Tricks, Rally & Pre-Sport
Tricks for Fun, Sports and Titles
There are so many reasons to teach your dog tricks. It’s not only fun for you and your dog, but also provides your dog with both mental and physical exercise. Plus you can show off what cool things dogs can do to your friends! Some tricks teach dogs practical skills they can do around the house – turn on a light? Close a cabinet door? Get you a tissue? All are fun tricks that your dog can learn! Tricks are also a great outlet for bored dogs, plus our all positive training approach can increase your dog's enthusiasm for learning and take your relationship with your dog to a higher level.
In our Tricks for Fun, Sports and Titles class, you will be teaching your dog new foundation tricks and fine-tuning ones it already knows. Once your dog masters trick foundations, you will be combining tricks to create new complex your ones. Trick training is fun and creative! When a dog learns tricks, it becomes adept at learning new behaviors. While teaching your dog tricks, you become adept at mastering training techniques you can use in all types of training.
Several exciting dog sports are based on tricks: Canine Parkour, Rally Freestyle Elements and Canine Musical Freestyle. You can earn titles in these sports via video submissions of your dog's tricks. If you're interested in trick dog titles, AKC and Do More With Your Dog offer several levels of trick dog titles. Your instructor, an AKC CGA evaluator and a Certified Trick Dog Instructor, can witness your tricks and sign your application.
Rally
Rally is a fun sport that combines elements of obedience, trick training, and agility while developing your dog’s focus and teamwork. Handlers guide their dogs through a numbered course of 10 – 20 stations, where dogs need to perform one skill or a combination of skills at each station before moving on. Obedience skills include turns, sit, down, stand, and stay. Agility skills include jumps and moving through cones in different configurations. Advanced rally skills include off-leash heeling, bypassing distractions, and tricks like backing up, and spins. Novice Rally classes focus on the core skills of heeling, cueing, and maintaining engagement with your dog and will prepare you for Novice level competition challenges. Advanced class will focus on working seamlessly off leash, and skills like stand stays, spins, and managing distractions and will prepare you for Advanced and Excellent level competition.
Performance Manners
If you are considering dog sports activities for your dog such as agility, tricks training, flyball, herding, field work, dock diving, nose work, barn hunt, or rally obedience this is the class for you. This is a basic manners class with an emphasis on engagement, focus, and dogs learning to work enthusiastically with their handlers. This class is great for dogs of all ages, from puppies to adolescent dogs, or even older dogs. Topics will include foundation sport skills such as learning how to work at the handler’s side, an introduction to using targets and stations, toy and food play and using play as a reward and more. Plus all the basics like - sit, down, stay, coming when called.
This is a 6-week in-person class and a self-directed online orientation that you should complete prior to your first in-person class. The online orientation can be taken at any time prior to your first in-person class and you can continue to access this online information for the duration of the class session. You will receive information about the online orientation in your registration confirmation email. The 6 week in-person classes have a fixed start and end date as stated in the schedule. Bring your dog with you to all in-person classes.
This class is not appropriate for dogs who tend to react with barking or aggression towards other people or dogs. Please contact us at training@argusranch.com for recommendations.
Beyond Basics for Performance/Sport
Beyond Basics for Performance/Sport is ideal for dogs that already know the basics, but need to build the foundation skills necessary to pursue a competitive career in agility, flyball or other dog sports. Topics include: effective toy play techniques and/ or food reinforcement to build and keep engagement; strategies for managing arousal, focus, and understanding how to redirecting their dog away from distractions; collar and leash restraint by a stranger; training techniques such as shaping, targeting and chaining; reinforcement strategies and placement of reward skills to encourage both working near and moving away from handler; shadow handling/circle work and come to side on both sides of handler. Advanced sit/down stays, off-leash casual heeling and recall skills with distractions will also be covered.
This 6-week class has a fixed start and end date. There may be occasional skip week(s) due to holidays, or special events – outlined in the schedule. Prerequisite for this class is successful graduation (not just attendance) from one of our Companion Dog Manners class, or instructor approval. This class is not appropriate for dogs that tend to react with barking or aggression towards other people or dogs. Please contact us at training@argusranch.com for recommendations.
