All agility behaviors, no matter how complex, can be worked backwards to a series of skills that I teach as foundation behaviors to my puppies and dogs new to agility training. In this episode, I unpack these skills and how they directly impact your agility training as well as other areas in your dog's performance career.
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Foundation Skills for Agility Dogs

Megan Foster, Founder of Synergy Dog Sports and creator of Fostering Excellence in Agility,  shares her passion, knowledge, tips and secrets for all things dog agility. Each episode, she will take you through a critical element of agility training and break down the history of it, the dos and don’ts, as well as some key action steps you can take today to continue your path to excellence. Discover how to approach agility training from a place of wellness and learn how to build an agility training program that fits your needs and fuels your passion for the sport. Megan has taken her experience over the last 25 years and developed a systematic approach to agility that applies the most innovative positive reinforcement techniques to both ends of the leash. Megan not only coaches students on their training and competitive goals but also mentors other dog agility coaches to hone their craft in the dog sport world. Ready to ignite (or re-ignite) your passion for this game? Hit subscribe & let’s go!

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035 Megan unpacks her thoughts about bar-knocking in this requested episode.
Megan's favorite jumping experts: 
Linda Mecklenburg https://awesomepawsagilityacademy.com/current-classes/ 
Dr. Leslie Eide https://www.thetotalcanine.com/online-learning.html 
Join the coaching program https://fxagility.mykajabi.com/fx-agility-waitlist 
Sarah Stremming's Webinar, Bravery School https://sarahstremming.com/products/webinar/bravery-school/ 
Teeter training program  https://fxagility.mykajabi.com/offers/sUU48VFG/checkout 

Addressing Bar-Knocking Behavior

034 Should you make something easier in training or try to pivot in another way? Find out what Megan thinks in this episode! 

Adjusting Criteria in Training

033 Megan shares her experience debuting Sprint, her two-year-old Border Collie, in agility competitions. Find out insights into what Megan saw change in Sprint's behavior over time and how well the debut strategy worked. 
Resources: 
Episode 32: Are You Ready to Compete?
Youtube: Sprint's First Trial Highlights
Youtube: Sprint's Second Trial, Novice Jumping
Youtube: Second Trial, Novice Agility
Episode 28: How Outside the Ring Behaviors Impact Inside the Ring Behaviors
Episode 31: Using FEO and Fix & Go Effectively 

Recapping Sprint's Agility Debut

032 When should you start competing and what does that look like for each team? How to plan to maximize success all comes down to the splits in behavior that we need our dogs to understand. 

Are You Ready to Compete?

031 For Exhibition Only and Fix and Go On are two tools we have in the competition ring that can help us narrow the gap between how our dogs perform in training versus how they perform in trials. In this episode, Megan breaks down the pros and cons of each and talks about how she would use either of these options. 

Mentioned in this episode: 
Using FEO/NFC with a toy in the ring: https://youtu.be/C6z7UqyPzDo
Proactively helping a dog before they make a mistake: https://youtu.be/xq4oobNp2wo 
The Pitfalls of Cue Escalation --> https://fxagility.com/blog/the-pitfalls-of-cue-escalation/
Different Types of Training --> https://fxagility.com/blog/reducing-delaying-reinforcement/
Beginning of Run Routines --> https://fxagility.com/blog/beginning-of-run-routines-evaluating-your-dogs-readiness/
End of Run Routines --> https://fxagility.com/blog/end-of-run-routines-do-you-have-it-do-you-need-it/
Episode 29, Startlines with Sarah Espinoza-Sokal --> https://fxagility.mykajabi.com/podcasts/fostering-excellence-in-agility/episodes/2147886802

Foundation Skills for Agility Dogs

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