (or bits of hay/bedding that smells like rats).
The tubes are hidden in a course of bales of hay. Your dog is to sniff out the rats, signal to you that they found a rat, and you proclaim, “Rat!” In addition to successfully identifying all hidden rats, your dog must also climb atop a bale of hay and complete a tunnel.
As far as I know, the only organization that sponsors barn hunt trials is the Barn Hunt Association. Your dogs must be registered with them to compete in trials hosted by various dog clubs. When you earn barn hunt titles, the American Kennel Club (AKC) will recognize the title, for a fee, of course.
How we started
Ziggy finds rats in a barn hunt trial, January 2020
When Cookie started her journey with agility, we became members of a local dog sports club. Barn hunt was another sport that they hosted competitions in. I was a bit averse to the concept of searching for rats, but friends in the group suggested trying it, telling me that no training was needed.
So I did. Cookie and I signed up for an initial trial. She started with the instinct level, the most basic round. There are 3 tubes that are not hidden in hay. They sit in a rack on the other side of the tunnel. Climb and tunnel are optional at this level. The goal is for your pup to identify the tube with the rat, for you to correctly guess based on your dog’s cue, and move on.
Chip shows off his RATI (instinct) title, August 2023
Cookie, Ziggy, and Chip all competed in barn hunt, but Cookie is the only one not to title in Instinct. The reason is that titling in instinct isn’t required to compete in the next level up, and once you title in novice, you can’t compete in Instinct.
Once Cookie got started in novice, she quickly moved up to earn her novice title and came one qualifying run short of titling in the open. Cookie got stuck in open when Ziggy came along. When Ziggy started competing, he would bark the entire time that Cookie was competing, and she instantly became more preoccupied with the well-being of her brother than finding rats.
When the pandemic hit and Ziggy’s cancer journey began, all competition stopped. Last August, we signed Chip up for his first barn hunt trial. He’s a pro at finding the rats but is too nervous to tunnel. And Cookie remains uninterested in finding rats.
What they don’t tell you
The club that I started with in barn hunt always said that you didn’t need training in barn hunt and to just rely on your dog’s instincts. This worked for Cookie and Ziggy, but Chip would benefit from training (which I didn’t know was a thing for barn hunt until after his first trial). While the instinct may be there to find the rat, your dog may need training to learn to tunnel or also to exit the ring. Chip was hard to catch once our turn was up. The judge advised that it is something that he could be disqualified for, which would be a shame had he qualified in novice.
Competing in barn hunt is significantly more expensive than agility. It may seem surprising at first, but upon inspection, it makes sense. The equipment in agility can be used for years through countless competitions. But the key “equipment” in barn hunt are live rats. Additionally, while bales of hay can be reused while they remain intact, it’s not uncommon for dogs to mark on them (or paw or bite them). While it’s common to charge the owner a fee when this happens, bales of hay don’t last nearly as long as agility equipment.
How dogs signal that they’ve found a rat can vary wildly. I’ve seen some dogs go CRAZY barking and biting bales of hay to say they found a rat. Meanwhile, others, like Cookie, go completely still. (According to the judge who made this observation, Cookie was “disgusted” by the rats!)
I also learned how your dog signals can change over time. Once Cookie started getting stuck in open, I wish I had taken a break from trials and instead took a couple of classes or done a fun run to learn if she was changing how she was signaling or if she truly lost interest in the sport.
The bottom line
A proud Cookie showing off her barn hunt ribbons in January 2019 (before Ziggy came along).
Barn hunt is a less physically demanding sport compared to agility. It leverages your dog’s natural hunting instincts but can benefit from practice and classes.
Like with everything else, explore your dog’s interests and simply HAVE FUN!! Even if your dog doesn’t find a rat in the competition, every judge we’ve competed under has made sure that a rat tube is presented to the dog to sniff and for excitement to be demonstrated so they leave the ring on a pawsitive note.
Second up for National Train Your Dog Month is agility!
As always, these posts focus on my knowledge and experience of the sport. Consult the various links in the posts for more information.
Full disclosure: I never competed in agility with any of our dogs. It was my husband’s sport with Cookie. I served as their manager, photographer, videographer, cheerleader, and backup handler.
What is it?
Agility is essentially an obstacle course for dogs with a specific sequence that you lead your dog through, and where accuracy and speed matter.
Each venue has different levels of competition and different rules. The obstacles may vary but generally include jumps, weave poles, teeter, dog walk, A-frame, table, and tunnel. The obstacles are laid out in a specific sequence. Handlers have the opportunity to walk the obstacle course for a few minutes before the competition begins.
