Agility
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lthough the Alaskan Malamute wasn't bred to perform in agility, many Malamutes are quite agile and do excel in the sport. Agility can be a fun pastime for Alaskan Malamutes and their owners. While the sport, itself, emphasizes teamwork, the discipline re-enforces obedience, acceptable behaviours and can work wonders for bringing a 'shy' Alaskan Malamute out of their shell or 'taming' an unruly, uncontrollable beast. While many sports, such as agility, have multiple areas of competition, titles to achieve and ribbons to be won, they also serve as an excellent partisan past time simply for the fun of it. One does not have to compete in actual competitions to derive the training, exercise and teamwork values of the sport. One only needs to have the desire to work at forming a partnership with their dog, enjoying each small achievement, while working toward larger goals.
Agility has the handler directing their dog through various challenges involving physical activity; climbing, jumping, crawling over, under, around and through obstacles. Obstacles include poles, tunnels, boxes, jumps and elevated paths. Balance is key to the sport, and the more agile the dog is, the faster he or she will be able to complete the tasks with success. Command work can be as strenuous as any physical exercise and the benefit of a few hours of 'new' and 'old' commands help exhaust the dog mentally, as well as physically, while re-enforcing human leadership of the dog. On a competitive level, there are many clubs, organizations and competitions. An agility trial has 'courses' which are includes many obstacles and a time-limit to successfully navigate all of them. Faults are incurred for either a failing performance or for taking the obstacles in the wrong order (and for going over the time-limit). Canadian Kennel Club (CKC) offers these titles:
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