Dog Training

I want to take them to dog competitions sponsored by the UKC and/or IWPA.

Also, I want to train them to go through a variety of obstacles, especially spring poles, jumps and agility trials.

Their parents are real APBT, not short and fat American Bullies.
The dad is muscular, healthy and has a very nice thick body.
The mom is pretty much the same too.

They are 7 weeks old, already big, huge paws, great metabolism, I just want to know what harnesses I should get, where I can get training equipment and when they could start.

No, they will not be used for fighting, I just want them to have fun and meet other dogs and owners. I wont force them to do any of this, but I would like to give it a shot.

No weight pulling or carrying weight or jumping until their joints are fully developed and growth is complete (roughly 18 months old). You don’t want to put stress on their joints until the growth plates are closed and they are fully matured, it can cause orthopedics problems down the road. You can start with the ground-level agility stuff like weave poles, tunnels, directionals, and working on contact boards any time, I recommend after you’ve got some solid basic obedience skills with them. Any good agility trainer requires dogs to be at least a year old before starting any of the jumping at all, and then only very low jumps until they are fully mature. As far as weight-pull harnesses, once they’re old enough to start, google "Weight pull harnesses for dogs" and I’m sure you’ll find some sources. Good luck!

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 10th, 2009 at 8:56 am and is filed under dog training equipment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.