While the obstacles are numbered to guide you, walking the course allows you to learn the course so you can focus on staying ahead of your dog and directing them accordingly during the competition.
Walking the course also lets you think through the types of signals you’ll give your dog to run the course completely.
How we started
Cookie going over jumps in a March 2019 agility trial. Credit: Robin T Brumfield Photography
Last week, I talked about how we started obedience at a shelter near our home. Cookie’s initial classes were outside in a fenced-in field. One week, there was an agility class being held in the field next to us. My husband watched through the chain link fence, looked at me, and said, “We should try that!”
I pretended to ignore him until one of the obedience instructors, also a member of the canine sports club that held agility classes on that field, approached us and said that Cookie would do great in agility. So, I jotted down the name of the group and signed us up for an intro to agility class.
Before we actually started, and while we still lived in an apartment, my husband started practicing agility with Cookie indoors. When we moved into a townhome, he built some basic jumps and weaves for practicing with Cookie at home.
Our makeshift agility course in our apartment.My husband building Cookie a set of weave poles.
We took classes for at least a year before entering Cookie in her first agility competitions. It probably took her roughly a year of competition before her brain “clicked,” and she started sailing through the competitions.
What they don’t tell you
Cookie flying over a jump in a 2019 CPE agility trial. Credit: Robin T Brumfield Photography
We were fortunate to have great agility instructors and a community when we first started. Thankfully, most of this was told to us, but sometimes it takes you experiencing it for yourself before the lessons really sink in.
Most of the work is on you
Cookie, circa 2015-2016, practicing agility through osmosis.
This is one that was truly surprising, but validated when I would record Cookie’s classes in addition to competitions. Once your dog knows the obstacles, most of the work is on you. It’s up to you to know the course, be far enough ahead of your dog (spoiler alert: you can’t outrun your dog no matter how in shape you are), and ensure your whole body is giving your dog the same direction.
Record your runs, and you’ll find that when your dog goes the wrong way, 97% of the time, your body language is sending mixed signals. Your feet, torso, and hands need to all be pointing in the same direction.
Different Venure, Different Rules
While the basics of each obstacle will be the same across venues (i.e., AKC, USDAA, CPE, etc.), the specific rules may vary. For example, in one venue, the table obstacle doesn’t care which position the dog is in, while another requires the dog to sit or lie down.
Similarly, other rules about competition (i.e., whether they can wear a collar or must run “naked”) may vary by venue. If you’re taking classes with an instructor who is experienced in multiple venues, they’ll likely point these nuances out during classes. A recommendation from our instructors was to train with the more conservative rule (i.e., train your dog to lay/sit in a position for all venues).
Even if they do, you’re liable to forget before your first competition (or get them all mixed up). You can research rules ahead of time. Day of competition – be sure to be present for the judges briefing at the start of the day (usually an overview of trial-level rules) and, more importantly, in my opinion, the briefing happening for each specific class. Since judging may be more critical at higher levels, they’ll go over what counts as a fault at the start.
Don’t let your first competition be your first trial
The best way to know what to expect at your first competition is to go to trials before you start competing. You can take your dog to expose them to the chaos of a trial (lots of dogs in crates, loads of baring, speakers, and buzzers).
Observing the routines of the briefings, learning your dog’s results, and more are incredibly beneficial.
Even better than observing: volunteer. All of the trials we’ve been part of have required volunteers. Without volunteers, the competition can drag on and be a worse experience for all involved. Most of the volunteers are likely competing as well, so they may not be able to do set jobs for the whole trial.
Doing so can really set you up for success. I remember that we briefly went to one or two trials, but we purely sat on the sidelines at first. I’ll never forget at our first trial, in between runs, one of Cookie’s instructors came up to me asking how she did. I had no idea. Thanks to her dragging me off the bleachers, I learned that there’s a table where the results get shared. I might have been waiting for results to this day if not for her kindness. Had we been more involved as volunteers before competing, this is something we likely would have learned in advance.
Dogs just wanna have fun
Cookie at an agility practice with her substitute handler (aka me) in September 2019.
Most important: JUST HAVE FUN!! Agility is fun and a great bonding experience. Even if you dream about competing in national or international competitions, fun, and bonding must be at the center of every activity.
Start trialing before your dog is perfect in class. Cookie was incredibly food motivated, and in the beginning, she would constantly jump at my husband’s hands looking for her payday (in class). Treats aren’t allowed on courses, but she repeated that same behavior for a while. It’s something we had to work on with her before something finally clicked in her brain, and she truly started looking (and competing) like an athlete.
