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Dog agility is a sport in which a dog moves through an obstacle course with the guidance of his handler. Dogs run off leash, so the handler's only controls are voice and body language, requiring exceptional obedience training of the animal. In competition, both accuracy and speed are important.
In its simplest form, an agility course consists of a set of standard obstacles, laid out by an agility judge in a design of his own choosing on a roughly 100 by 100 foot (30 by 30 m) area, with numbers indicating the order in which the dog must complete the obstacles.
Because each course is different, handlers are allowed a short walk-through before the competition starts. During this time, all handlers competing in a particular class can walk or run around the course without their dogs, determining how best they can position themselves and guide their dogs to get the most accurate and rapid path around the numbered obstacles.
The walk-through is critical for success because the course's path can make sharp turns, even U-turns or 270 degree turns, can cross back and forth across the field, can use the same obstacle more than once, can have two obstacles so close to each other that the dog and handler must be able to clearly discriminate which to take, and can be arranged so that the handler must work with obstacles between himself and the dog or at a great distance from the dog.
Each dog and handler team gets exactly one opportunity together to attempt to complete the course successfully. The dog starts behind a
Each organization has its own rules about what constitutes faults and whether you can earn credit toward agility titles with faulted runs. In most cases, you must have a clean run (no faults) to earn credit. A completed run that earns title credit is referred to as a qualifying run.
Different organizations place different values on faults, which can include the following:
| Time faults | Going over the maximum time alloted by the judge to complete a course (the standard course time (SCT)). |
| Missed contact | When the dog fails to place a foot in the contact zone when performing a contact obstacle. In popular jargon, a flyoff is when the dog misses the contact zone because he leaps from the obstacle a long way above the zone, often in a spectacular flying manner. |
| Knocked or dropped bar | Displacing a bar (or panel) when going over a jump. |
| Weave pole fault | The dog must enter with the first pole to his left and proceed through the weaves without skipping any. Entering incorrectly, skipping poles, or backweaving when attempting to correct missed poles can all be faults. |
| Off course | Dog takes the wrong obstacle on a course in which the obstacles are numbered sequentially. |
| Refusal | The dog makes an approach towards the correct obstacle, but then turns away or hesitates significantly. |
| Runout | The dog does not directly approach the next obstacle, instead running past it. |
| Other faults | Can include dog biting the judge or the handler or other unsportsmanlike behavior, the dog eliminating in the ring, the dog running with his collar on (they are supposed to be naked in most organizations), the dog leaving the ring and not coming back within a reasonable amount of time, and others. |
Given the available set of obstacles and possible faults, there are many permutations of games, or classes, that one can play on the agility field. A typical course is laid out within a 100 by 100 foot (30 by 30 m) area, with roughly 10 to 20 feet (3 to 6 m) between obstacles.
Judges design their own courses using the rules of the sanctioning organization. Each organization decides which classes are valid for achieving titles and how each must be performed, but there are many similarities.
Some of the common classes are
Although each organization has its own rules, all divide dogs into smaller groups that are close to each other in size and experience for purposes of calculating winners. This means that there will be winners in each group for each class (or game) over the course of a trial.
Dogs are measured in height at the peak of their withers (shoulders). They are then divided into height groups; for example, dogs measuring between 12 and 16 inches (30 and 37.5 cm) might compete together with the jumps set at a height of 12 inches (30 cm). This ensures that dogs who might have an advantage on a particular course because of their size (larger or smaller) keep the advantage to a minimum.
Dogs are further divided into their experience levels. So, for example, you might have the 12 inch (30 cm) Novice dogs competing, the 12 inch (30 cm) Intermediate dogs competing, and the 12 inch (30 cm) Masters dogs competing. Dogs typically have to have certain numbers of successes at lower levels before they can move up to compete with more advanced dogs.
Some organizations even further divide dogs into special categories because the dogs are older (usually over 7 years) or have junior handlers (usually under 18) or the like.
Dog agility is a fairly new sport, created as merely a demonstration in the late 1970s in the United Kingdom. It has since spread rapidly around the world, with major competitions held worldwide.
Its first documented appearance was as entertainment at the Crufts dog show in 1978. John Varley, a committee member from the 1977 show, was tasked with coming up with entertainment for the audience between the obedience and conformation competitions. Varley, who was more familiar with horse sports, asked dog trainer Peter Meanwell for assistance, and they adapted jumps and obstacles from horse steeplechase races to come up with a demonstration of dogs' natural speed and agility. (By some oral accounts, there was an earlier demo with similar intent using playground articles such as a teeter-totter and a tunnel, although this has not been documented.)
At the 1978 Crufts, the demonstration immediately intrigued dog owners because of its speed and challenge and the dexterity displayed by the dogs. People wanted to see more, and indeed wanted their own dogs to be able to participate. The demonstration was so popular that it grew into local, then national, and eventually international, competitions with standardized equipment. In 1980, The Kennel Club became the first organization to recognize agility as an official sport with a sanctioned set of rules. By this time, agility equipment included some additional elements modified from the training of police dogs and Schutzhund competitions, such as the A-frame and the dogwalk.
