Agility Class first timers!

Ok.  I'm not a first timer but have been doing this for awhile.
 
You will want the dog to be wearing a flat buckle or Quick release collar.  No tags attached.  It's a safety issue.  A good 6 foot leash. 
You should be wearing tennis shoes.  No sandals or other shoes.  Again a safety issue.  Some clubs insist on this although I know some folks that do it barefoot.
If you plan on using a toy as a reward bring it along.
Lots of treats if you use food motivation.
Clicker if that is the way you train.
 
Here are some of the skills the dog should have. 
Be able to walk with you on a loose heel on either side of you.  Eventually you want the dog to work with your off leash.
Sit and Down on command.
A sit or down stay would be nice.
Generally you want a dog that will listen to you to take directions.
If you are taking jumps at the dogs full height you dog needs to be fully grown otherwise the dog should jump no higher than their elbows.
 
Remember to keep the training upbeat and fun.  Don't work too long to burn out your dog either too long a session or too many repitions on any one thing.  Always finish a session with a success.
 
 

as most agility training uses  targets touch is a great pre class skill to have  teach your dog to touch your hand and get a cookie move your hand around different spots and get the dog to touch. try to get the dog to do it on command and transfer it to other things ie spots on the floor or yorguhrt lids.  Most contact behavior is trained by having a dog run to all the way to the end of the obstacle and touch helps with that.
  it also helps teach your dog to follow your hand also important when starting agility.
  if you can teach your dog right and left  and how to move away and to you without obstacles you are way ahead of the game.  Look up flat work you should be able to find some exercises to help you.
  truthfully and you wont belive me right now the obstacles are easy its getting you and your dog around the course that is hard.

Expect clicker training.  If you don't already clicker train- start.  Almost all agility classes use clickers.
Work on faster sits and downs as well.  I've had to retrain my beagle's down so that it's faster.  I originally taught her to down from the sit position.  Now we do what's called a sphinx down- where the dog basically rocks back and lays down.  Here's a video on teaching it: [linkhttp://youtube.com/watch?v=7zs63yA8Oes]http://youtube.com/watch?v=7zs63yA8Oes[/link]
Hand targeting and being able to send your dog to a target will come in handy as well.  And try to work on a watch command.  I use this a bunch in normal life and during training.  I really don't know where I'd be without it.
Things to expect are a lot of foundation work.  The first set of agility classes I took we never even touched real equipment.  We did a lot of ladder work (rear end awareness) and contact work.  We also did games like "Find the Boom"- where they had a board on a piece of pvc (it looked like a teeter) and you have the dog hit it to make the noise so that your dog won't be very noise sensitive.  We also played on the buja board (a board that's on a ball and pivots around while your dog is on it) and sent our dogs down channel weaves that were totally opened.
And of course expect a tired and happy dog after classes.

We never learned clicker and have done just fine in agility.  None of the classes around here require this.  I would shy away from any class that required a clicker.  I think that the way a person wants to reward should be an individual decision.  When we went to classes the first 8 week course was all obstables but with the raised contacts at a much reduced height slowly working up to full height.  The second 8 week course was at full height.  For weaves we used the channel method without guide wires and this worked very well for us.  We also trained allot out of class learning weaves.  I also trained my second pup at full jump height from the beginning.  I think that this helped him with his muscle memory used in jumping and he rarely takes out a jump.  I can could on one hand the number of times that has happened in competition.  Of course he was fully grown before starting.  We also used 2 on 2 off for the contacts.  Worked really well and was easy to transition to a running contact.