Tokoagi / Obility

 

To us and our dogs obility is a nice hobby which doesn´t exclude anything. We have found obility to be very useful and it has had a very positive affect on our dogs (and us ofcourse). To such an active breed as Irish setter obility offers a lot brainwork which calms dogs down and the dog also learns to listen and to trust its owner in new situations.

Below I have tried to explain obility. Hopefully it gives some sort of an idea of what obility is. Telling about obility isn´t very easy, showing it would be easier...

 

Obility is a hobby that has been developed in Finland by Kirsti Luhtala in 1998. Obility contained at first something from obedience training and something from agility. Allready at 1998 the interest in obility was to train dogs "by their own language" and in a way that is more polite and considering to dogs.

2004 obility changed. The ideas of some dogtherapists (for example T. Rugaas from Norway, A. Hallgren from Sweden) has gotten a greater role in obility. Now a days there isn´t any competitions, but one can train forward at own speed. To get forward it is required to take an exam (to a instructor). After the exam is passed one can train further on. The most special thing in obility is the tests to the dogowner. In these test one needs to think about different questions about dogs habits and behaviour, own behaviour towards dogs, training...

In obility there are five kinds of tasks: lirputus, with a quest, go with me, take/search and hear me in distance.. Lirputus is somekind of base to obility. In lirputus the owner learns many different kinds of tactics to get the dogs interest, for example with different tones or sounds, by movement... The point is that the owner and the dog learns to listen one another. Tasks under the name with a quest, considers different kind of situations with other people, and learning to handle those situation. Take/Search tasks include fetching and finding (dog uses its nose). All the tasktypes becomes more demandind when one gets on.

Different stages in obility are named like in school. There are five stages (in order kiertokoulu, alakoulu, keskikoulu, yläkoulu, gymnaasi). To all stages belongs five classes (three concentrates on the cooperation of the dog and its owner and two concentrates on skills), which needs to be passed before moving on to next stage. After finishing all five stages one can become a student in obility by passing two exams. To these exams one raffles ten tasks from all the stages.

Obility contains also some sort of agility, but the idea in obilitys agility tasks are that you could do them anywhere for example in forest ar at a marketplace. It isn´t the point that dog jumps very high or does the tasks at speed, but that the dog listens to its owner and the owner manages to instruct the dog so the dog does what is asked. For example one task could be that the dog sits on a car tyre, or walkes on a fallen tree, or goes under a bench...