What is between Foundation and your first agility trial?

Yes, I know, back to back blogs! I wanted to do a separate blog on this since it is such an important topic to me and it marks the beginning of my quest.

From the moment I got Tangle I suddenly became aware of a HUGE GAPPING HOLE in resources on a certain agility topic!!!

There are tons of foundation books, DVDs, classes etc... out there to teach a puppy basic skills that will be needed to get through life and be a half decent agility dog. I have tons of help teaching my puppy how to nose touch, tug, self control, rear end awareness, crate games, basic cone work etc...

There are tons of resources (DVDs, books, websites) out there to help me analyze a course, teach a particular obstacle (or all of them), enter a trial, handling strategies, etc...

So, what I wonder or ask, is there something in between going around one cone and running your first sequence? I don't think that my pup will just spontaneously know how to do jump, jump, rear cross, jump, jump without something leading up to that ,will he?

OK, I do know the answer to that question, and I do know how to teach some of it, but how did I learn? Trail & error, asking people, taking a class/seminar. Most of us train alone the great majority of the time, so resources in learning are critical.

I want awesome resources and examples. I don't want Tangle to be a "half decent" agility dog, I want him to be an amazing agility dog. I am bias, a "how to" agility book that takes me from a nose touch to running a whole course in 12 chapters isn't going to cut it.

To be fair, I will say there are several books out there (at least for APHS) that help you develop some of those skills, but they are only in book form. That is awesome if I am not a visual learner (ops, I am).

I am looking for visual resources and great examples of cone work with motion, one/two jump work with motion, small sequences with cones, APHS jump drills on video.

Know of any?


(disclaimer: I don't want to use YouTube as my visual resource, if I don't know much how do I know that this example of backyard training is a good one?)