The comments shared on these pages are the opinions of the individual writers and may not reflect the opinion of AgilityAbility.com.  When you have questions concerning your dog's health it is recommended that you consult your local Vet. 

A dog may begin agility training at any age, but care should be taken that a young dog is not working beyond it's physical or mental ability. Puppies can begin to go over bars placed on the ground. A board placed on the ground for the puppy to walk over provides an early tactile experience for the contact obstacles and pause table they will encounter later on. Boxes can become pipe tunnels, and if part of a light sheet is placed over one end of it a puppy chute is created. All of this is offered as a play time activity for the puppy to explore and have fun. Real training will take place later when the puppy has sufficient attention and physical ability for it.

On the flip side of this question are the older dogs. At what age a dog is considered "old" is as individual as it is in humans, but generally the average sized dog enters the senior citizen phase around 7 or 8 years of age. The giant breeds somewhat earlier, and the minis later. The important factors are the dog's health, weight, conditioning, and prior experience. For many dogs the introduction to agility is their first experience in real physical activity. A dog of any age should be evaluated for each of the above factors before embarking on their new career away from the backyard or couch. 

They all enjoy agility training whether or not they proceed to the competition level. Some senior citizens may not progress beyond the lowered obstacle training phase although they can still enjoy and benefit from the activity. Others can go on to the excitement of the agility arena, be honest when you look at your dog for your dog's sake. Katie Greer

This is a sport and there is physical stress on the dog during performance of the obstacle and between the obstacles as well. It's up to each of us individually to decide what we feel comfortable with for *our* dog. Is a dog at top speed landing off a triple jump and diving into a tunnel 10' away more rigorous than a dog that has been taught to shift his weight back and stop on the Aframe contact? Are 180 and 260 degree turns "safe"? Is the tire a dangerous obstacle? Can weaving too early damage a dog's spine? Is the 6'3" Aframe dangerous? Are 26" jumps detrimental to your dog? You'll have to answer these things for yourself and come to a decision that you're willing to live with... because I don't think there's any definitive data out there from the veterinary/scientific community.

While I have spoken to several vets who have voiced some concern that we should look at the stop-on-the-contact issue among others, they had no data -- either empirical or anecdotal -- on specifics. Short of broken toes on the old big Aframe cleats, I have not personally seen any documented evidence of actual injuries caused by these things. No professional we have approached about writing an article has been willing or has said they have sufficient data to do so. I've even approached a national organization of sport vets about conducting a survey on agility injuries at Clean Run's expense and they didn't think it would be productive. So we can theorize all we want...

And, if we're going to look at injuries, that we also have to look at contributing factors -- dogs being out of shape, dogs having a pre-disposition toward a particular type of injury because of structure, etc. I retired two dogs because of shoulder injuries -- neither of which was ever asked to stop on a contact, nor jumped at excessive heights, nor started very early in agility training. Both dogs were straight in the front and had lousy shoulder layback and were impossible to "build up" in the front. Agility or physics?  So back to training... Monica Percival

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