Specialty Class
Agility
Guide your dog through jumps, weaves, tunnels, and more, fun, fitness, and partnership.
Syllabus Overview
What Agility Covers
Agility training involves guiding your dog through various obstacles such as jumps, weaves, tunnels, and more. It's a fantastic way for parents to bond with their dogs, keep them physically and mentally active, and enjoy a rewarding and entertaining experience together. It's a win-win for both you and your furry companion.
Who this level is for
High-energy dogs that need a real outlet, and handlers who want an active, sport-focused way to train together. Best fit after Middle-School (off-leash foundation in place).
Progression
What Comes After Agility
Agility is ongoing. Teams progress through obstacle skill, sequencing complexity, and ultimately competitive course runs.
Common Questions
Agility Questions, Answered
What is dog agility training at Partners Dogs?
Agility is a timed dog sport where you and your dog navigate a sequence of obstacles, jumps, tunnels, weave poles, A-frame, dog walk, teeter-totter, and pause table, in a specific order set by a judge. It builds athleticism, confidence, and off-leash communication.
At Partners Dogs, agility classes run weekends at our Scottsdale and Cave Creek facilities on a full-spec course (not foam jumps in a parking lot). Three progressive levels, Foundations, Intermediate Sequences, and Trial Prep, let your dog start where they are and move up as they go. Open to any sound, healthy dog over 12 months old.
What agility levels does Partners Dogs offer?
Partners Dogs offers three progressive agility levels on the same full-equipment course:
- Foundations: equipment introduction at safe heights and angles, plus the handling vocabulary (front cross, rear cross, send, lead-out). No prior agility experience required. 6-week block.
- Intermediate Sequences: stringing obstacles together with speed and accuracy. Weave-pole entries, contact criteria, and short numbered courses.
- Trial Prep: full-length courses, timed runs, mock trials, and start-line/ring procedures for AKC or USDAA events.
You re-enroll level by level so you only pay for what your dog is ready to do.
What group class levels do you offer?
Partners Dogs teaches a modular 8-grade-level curriculum covering 115 behaviors in the PD360 system, and the catalog keeps growing as our trainers add new skills:
- Pre-School: manners, socialization, confidence, and proper play, with separate Puppy and Adult tracks (puppies join from 20 weeks, about five months)
- Kindergarten: heel, place, stay, free, and thresholds, the foundations every later level builds on
- Elementary: the everyday commands, Reset, Done, Leave It, and Off, plus impulse control
- Middle-School: structured off-leash work, grooming tolerance, and desensitization
- High-School: retrieve, pacing, and real-world proofing around children, sounds, and handling
- College: distance commands, Middle, Send Out, and functional household tasks
- Masters: complex routines like Figure 8, Orbit, and Put Toys Away
- Dogtorate: frisbee, leg weaves, and performance-level athleticism
Rally and Agility run as specialty classes alongside the curriculum, and graduates can add AKC Canine Good Citizen prep and testing. A behavior taught at one level is reinforced at the next and proofed above that, so the same skill keeps deepening as your dog climbs. Open enrollment lets you join any week and progress at your own pace.
Does Middle-School introduce off-leash work and agility equipment?
Yes to both. Off-leash training is a core emphasis of Middle-School, your dog starts building the reliability that High-School later proofs around noise, movement, and distraction. Grooming desensitization runs alongside it so vet and groomer visits get easier too.
This is also many dogs' first exposure to agility equipment, a taste of what full agility classes look like later, not a substitute for the dedicated Agility specialty class.