The club trains indoors at Weston Longville Equestrian Centre every Wednesday evening in six separate classes from 7.00 – 10.30 p.m. We have around 35 members training a variety of breeds and crossbreeds and classes cater for everyone from absolute beginners right up to the very highest standard. Several members have qualified for Crufts and Olympia and one even represented Great Britain at the European Championships 2008.
Our instructors are all volunteers from within the club and probably have more years’ experience than they would care to admit to! Most have attended the Agility Club Instructors course and classes are structured to suit the level of dog and handler in each group.
At regular intervals we also have extra training days with an “outside” trainer to introduce new ideas and methods. All training is based on motivation and reward and, although we do like to encourage our members to compete successfully, it is just as important to see dog and handler enjoying themselves, creating a close bond, and having FUN.
As a club, we run two weekend shows each year, we regularly help at shows put on by other clubs and are also participants in the local Winter Interclub League - agility is recognised as being highly addictive and weekends are never the same again once you have become involved!
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Coltishall Agility Club was originally part of the Holt Dog Training Club, but split away as a separate entity in 1992. As per the name we trained in the village of Coltishall in a dilapidated riding school, using a selection of hand made equipment. There were very few experienced handlers, so training was somewhat haphazard, unlike the structured training we have today. I can remember jumping over the jumps with my dog, scaling the A-frame and placing titbits every 6 inches along the dog walk!
In 1993 we joined forces with Norfolk Dog Training Society , who had run a single day agility show for many years, but had a small membership, and jointly run our first weekend agility show, at a venue in Hingham. The show was small (4 rings) and was aimed at the Starter end of the market – by all counts it was a success and the following year we moved to a larger venue and the Norfolk Agility Festival was born. We continued to aim at the starter and novice dogs and on the Saturday had qualifying classes for our Final on Sunday lunchtime – the top 10 dogs in each category competing for a nice trophy.
During these early years we were lucky enough to have some experienced and competitive handlers move to Norfolk and things began to change! Training was improved, with more structure and specific challenges set on a weekly basis, the dogs we had been so proud of suddenly seemed not such good agility dogs! In Norfolk we had not witnessed the top ‘Advanced’ handlers work, but with encouragement we travelled further afield to shows and began to see how far agility had moved on – the addiction started……
The Club continued to grow, and over a period of time we purchased new equipment (no more wobbly dog walks!), and decided it was time to move to a larger and better maintained venue – the Weston Longville Equestrian Centre, giving us more space (2 rings indoors). From 1998 onwards the Club has become a successful and well thought of Agility Club, offering structured, reward based training and developing a really strong core membership.
Last year we became Kennel Club registered, and now host 2 weekend shows, one in July aimed at all grades, and our other in October aimed at the senior end of the scale. The Club continues to grow and after our slow start some 16 years ago – we regularly have Coltishall Agility Club members competing at finals events all over the country, but still retain the fun atmosphere that keeps the Club successful and popular.
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