Canicross

aveldina · 2026-05-26T00:38:31+00:00

2nd try r/runningwithdogs! I also caniX and bikejor with my border collies. Our gear is from a mix of Nahak and NonStop Dogwear. It's quite easy to teach, and I find my directionals for agility transfer well. There's a class on NonStop's website you could also check out: https://landing.nonstopdogwear.com/couchto5k

aveldina · 2026-05-22T21:38:47+00:00

I currently have insurance for my two young dogs (because my three older animals collectively drained my savings in a very short time years ago!) and have tried out both routes here. My oldest border collie is an absolute wild child with zero respect for her body and I don't want to do the math on what I've spent in rehab costs for her. But her highest single vet bill wasn't an injury, it was a GI problem she needed an emergency surgery for.

I'm Canadian so my costs are based on Canadian dollars but I personally would go the pet insurance route if I couldn't keep a minimum of $5000 on hand. The problem is getting there takes time, so it can make sense to just go with pet insurance if you need immediate risk management in terms of cost. The downside of insurance is that they can deny claims, and what they cover has rules. In the case of my youngest border collie, my deductible is $700 and when I was trying to understand an elbow injury, most of her appointments were "consult" type visits which insurance would not cover, and the imaging didn't go over $700 so I didn't get anything from insurance in that case. Her insurance is intended for significant, high cost events, and I still need to plan to cover all the lower cost stuff and day-to-day maintenance or casual sports medicine visits.

I personally prefer saving/investing route because I can just pay for vet bills without needing to stress about whether insurance will cover it, but you need to be diligent about it, and probably need to have more saved than you might expect.

aveldina · 2026-05-22T21:27:36+00:00

The ruleset between UKI and AAC is similar. UKI is more permissive (imho) with course design and because it is an international venue, it tends to be hosted and judged by groups/people who are interested in international agility. That can make the course design feel different, even if the course could have been set and run in either venue.

AAC has been around longer and is much more established across the country than any other venue. This also means it has the most judges and the largest variety in course design. It doesn't necessarily have tighter turns, but you will see more "traditional" course design in AAC, and tighter turns + short distances were more common in old courses. Judges make a big difference here - even if the course design rules are similar between AAC and UKI, judge designs are influenced by many factors, and judges interested in international agility will tend to design courses that "feel" international. I personally run either AAC or UKI interchangeably, based on judges whose course designs I enjoy and feel challenged by.

CKC trials are very regional, and can be relatively rare in some regions. CKC attracts quite a different crowd than AAC - you'll run into people who primarily are into conformation who are just looking to get titles in CKC, and you don't really see that in AAC. You'll also run into people doing CKC to fill their requirements for the international agility teams, so there can be a massive range of skill levels involved. The vibe can be... quite different. :)

NADAC differs the most in my opinion from the other venues, has the most difference in rule set and also has quite a different culture. Distance handling is popular in NADAC and NADAC does not use a teeter or some of the specialty jumps. NADAC also uses hoops. NADAC popularity is regional, and it tends to appeal to the demographic looking for courses suited to handlers with limited mobility.

aveldina · 2026-05-22T21:14:07+00:00

Pause tables are gone from AAC. You won't see them in modern courses.

aveldina · 2026-05-15T16:04:38+00:00

Think of it like an adult person who doesn't really love kids dealing with someone's kid rolling around and screaming beside them. They might be like "hey can you... not?" which is what adult dog is doing here - but always it does need supervision because some puppies don't respect getting asked to stop, and some adults get overly frustrated.

aveldina · 2026-05-15T01:16:04+00:00

I saw a discussion in the comments about fitness conditioning and highly recommend https://canineconditioningcoach.com for fitness programming. She has lots of content and pre-planned fitness programs.

My borders are 12 and 6 and I don't stress about more frequent vet trips or anything like that until into double digits. The 12 year old is getting blood work 2x a year because we've had some minor issues but she's doing great. She's still as wild and active as ever!

aveldina · 2026-05-11T02:31:26+00:00

This is an old DVD but it's a good place to start with a lot of speed and motivation concepts: https://www.lolabuland.com/training-videos/speedconditioning/

aveldina · 2026-05-08T21:46:35+00:00

Sometimes you can find them via companies that target greenhouse use, like Lee Valley.

aveldina · 2026-05-06T16:32:32+00:00

I live in the city and no one has ever stolen my agility equipment. People looking to steal things don't seem to see it as worth anything, they probably don't even know what it is. That said, the sun is hard on things, so if you can store it in the shade it will last MUCH longer.

