I am ‘Me”

Have you ever seen your pet getting extremely happy when you take him out for a training session? Well, some pets do…

This was the experience of all the participants of the Agility Course in Mumbai. It’s a pleasure to team up with your pet and teach him to jump hurdles, scale ramps, burst through tunnels and do much more exciting things. 

The course started with obedience training which included command training such as Heel, Stay, Recall etc. As most of the pets were not used to training around other dogs, initially it was little difficult, but as the time passed by pets got better and better. Even the pet parents started enjoying the course with lots of enthusiasm.

They were introduced to three equipments – jump, tunnel & a tyre. They were trained on each equipment separately and then in various combinations. It was a great experience watching each one of them learning to focus on the task, understand their owners’ body language and utilize their energy. This course also helped pet parents to feel more confident of handling their pets in a group.

Some of the crazy pet participants were: Rover: the foodie, with great speed (Lab); Buddy: an excellent jumper & quick learner (Lab); Rock: extremely active and with a speed which nobody could match up to (Boxer); Caesar: the cool dude (black lab); and Copper: the smallest & cutest thus everyone’s favourite to watch (Havanese).

The pet parents were equally enthusiastic and here’s what they shared:

“It was really an amazing experience…our co-ordination with our pet improved a lot. He became much more obedient and calm as his high energy level was focused on the exercise…he was very happy to meet so many dogs and wanted to be there all the time. The agility training also keeps him more mentally and physically occupied. We learnt to be more patient with our pet, understand him better, communicate with him and stay more focused along with him. In fact, it was a complete stress buster,” told Chandraprabha and Rohit Kumar, proud pet parents of Rock.

“Rover looked forward to each session, while he was learning to obey and listen he was also enjoying it. The ‘heel’ and ‘come’ options which he learned in the course are used in day-to-day life also. These are generally the hardest for the dogs to follow. I learnt that training a dog can be fun and it gives them a sense of achievement, which in turn makes learning faster. He would listen to me around five other dogs, and would perform the task to the T. His eyes would just be on me,” told Kamal Riya, proud pet parent of Rover.

“My experience has been great, the course taught us much more than we expected. The best part is you teach everything with love, treats and praise only, no other way. Caesar’s stamina increased, his body toned up and he has started looking fit and leaner. He also learnt to interact with other dogs of different breeds and different temperament. Besides, the heal work helps us bond cause our pet starts to understand everything we say and does exactly that,” told Chhaya and Kiran Sheth, proud pet parents of Caesar.

“I learnt that persistence and patience are required by the pet parent as well. It is important to appreciate the pet for his good work and not get upset when he can’t perform. Buddy is already very attached to me but this course gave me an added advantage in teaching and getting him to follow my orders,” told Surekha and Ashok Karode, proud pet parents of Buddy.

“Agility is a very interesting sports and I joined to learn more on how do we connect with the animals to perform a sporting activity. Some hoops, a run through tunnel, and jump through tyre, couple with a treat reward at the end, can create the kind of focused challenge that gives even the highest-energy dog a stimulating job to do. The point is to create a psychological challenge in addition to the physical one,” told Bhavesh Bhagat.