Throughout all of the classes we took with Cookie, the common refrain I heard: the tunnel is puppy crack. Once it was taught, few classes would ever include a tunnel in the course because it was so addictive for them.
This isn’t true for all dogs. While Ziggy never got to compete in agility, I taught him to tunnel for barn hunt with an agility tunnel. I tried the same approach for Chip in barn hunt. He was not having it! Tunnel has taken a lot more effort with Chip (and I haven’t kept up with practice with him). He’s made terrific progress with it, but it didn’t translate to his first barn hunt trial last year.
The bottom line
Agility isn’t for everyone, human or canine. I went to all of Cookie’s classes, recorded them, and would often critique my husband. Then, I became his stand-in when he had work conflicts. Agility is much easier from the sidelines.
Even if both you and your pup fall in love with the sport, it can be rough on their bodies. Take the advice of instructors seriously and ensure you know how to teach an obstacle before letting your dog try it out.
Have fun! Agility was our home in the dog sports world for a long time. While there can be just as much drama there as in other areas of life, it was a mostly positive experience.
Since January is National Train Your Dog Month, I want to dedicate this month’s posts to the different dog sports out there.
As always, these posts focus on my knowledge and experience of the sport. Consult the various links in the posts for more information.
First up, obedience and Canine Good Citizen!
What is it?
Obedience is probably the first thing that comes to mind when most people think of dog training. It’s following basic commands and your dog obeying those instructions.
Canine Good Citizen (CGC) is a skills test that is meant to show that your dog has good manners. To me, it’s a form of obedience, but where the end result is a certificate that shows that your dog has good matters, and you, in turn, are a responsible dog owner. I’ve been told that this can be helpful in getting acceptance for your dog with a landlord or similar situations. I’ve never had this need, so I don’t know how accepting people may be of the certification.
I’m sure there are more differences, but you can compete in different levels of obedience, whereas in CGC, there are different classes and test levels, but it’s not a competition. Simply pass or fail.
How we started
As a child, my mom trained Lady with basic commands. Somehow, we came across an obedience competition that I entered, and we did well. I have no clue if it was affiliated with the American Kennel Club (AKC). Aside from this one random competition from my childhood, we have never competed in obedience.
Me circa 1992 with my childhood dog, Lady, “competing” in obedience.
Cookie is the one who truly introduced us to the world of dog sports. It started with us taking her to a free (for a donation) obedience class at a shelter down the street from us. After a few sessions, our instructors suggested we upgrade to a paid AKC Star Puppy class. From there, we were introduced to a dog sports club that offered a range of classes, including Canine Good Citizen.
Cookie earned her Canine Good Citizen and Canine Good Citizen Advanced. Chip earned his Canine Good Citizen in November, though some of us suspect the evaluator graded on a curve.
Chip’s CGC graduation. Thankfully, the test didn’t include wearing a graduation cap.
What they don’t tell you
If nothing else, the AKC is adept at making money. While you’re likely to always pay a fee to take the class and/or tests, to have AKC titles (obedience, CGC, or other sports) registered, you will have to pay.
Your dog must be registered with the AKC. Don’t worry if your pup isn’t a purebred. They have a program for mixed breeds.
The one thing that is truly fun about registering with the AKC is that they require a dog’s name to be unique. When I first registered Cookie and learned of this requirement, I searched the combinations of her name and our last names. Hyphenated versions of our last names were available, but that seemed boring. Thus, Cookie is officially Cookie Wookie. Then came Ziggy Kenobi, and Chip S. Ahoy. (This is also why you may come across some very long, crazy names the more involved you become in the dog sports world.)
Aside from registering your dog, if you want a certificate recognizing your title, you also get to pay for that. The AKC also allows you to purchase medals and ribbons showing your new titles. If you compete in obedience and title, I assume that the club sponsoring the event will provide ribbons (that is common practice in other sports).
The biggest lesson that I remember from our early days in obedience and CGC is that your dog will only be as good based on how much you practice. Your dog may heel and pass CGC, but if you never heel again, their obedience to the command will also suffer.
The bottom line
Whether or not you choose to compete, obedience is a great starting point. At a minimum, you should want your pup to respond to basic commands and behave. Even if your pup will be a homebody, they will need to venture out on occasion, be it for walks, vet appointments, or trips to the groomers. Having them understand basic commands will be invaluable for you and other caregivers.
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