Border Collie Agility

How agile is your Border Collie? Well, let me put it this way, in England, the Border Collies are occasionally given competitions separate from other competitions with mixed breeds. That’s how agile a Border Collie is, the dog is top of the list when it comes down to agility!

The agility event for dogs is a sport in which Border Collies dominate on, for they are the most energetic species of dog. The sport consists of trials and obstacles that are set by the judges of the said sports. Each event has a time in which it needs to be accomplished, and points are added and deducted for completing in the best time, and not finishing with the time limit, respectively.

Your Border Collie has the speed and the motivation to do well in these events, and this is considered to be an asset and also a disadvantage. The dog may decide he wants to do a specific obstacle first, and try and go around the trial in the incorrect way and suchlike. To cope with this, it is the handlers responsibility to teach the dog to recognize the names of the trials and obstacles, and he or she must be ready to give the name of the next section of the event, when the dog is close to completing the current section that he or she may be in. To succeed in these competitions, it isn’t just down to the dog to be great, the handlers must know the timing and when to give the next command an so on.

Unlike other dog breeds, the Border Collie can work faster if the handler is at a distance and not by its side. The Border Collie is a herding breed and needs little assistance from his handler in accomplishing the obstacles given to him. A dog is faster than a human, and if the handler is by his side, he may just slow the dog down. As long as your Border Collie can follow certain commands such as stop, go, around and so forth, he will do well in the event. You need to teach a Collie to anticipate before you even teach him what he is meant to be anticipating! This means training him to do something by command and not just by pure instinct. You have to be bale to move and think faster than the movements of your over excited Border Collie.

In an agility obstacle course, the Border Collie is the most cheered for its speed, grace and sheer athletic ability. They may not be the most accurate, because of their hyper characteristics and may be beaten by a slower dog because of an incomplete task or an un-sequential task but as I’ve mentioned, they are the most cheered at and if the handler is good than the Border Collie will dominate this sport.

Now, lets get to another sport that a Border Collie does well in. It is the relatively new sport of fly ball. This sport is a test of true agility and speed and again, most dogs that enter this competition are Border Collies, for it is the perfect dog for a perfect speed and agility game!

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