Agility and Obedience

In the Utility Directed Jumping exercise, the handler sends the dog straight out between two jumps. The dog turns and sits and then takes one of two jumps depending on the arm signal of the handler. Wyatt can already go out to a target way ahead of me. I taught him this command for agility. So I built a little box of boards around the target, sent him out, and then told him to sit. He sat right in the box facing me the first time! This is another case of where agility is really helping us with our obedience and vice versa. How else?

Staying at the start line in agility - group stays in obedience
Broad jump - both agility and obedience
Directed jumping - a no brainer for Wyatt, he jumps over the indicated jumps easily
Rally send over jump, handler runs by - very similar to agility

So there are lots of positive cross-training aspects of agility and obedience. Here's one that was initially a confusion.

When I first went to our obedience class, I wanted to proof the broad jump which I had just trained Wyatt to do. I got out the equipment. Their board jumps are much more solid than mine. We use plastic ones with holes in them. I started with the complete exercise (my mistake). Wyatt walked onto the jump and did a 2 on, 2 off agility contact on the last broad jump!

I did back up and ran with him and he quickly got the idea.