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Preparing your dog for a successful agility career

Produced by Greg Derrett & Darcy Wilson
Reviewed by Elizabeth Morgan
Sponsored by Premier Show Jumps

Description: This new and comprehensive video covers all the essential basic training techniques to give you and your dog a strong foundation needed to build a successful Agility Career.

Contents include:-

  • Forming a good working relationship
  • Socialising the dog to the competition environment
  • Teaching the ‘Wait’ command
  • Training ‘Directional’ commands
  • Understanding body language
  • Training handling manoeuvres
  • Proofing of commands
  • Motivational commands & other beneficial advice
  • Fitness training

Best Features: Oh no, not another training video.  'They are all the same, what is different about this one?' I hear you ask.

Well as I know the author and ‘actor’ very well, the difference is the video is impressive with regards to what you can do with a dog, or is it rather what a dog can/will do for you?

The way Greg handles and trains the dogs is probably the way that some of us would like to. However, very fast, or strong-willed dogs would certainly do battle with you.

All his advice is such  common sense that you wonder why you didn’t think of it yourself. I certainly went out and tried some of the training tips, then came back and watched the video again

Very good for the complete beginner or someone who is completely retraining. With a lot of time, the right equipment, the right dog, a video player, a large screen and a remote control, I would have had a wonderful time training and retraining my dogs and so would they. I kept running in from the garden back to the video, in fact I considered training the dogs to go in and watch it for me and, then come out and demonstrate what they had seen!

Worst Features: Greg’s lengthy methodical approach to explaining everything sometimes made me a little impatient.

Personally I thought that there were not enough of the dog/handler mistakes. Where were the young dogs with inexperienced handlers? Greg’s dogs can’t have been born that good!

Production: The Video has been produced in both PAL (UK and Europe) and NTSC format (USA) and is available for purchase online for dispatch anywhere. It lasts for 1 hour 30.

Overall Rating:  The Video certainly covers all the important commands such as wait, directional, motivational and what body language can do, quite intense and a lot to absorb in one hit. We all can learn something from this video and, unlike a lot of good books that I have never finished on training, I watched this to the end. And the end is certainly not quite you expect.

Price: £29.95

Value for Money: Buy it and have fun trying some ‘new’ methods.


Available for purchase online for despatch anywhere.

About the Producer
Greg Derrett has been incredibly successful in the agility world and has attained an Advanced Studies Diploma in Animal Behaviour. His proven methods have taken him to the top of British Agility including twice winner of the Agility Dog of the Year.

Greg credits his success as well as that of his clients  - to good foundation training. He has extended his training methods worldwide and offers private tuition as well as group lessons for handlers at all levels in comptition dog agility.

He is based in the Worcestershire/Gloucestershire area in the UK.

About The Reviewer
Elizabeth Morgan is Secretary of The Agility Club.

Feedback

From Ann Hopp
If you want to do foundation work and get ready for agility, I recommend Greg Derrett's foundation work tape (http://www.cleanrun.com ). The entire tape works on the foundations for agility and any other activity you might want to do. He also addresses conditioning. The 'exercises' he shows are not on equipment and only take a back yard or open football field. Good luck!  (02/04/04)

From Don Smith & Chase the Belgian (Terv)...
Per Jim Basic's recommendation I ordered Greg Derrett's Agility Foundation Training video from http://www.gtagility.com . The cost was 39.95 UK pounds ($63.84).

It arrived from England in just a few days. It is a very good agility training video. It is not your traditional training video with demonstrations of training a dog on agility equipment. Almost all of the training in Derrett's video is done without agility equipment and can be done in a back yard or park area. The premise that I draw from the video is that you should first train your dog to respond to handling directions (waiting at the start line, turning with you on the rear cross, left and right oral commands, body language) without the confusing presence of agility equipment. It is a concept with which I fully agree.

So the question becomes not whether you are going to do competitive obedience (which can be a turn off for a lot of dogs) before you do agility but whether you are going to train your dog to respond to handling techniques you will use in the agility ring before you start working him seriously on agility equipment. (15/08/02)

From Angela Lucas...
I have recently watched the video, and I think it speaks well to the newcomers and the experienced hands.

I certainly patted myself on the back to see that much of what I have done and do for my own classes are running parallel to Greg's plans for his own dogs. I would admit to perhaps not going to or expecting the same high achievement level with my class. So it has motivated me to raise my standard higher.

As with most things, even if you realise you already know much of the content, there is always one or two things that may be novel to you. 

It was a very quick 90 minutes. I enjoyed it.

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