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ABC's of Irish Wolfhounds Puppy Tales: Find a person in your area for help and information
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The Sport of Agility
The sport of agility is not one that all Irish Wolfhounds will excel in since they are already at a disadvantage due to their size. That said, there are some Irish Wolfhounds that enjoy agility and can safely participate in this growing canine sport.
Agility is a sporting event in which one dog and one human work together so that the dog successfully navigates a series of obstacles arranged in a random course, determined by the judge. The course is usually about 180 yards long and moves around inside an area about 100 square feet. Each run is timed or scored to so that the goal is to complete the course with the highest score or the quickest time possible. Any faults with an obstacle will add penalty seconds on to the final recorded time. To begin with, find a local agility training club and question them on their experience with larger hounds. Different training techniques are required and if the instructors already realize that, your training sessions will be better. The first set of classes may seem very boring but all that is necessary to build a foundation for your hound. Many Irish Wolfhounds don't seem to know where their back end is so there are basic techniques to help this so that work on obstacles later will be safer. One question that gets asked often is why there aren't different sizes for the obstacles. One word - cost! The equipment used in trials is often very expensive and to have  various sets dependent on the size of the dog is just not practical. Wolfhounds can use the same equipment but it is definitely tougher for the breed.Your Irish Wolfhound would be required to jump 24" in AKC Agility trials but everything else is a standard size: i.e. the dog walk, A-Frame, teeter, 24 inch tunnels, etc. A younger IW would need to restrict the jumping due to the late closing growth plates but could get familiar with the equipment. A class would take the hound and the handler through these obstacles, a step at a time. They learn that their feet can be on an unstable and moving object. They learn to know where their feet are on a dog walk. They learn to go through weave poles while the distance is greater and slowly gets closer and closer. A hound learns agility over time and there are no quick classes. The longer you take to teach your hound the basics, the better it will be later. They seem to love jumping over things and climbing A-frames. It will be fun for you too while working with your hound! There are various agility organizations if you decide to compete later but it seems that the AKC tends to be a bit more friendly to the larger dog (i.e. up contacts are not required on the A-frame). Websites for some of the agility organizations are as follows: North American Dog Agility Organization |
