At Carlson Agility, our focus is on providing the best dog training equipment for our customers and we have equipment suitable for a wide variety of exciting dog sports. Whether you want to compete on agility courses or obedience courses, we have everything you might need. Here’s a quick look at different dog sports that utilize the equipment we sell at Carlson Agility.
Dog Agility
Providing dog training equipment for traditional dog agility has been our bread and butter for years, and all of our agility equipment is competition-quality. It’s just like the equipment you will find on courses hosted by UKC, AKC, CPE, NADAC and other dog agility organizations.
We have a full selection of dog agility equipment, including agility jumps, weave poles, dog walks, dog tunnels, a-frames, pause tables, dog agility teeters and more. We also have mini dog agility equipment, which is perfect for those smaller breeds as well as for indoor rainy-day training.
Jumpers
Once you get your feet wet in agility, you might want to branch out to other agility-related competitions and jumpers is a perfect fit for any energetic dog that excels at jumping. With jumpers, the course includes, as one might expect, a bunch of different types of jumps. The dog training equipment usually includes broad jumps, a tire jump, double jumps, panel jumps, etc. Sometimes you also might find a tunnel on a jumper’s course for a bit of variety.
At Carlson Agility, we have any type of jump you might need including single jumps, double jumps, triple jumps, panel jumps, fence wing jumps, tire and even specialty UKC items, such as a window jump.
Gamblers
While the idea of a “gamblers” category might conjure up an image of a velvet painting featuring dogs playing poker, Gamblers is actually a type of agility competition. With Gamblers, you have a short amount of time to run an agility course and the goal is to complete each piece of agility equipment twice and correctly.
During the first part, or opening, of the course, your dog can tackle the obstacles in any order you choose. During the closing segment of the course, the dog must follow a sequence of about 4-5 obstacles, and the order of these obstacles will be set by the judges. The handler also must stay behind a line at a set distance from their dog. In some cases, there will be two closing options, one less difficult (worth fewer points) and a more difficult option which is worth more points.
Gambler courses tend to have the same dog training equipment that you would find on a traditional agility course so these dogs should be proficient in all types of jumps, contact obstacles, tunnels and weave poles.
Snookers
Well, you’ve heard about dogs playing poker, but what about dogs playing billiards? Of course, the Snooker category obviously has nothing to do withing shooting pool, but it’s still a fun option for an experienced agility dog. On a Snooker course, the handler doesn’t have to follow a set course run, but rather you set the pattern yourself.
Jumps are called red obstacles and the other obstacles are often known as point obstacles or colored obstacles. Typically, you get one point for each red obstacle (usually the red obstacles are jumps) and you cannot hit the same red obstacle twice during your run nor can you do two red obstacles in a row.
The other obstacles have a point ranking between 2 and 7 and the goal is to earn as many points as possible during your run. After you’ve hit three red obstacles (the pattern is red, colored obstacle, red, colored obstacle, red, colored obstacle), you can run all of the rest of the obstacles in order of point value and then you are finished.
While this might seem complicated, you’ll quickly get the hang of it, and to train for Snooker, you need a full selection of dog training equipment, including different types of jumps, all of which we have here at Carlson Agility. The items you find on a Snooker course include all of the typical agility obstacles, such as a tire jump, agility weave poles, an agility a-frame and so on.
Obedience
An obedient dog is a safe dog, and all dogs should be taught to sit, stay and lay down for their doggie parents whenever commanded to do so. This keeps them safe from other dogs that might not be friendly as well as other animals and prevents them from darting out of your yard and into the street. But, you may not have known that obedience skills aren’t just essential skills, but you can use those skills to compete in obedience contests.
During an obedience competition, dogs must perform a variety of important skills. These include walking politely by the side of their handler and staying and heeling when commanded as well as coming to their handler when called. Dogs also must be able to retrieve and object and tackle a few agility jumps, as well. If you have a dog that is highly obedient and loves jumping, but maybe doesn’t seem perfectly suited to a full agility course, obedience contests might be a good match. We have a good selection of dog obedience jumps listed on our website under the Products section in the Obedience Jumps category.
There are typically several obedience competition classes or categories including a novice or beginner class where dogs might work both on and off-leash to show off their skills. As they progress to Open and Utility/Expert classes, the leash usually is not used and jumping becomes part of the competition. For the expert classes, scent work (nose work) also might be included, which brings us to our next dog sport.
Dog Nose Work
Dogs have amazing noses, and they can even show off their scent detection skills in competition. For nose work competitions (sometimes you will see it as one word – nosework or you will see it called scent work), a dog must learn to identify several different scents. Typically, the scents that dogs train for include birch oil, close oil, anise oil, wintergreen oil and cypress oil, but every organization is unique, so you might find that you need to train with myrrh, lemongrass oil or something else.
Our nosework supplies include a set of three nose work canisters, as well as a set with six canisters with a wooden platform that holds all six canisters. We also have a scent detection training wheel, which can be a great piece of dog training equipment for dogs that need to polish up on their final response or dogs that need to work on distraction training.
During a competition, dogs will be given a whiff of a scent, then they must work to find that scent in a search area. When the dog finds the scent, he or she must communicate with the handler to indicate that the scent has been located. While this can be a fun sport, it obviously has its roots in a serious purpose – search and rescue training.
All of these sports can provide a great source of exercise and fun for you and your furry companion and whether you need dog training equipment for traditional dog agility or Jumpers, Snookers, Gamblers, Obedience or Nose Work, we have everything you need. If you don’t see precisely what you are looking for, feel free to contact the team at Carlson Agility at any time.
