Cyberagility

[Alberta Hanko]

Hi - I am doing a Cyberagility course with my Linus--actually we are in the second section of this course, having done the first one last year. I am doing the Cyberagility since he is fear aggressive and it gives him something to do, and teaches the two of us to work together. Also helps him to focus on me. Anyone else out there working on this because of a lack of agility courses in your area, or because they have a defensive dog?

Alberta & Linus

[imported_Terry Runge-Erle]

What is cyberagility? I would like to do agility, but have no idea how to even begin to train my dogs. There are no classes in my area, but I think I could work on training at home if I knew what to do. :? I think that it would be a fun thing to do with my dogs, even if I never compete.

[Alberta Hanko]

Hi Terry - Cyberagility is agility work with a trainer, but we do it over the internet. I keep a log of how he is doing, timing what we are learning at the moment, turn in a report each week by e-mail, and do a chat session with her once a week. I can ask my questions there, and she always writes back and gives suggestions on my problem of the moment. It has really improved my clicker training, and also my work with Linus. There are others also taking this course, so when in a chat session, you can see how they are doing. I also will never compete with my Linus, but we have set up a few things in our backyard, a seesaw, a pause table, a jump (all of these are homemade) and we were using a garbage pail, with the closed end cut out and stabilized it with stakes to see how he would do. I just bought a tunnel off of E-Bay for him to use in the second session. I am taking the course run by Helix Fairweather, who is really great. It also is not expensive.

Alberta & Linus

[imported_Terry Runge-Erle]

How does one get started with this; who do I contact? Sounds like something I would be interested in. How much does it cost? Do they give you training suggestions, help, etc? Sorry about all the questions, but I don't know anything about how to get started.

Thanks

[Eric Moreira]

I am interested in getting into agility as well but not until I pass some more obedience classes, although i will start him on some jumps soon so he gets a handle on them.

One thing I found odd when looking at the Cyber Agility website (http://www.cyberagility.com ) was the following:
CYBER AGILITY emphasizes the "3 R's" of agility: reliability, consistency and speed.
How is that 3 R's:) It seems like an interesting concept and I will look into it in more detail when I come to that point.

Thanks!

[Alberta Hanko]

Hi again - You can contact Helix Fairweather, her e-mail address is at her website: www.cyberagility.com . You can also read through the teamwork building blocks section, which is where you begin. That part of the course teaches hand targeting, etc., the basics, and it is a lot of fun. The cost is around $125.00 for 10 weeks, and you sure do a lot during that time. Yes, she gives you training instructions and a lot of help. My Linus is definitely not an easy dog to train and we hit spots where I would be trying to get him to do something, and he wasn't getting it--I wasn't making myself clear. So it wsa great having someone say "well try this then", and it sure helped. It has also helped him with his obedience training--I combine them. Take a look at the site. Hope this helps.

Alberta & Linus [/url]