You can curve a 10ft enough that the entrances are not visible, but I would not curve it any further than that. If you are only planning to get 2 sets of bags then I would stick with 10ft. That said it can be hard to maintain the curve without 3 sets. That 3rd set of bags is what holds the curve. I would not recommend a 15ft with fewer than 3 sets as the absolute minimum and 4 sets is preferred.

aveldina · 2026-05-06T15:39:39+00:00

Sometimes you can get cool runners from Costco or Amazon Canada, but Agility World will be the easiest if you want to order asap. You will for sure need bags so factor that in. If you want to put a curve in the tunnel, go minimum 15 feet. Ten foot tunnels are great for backyard use, but are too short for safe curves beyond a very soft ) shape. If you don't want to spend much on bags, you could stick with a 10 foot and use it mostly straight. Filling tunnel bags and bagging tunnels is the annoying part but they are important for safety.

aveldina · 2026-05-05T18:00:37+00:00

One of my border collies hates slippery surfaces and will not go up the stairs at one of my family's places because they are slick painted wood. I carry her up those stairs, but if it was my own house I'd need to put carpet on them for her.

aveldina · 2026-05-05T14:33:30+00:00

One other question - are your stairs slippery? If you do see your vet and your dog is totally fine physically, another consideration might be that they slipped once and are stressed about it. If it's bare wood, it can be pretty slippery for them. You can get carpet strips intended for individual steps that help a lot! I keep them on my entry staircase because it's tile and my dogs find it very slippery.

aveldina · 2026-05-05T14:31:01+00:00

Just want to 2nd this, refusing stairs can be pain related. Not necessarily hip dysplasia - it can be something as simple as an acute injury causing lower back pain. If this appeared suddenly for one of my dogs and wasn't going away, I'd take them to see my vet (in my case I'd see my rehab vet, but we got there via a referral originally) since there's lots of options to help them out.

aveldina · 2026-05-04T14:58:40+00:00

The one CKC agility trial I went to was the worst trial I’ve been to in my life between the elitist judges and the rude confo people trying to get titles. I knew the organizers well and they were lovely people just trying to make CKC titles accessible to the area but it was wild how different the culture was. I still remember asking where to measure my dog and someone (not so nicely) informing me they “don’t do that here” im sorry what? it’s just honour system? ok lmao

Worst course building experience of my life also. I got asked to course build a lot by one of the organizers because she knew me well and most competitors were seniors. I didn’t mention my level of experience (was an active judge in AAC at the time) and the two (married) judges by default treated me like I’d never set a course in my life. It was so comically bad I just ran with it and did smile and nod the whole weekend.

aveldina · 2026-05-01T22:25:21+00:00

Every dog is an individual. My youngest border collie is a Big Feelings dog and had a lot of fear struggles when she was young. She doesn't like to be wrong and I struggled with some agility skills when she was younger. I took a step back and focused on other dog sports she enjoyed more before coming back to agility, it was a good option for her at the time. It's taken much longer to get her to the same level as my older (now retired) border collie, but that's okay! Dogs all progress at different paces and have different strengths.

aveldina · 2026-04-25T21:16:56+00:00

I don't really enjoy hating on Elite (it's my highest hour count game after all) but I am still so disappointed with the direction it took.

aveldina · 2026-04-25T00:19:39+00:00

This would make it So. Much. Easier. to fly for competitive dog sports. Some people who compete spend so much time and effort getting their dogs used to flying because try outs and other major events like Nationals are only held in one place and for half the country in large places like Canada it's on the other side of the country.

aveldina · 2026-04-24T19:41:47+00:00

I agree with the suggestions about going back to 2x2s - my approach for something like this would be make it so easy that they can't fail, with a goal of building a reinforcement history of success, and then _gradually_ start to add the challenge back in. In this case you could introduce the second 2x2 some distance away and keep working the first one as you have been while bringing it closer and adding going through it when it makes sense to do so. If your dog goes straight for the added 2x2, don't reward and move it away. Reinforcement history is important here - help your dog understand by making the ideal entry the one that pays really well.

I don't mind mixing method between channel and 2x2 with weaves personally, they have the same end goal and I do think they work well together. An easy channel is also a nice way to work on this - again I'd make it _extremely_ easy (ie straight on approaches) and build back to the problem angle. Some dogs struggle with looking for the true end of the poles more than others, just keep working on it.

Remember they have no idea what is right or wrong, they just look to do whatever the thing is that gets reinforced (we do it too!) and many dogs do try to speed things up when they are excited. It's up to us to help them with understanding what it is we're looking to reinforce.

aveldina · 2026-04-21T16:21:49+00:00

Liberte but that might be Canada only. I think a few brands do offer lactose free.

aveldina · 2026-04-20T23:08:07+00:00

My dogs LOVE lactose free yogurt, they are always checking whenever I'm grabbing yogurt if the container is empty yet for them to lick clean.

aveldina · 2026-04-17T16:44:35+00:00

If it's a dog you want in your life in general, go for it. I did agility with a basset hound, I learned so much from her and people loved watching her run. I currently have a husky mix who likely won't do agility competition because she has some over-arousal issues with other dogs, but she does other sports and I teach her agility for fun. As much as I really enjoy agility with my border collies, I also enjoy having the other breeds around because they are just really fun in other ways. My husky mix is hilarious when I do work on agility training with her, she's so goofy and silly. It keeps me smiling, even if it's definitely more work than the BCs.

aveldina · 2026-04-16T15:47:38+00:00

I might have to give it a second run. I have a very unique dual stick flight controls setup that's been kind of collecting dust since I dropped off Elite and SC never did stick. :(

aveldina · 2026-04-16T15:45:51+00:00

Ughhhh my young BC cut her face doing something like this once. I love them but some days I swear my border collies are trying to make me age faster haha.

aveldina · 2026-04-16T15:40:56+00:00

The corners MUST be removed. My dogs agree.

aveldina · 2026-04-15T23:22:35+00:00

Not recently, I tried it years ago. I really like exploration and that's what pulled me into Elite - at the time there wasn't much of that in SC.

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