In the United States, several people experimented with dog agility based generally on the KC rules. In 1985, Kenneth Tatsch founded the United States Dog Agility Association (USDAA) in Texas and incorporated a year later. To promote the sport, USDAA teamed with Pedigree pet food as a sponsor, and the first Grand Prix of Dog Agility took place in 1988 at the Astro World Series of Dog Shows in Houston, Texas. Until 1990, USDAA agility competitions were only for placement ribbons, but at that time the USDAA began offering agility titles, for which the dog had to perform to certain standards in several competitions to earn scores towards the various titles. At first, the only titles offered were the Agility Dog (AD), or novice, title; the AAD Advanced Agility Dog (AAD), or intermediate, title, and the Master Agility Dog (MAD), or expert-level title. This increased the appeal for all dog owners; one's dog did not have to be a superstar to succeed at agility, but could simply be good enough and fast enough to meet the requirements to earn title points.
In 1988, almost no one had heard of dog agility in the United States, while meanwhile in England it had become an extremely popular sport, drawing hundreds of spectators. By 1989, however, when the USDAA Grand Prix was first filmed for TV, nearly 2000 people watched the final round. Just a year later, attendance neared 4000. The sport's popularity sparked interest around the country, and many dog owners wanted to start their own agility clubs so that they didn't have to drive 2000 miles to attend events in Texas. In 1989, Tatsch chose his first Board of Directors composed of experienced people from different parts of the country, including Sharon Nelson, John Cortwright, Jean MacKenzie, and Matt Mantz.
Meanwhile, the agility equipment used by the USDAA mirrored its European counterparts, as did the basic rules for the standard numbered agility course using all equipment and the numbered jumpers courses using only jumps and tunnels. However, USDAA innovated by introducing additional events, including Gamblers and Snooker, which encourage handlers to design their own courses under strict sets of rules, and the Pairs Relay.
The AKC, which for decades had sanctioned dog shows, obedience trials, and other dog sports was slow in joining the agility world. In 1987, Charles (Bud) Kramer founded the National Club for Dog Agility (NCDA) in Manhatten, Kansas with the goal of convincing the AKC to recognize agility as a sport. At about the same time, Bob and Marliu Basin created the American Agility Associates in Colorado. Neither of these organizations lasted much beyond the early 1990s. As of 1993, when Sharon Nelson founded her own agility corporation, the North American Dog Agility Council (NADAC), using a slightly new set of rules and concepts, the AKC still had not officially sanctioned agility. At that time, NADAC and USDAA used the same equipment and had similar rules for the standard numbered and jumpers courses; NADAC also included the Gamblers event in its rulebook.
In 1994, however, the AKC belatedly entered the field with its own very limited range of agility competitions; at first, each competition had only one standard numbered course, so each dog had exactly one run and then was done for the day. The first AKC event to include a sanctioned agility match was held in August at the St. Croix Valley Kennel Club Show in Lake Elmo, Minnesota. Sanctioning by the AKC made the rapidly growing sport nearly explode in the United States, as AKC handlers began exploring USDAA and NADAC competitions as ways to expand their agility experience. A few years later, AKC introduced its own version of the Jumpers course, which included weave poles as did the International rules but which NADAC and USDAA did not include.
The United Kennel Club (UKC) introduced its own rules at about the same time; UKC agility has evolved into a different kind of sport than that provided by AKC, USDAA, and international agility organizations, involving more control of the dog over complicated obstacles rather than speed and accuracy over basic obstacles.
When the FCI introduced its international agility championships, it continued its affiliation with purebred kennel clubs around the world, including the AKC, allowing the AKC to choose a team from among its registered purebred competitors rather than affiliating with the longer-established USDAA agility program, which allows dogs of any ancestry to compete. As a result, many top-level American dogs without AKC registration were shut out of the best-known international competition. To compensate, two additional organizations--the International Agility Link (organized through email) and the World Dog Show--sponsored international competitions starting around 1996 that allowed any competing dogs to be part of their country's teams; the World Dog Show affiliated with the USDAA, while the IAL remained independent. The World Dog Show hosted a couple of international championships but financially could not continue, so the USDAA began pursuing its own affiliations with other organizations and clubs worldwide to start its own International Championships. In 2000, the Grand Prix of Dog Agility, previously known as the national championships, officially became the International Championships and hosted teams from several countries.
Meanwhile, the Australian Shepherd Club of America (ASCA) decided to provide its own sanctioning rules for agility in lockstep with NADAC, so that one could earn either ASCA or NADAC titles, or both, at dual-sanctioned events. However, over time, NADAC has moved away from the International standards, focusing on its own vision of a faster but less physically stressful environment. It has gradually eliminated or changed many of the obstacles so that its equipment specifications and many of its rules no longer match those of the USDAA, AKC, or FCI. ASCA has so far continued to adjust its rules and titles to match those of NADAC.
In 1995, Canine Performance Events (CPE) was founded by Linda Eikholt, who preferred an environment that was less intense and with less rigorous requirements than those preferred by the USDAA, yet retained the variety of events and the invitation for able-bodied dogs of any ancestry to compete. CPE agility continues to grow in the United States.
The first agility competition in the United States took place around 1986 under the rules of the fledgling United States Dog Agility Association (USDAA).
As of January, 2004, the following organizations have rules for agility performance, titles, and equipment in the United States. These organizations sanction clubs to allow them to host agility competitions ("trials" or "matches").
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