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*jhap*
I wanted to pick your brain a bit about the dog training.
I don't have the disposable income to take Pumpkin to classes, but want to start training her at home. She's so smart and full of energy that I think the agility stuff would be great for her. I've been wanting to for a while, but last weekend watching her jump my IL's 4" fence, I know it's definitely right for her!
I've been looking into some of the home kits with the weave posts, jump bars, tunnel and bridge, does that sound like a good start? Did you train Clancy or did he get trained by someone else and you took over? Any tips for me on how to get her started, or should I look into books?
She knows lots of trick commands, (sit, down, paw, sit pretty, roll over, etc) but I know this would be completely different. Do you recommend a certain # of times and length of time we work on the tricks?
Here's what I'm looking at, but I'd probably have JJ build most of it not buy it for that much $$.
Re: *jhap*
Those kits would be an excellent start, for sure. And you're right -- you can make a lot of stuff yourself for cheaper. We made a "tire" and a couple of jumps for Clance ourselves out of PVC. I ended up buying stick-in-the-ground weave poles for him from ebay because I wanted something that didn't take up so much space to store, and also to teach them it's easier to start with a sort of channel in the middle and then bring them closer and closer together. You could probably make those, too, but I found them for $30 and figured that was worth the time of making them. lol.
I taught Clancy, but I learned the basics from an instructor. So at class, she really teaches US how to teach our dogs. Does that make sense? So we're always the handler, which obviously helps build that relationship.
I havent' looked into books, but I'm sure they would be helpful. It's kind of amazing how much of agility is being aware of what YOU are doing and how your dog interprets those signals. So a book would probably help with that type of stuff that might not be so obvious. Her obedience-type commands show that she'll respond to commands, but honestly a dog doesn't have to be great at that kind of stuff to do well in agility. It helps if they have a wild streak, actually.
Which, if she was jumping over the fences, I'm betting she does! 
As for tips...
-#1 is to keep it fun.
-Find what motivates your dog -- whether it's food, clicker, or a toy, and use it to reward the crap out of every interaction with the obstacle, even if it's not quite right, but not if it's WRONG (reward for going into the tunnel and turning around to come out... but not for jumping on top of it.)
-Don't use a verbal command until they are actually doing the correct move (don't say "go tunnel!" until they are going in one end and coming out the other.
-Always end on a positive. If she loves the tunnel but struggles to learn the jump... if you can't get her to jump and she gets antsy, send her through the tunnel, praise/reward, and come back to the jump another day.
-If you have any thought to ever put her in competition, bring your equipment to parks or the beach -- different places to train so that the environment won't matter
As for timing and repitition, I do *something* with Clancy every day, and weave poles need to be done every day until they get it (...one century clancy might. lol), but it really depends on the dog's attention span. Once it's obvious that they're no longer having fun, then it's time to call it a day. That can be 10 minutes for one dog and 10 hours for another.
That's all I can think of at the moment... Hope that helps!
That's all really helpful, thank you! I'll definitely find some beginner books for training. If I get the right treats, she's definitely treat motivated. And I know she likes to learn because I was easily able to teach her lots of tricks when I adopted her, and she was already 1.5 years old by then.
I'm so excited, I think it's really going to be good for her attitude and behavior. Maybe it will keep her from terrorizing her sisters
And I can easily devote at least 10-20 minutes every weekday, more on the weekends.
Oh, and I'm sure JJ will really get into it. Does your husband work with him too, or just you? Is it okay to have two masters? In the past, I've taught her the tricks, but she'll preform them for JJ too, if he has a treat.
Clancy goes bananas for chopped up hot dog (I use the chicken hot dogs bec they have much less fat) and string cheese.
I think 10-20mins/day is perfect. And Clancy was almost 7 when he started learning agility, so I've never bought into the whole old-dogs/new-tricks BS. It DEFINITELY helped him and me get closer, and even with the increase in treats, the running around helped him lose a TON of weight. I didn't realize just how fat he had gotten until I noticed how hard it was for him to do agility when we first started, but now he's a little bullet.
I think it's fine to have you and JJ both handling her with the caveat being that you need to be 100% consistent with technique. I can't bring Dave with me to agility class because it's too much of a distraction for Clancy (He'll do one obstacle and then want to run and say "DID YOU SEE THAT, DADDY?!" and totally ignore me. lol), but at home DH plays with him in the yard sometimes. I've had to be a bit of a nag with DH about the cues (verbal and nonverbal) that he gives Clancy, though, because he is very used to what he's learned with me, and it's SUPER confusing to Clance if DH doesn't do exactly the same thing (though, I feel like I should mention that Cdog is not always the sharpest knife in the drawer. lol)