Trainers get sold a lot of equipment. Very little of it makes the difference.
Watch someone good run a puppy class and count what they actually touch. It is a short list, and almost all of it is cheap.
The things you touch every class
A treat pouch. Not a bag in your pocket. A pouch with a hinged or magnetic opening you can get into one-handed while your other hand is on a lead, and that stays open when you need it and closed when you turn round. Reward timing is the whole craft and a fiddly pouch destroys it.
Wash it. Everyone forgets, and a pouch that has held liver for six months announces itself.
A marker. A clicker or your voice. A box clicker is louder and better outdoors; a button clicker is quieter and kinder indoors with a nervous dog. Buy several, because you will lose them, and put a wrist coil on the one you use.
Australian suppliers stock EzyDog and Black Dog Wear clickers among others, both Australian brands with easy local replacement.
A long line. Fifteen metres of biothane for recall work. It wipes clean, it does not soak up mud, and it does not burn your hand the way webbing does.
Something to define space. A mat, a towel or a bed per dog. In a puppy class this is the single most useful management tool there is, because it gives every dog a place that is theirs and it teaches settling without you teaching anything.
That is the list. Everything below is optional.
Class management, which is mostly barriers
The difference between a calm class and a chaotic one is usually spacing.
Visual barriers between dogs. Freestanding screens, or something as simple as a row of chairs with a sheet over them. Puppies that cannot stare at each other settle far faster.
Cones or markers to define where each handler stands, so people naturally space out instead of drifting into a huddle.
A closed pen for the puppy who needs a break, and for the demonstration where you need one dog and not seven.
Agility, honestly
Agility equipment is what most trainers imagine when they think about kit, and it is the most over-bought category.
For a general class, what gets used is a low jump, a tunnel and a raised platform or table. That is it. Those three do confidence work, body awareness and impulse control, and puppies love them.
Weave poles, a full-height A-frame, a dog walk and a seesaw are for people running actual agility, and in a general class they mostly become obstacles for handlers to walk into.
If you are buying, buy the tunnel first. It is light, it packs down, and it never stops being useful.
The problem nobody warns you about
If you teach in a hired hall, a park or a community centre, your real constraint is not what to buy. It is getting it there and back twice a week, alone, in the dark, in the rain.
Everything you buy should pass one test: can you carry it in one trip and lift it into the car without help.
Collapsible over rigid. Light over sturdy, within reason. Wheeled bags. A trolley.
Trainers who ignore this end up with a shed full of excellent equipment they stopped bringing.
The admin kit
A whiteboard or a laminated sheet for the week's plan, because you will forget under pressure.
Nametags for handlers. It sounds trivial and it transforms a class, because people who know each other's names talk to each other and come back next term.
A first aid kit for dogs and one for people.
Water and bowls, especially outdoors in summer.
Something to hand out. A one-page take-home for each week is the difference between people practising and people forgetting, and it is the cheapest retention tool in the business.
What we would not buy
We would not buy branded training gadgets that promise to fix pulling or barking. If they worked, the trade would already know.
We would not buy a full agility set before running a term and seeing what gets used.
We would not buy aversive tools. Beyond the ethical position, a class in which one handler is using one is a class other people leave.
And we would not buy an expensive treat pouch. The cheap ones are fine and you will replace it anyway.
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