Can You Train Your Dog to Be Agile?

Dog in Wild.

Many people - especially those living in cities - don't particularly think that their dogs need a lot of their "natural" abilities to survive. And they're right. Dogs today live relatively well; they're taken care of, they're fed, and they don't have a lot of challenges to overcome. But for many people who are taking care of dogs, this is exactly the problem: their dogs, without enough challenges to keep them occupied, develop poor habits and face a lot of anxieties in their daily life.

So should you train your dog to get used to the agility and exercise it would typically get in the wild?

Many people ask this question and today you're finally going to get an answer. And you'll find that it's not a question of "can," but "will."

The first thing you have to consider is why you want to give your dog agility. For some, simply exercising with your dog in a variety of unique ways is reason enough to justify new agility; it's simply a way to get outside and keep your dog challenged. For others, their pursuits are more ambitious: they want to train their dog for very specific obstacles and courses, perhaps with an eye on eventually entering the dog in a competition of some sort.

What kind of dog trainer are you?

This will largely determine the level of agility you'll want to develop in your dog. There's no easy way, of course: even giving your dog a good workout means working it until it is reaching new levels of fatigue. A dog should feel relatively worn out after exercising; everything else just scratches at the surface of the health benefits of exercise.

If you want to train your dog for obstacles, a higher level of mental discipline, patience, and training will be involved: not only for the dog, but for you. You'll want to stay patient with a dog that is still attempting a way to move through an obstacle. You'll have to provide the dog with incentives to complete an obstacle course without the dog becoming confused. For many, training a dog to be a "competition" dog requires a whole new level of dedication and commitment that can often last throughout most of the dog's life.

Can you train your dog to be agile?

Yes. But how agile do you want your dog to be, and why do you want to seek that level? These are perhaps more important questions to answer when you think about the type of training you want to provide for your dog. And remember, there is no right or wrong answer because it depends on your specific situation.

Photo Credits: nafra cendrers

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