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Last night when I couldn't sleep I was thinking about this.
We have a nice DSLR Nikon which takes lovely photos. Not knowing anything about photography, I can get some decent still shots.

BUT, I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to get some good photos of Sherman doing his agility. He is really good at it and looks great! The last time I took pictures, I used the speed shot thing where you press the button down and it takes a ton of pictures at once.
The pictures were good but not great:


It's BLURRY! Someone help please?!

Your camera is focusing on the wrong thing (the a-frame rather than the dog).
Does it have those little markers that flash on the screen to indicate where it wants to place it's focus? From memory it's fairly easy to change the setting to "more" areas (I have a Nikon D80 dslr).

With the Burst setting, you can't pre-test your focus as easily - with the single-shot setting, you can half-press the shutter (so it only focuses, not takes the picture). Don't let it go after it focuses. Then when your subject comes into frame, press it the rest of the way.

Your still items are focused and your moving objects are blurry. Not sure which camera you have and if you are using manual settings or automatic settings. Can you still shoot in repeating mode with manual settings? You basically need a faster shutter speed to stop the motion. You can achieve that by increasing your ISO or decreasing your aperture settings (the lower the number the more open your aperature is and the more light enters so you don't need your shutter to stay open so long). The only other way to stop the action is to use flash and with that kind of action you probably wouldn't like the results because you can only use the single shot mode with the flash. Timing those action shots is hard that way and you will also get glowing eyes in the dogs. Since your depth of field (plane of focus) looks pretty deep it makes me think your aperature is set too high so I would try lowering that to about 8 or 11. That will give you a pretty narrow depth of field, (more distant objects will be blurry) but I would play with that first and see what you get. Hope this helps, I'm terrible at explaining things.

The other day I went and did a little photography class that explained the basics of photography (shutter, aperture, exposure, focus, ISO, white balance, and how to adjust them with your camera). It was awesome! I know you might not have time etc to do one, but if you have a DSLR, well worth it! Then you can half understand what Jan & PJ is saying

But, until now (I hope!) I've always taken action pics of horses on auto mode with zero photography knowledge and they mostly turned out ok. This is what I'd do:
Have it on the running man/sports mode.
Put your focus point (when you half press the button to take a photo, a red light or squares or something shows up in the viewfinder??) over the dog. It should be in AI SERVO mode, so as the dog moves it keeps on focusing, as long as you have the button half pressed.
Follow the dog with the button half pressed so it keeps focusing and at the point where you want the photo, completely press the button. You can hold the button if you want a quick series of photos. Mine only does 3 per sec, so I was better waiting for the moment I wanted and capturing that (so just after take off over a jump etc) otherwise I'd just get 3 crap photos.
Hope this helps!

Once you've mastered that you will want to know how to do it better! Trust me it happens

Chancellor, which Nikon do you have.

It may have (most do) the ability to set the focus on a single point and then move that single point around so that it is not in the middle of the frame.

You should also have options on how it focuses (for a moving object).

Let us know the model and we'll work you through what might work best

Oh, FWIW, and yes I know dependent on time and how you're feeling, there is a series of books called From Snapshots to Great Shots for a number of different models of different cameras, Nikon included. Not pricy and set up so that you can sit down with the camera and user's guide (forget what Nikon calls 'em ) and work through learning to use the camera's features. They include activities at the end of every chapter to practice what you learned.

Nice way to learn how to use the features on your camera If your Nikon is a bit older, they may not have the actual model but should still be enough to work with the current model to learn how to take advantage of all the "doodads".

Let us know, we're hear to help

We have a Nikon D5100

those books sound good. I'll have to look into it. But whatever other help you got, let me know'

WMW, I have just purchased that book for my camera! Thanks for letting me know about them! I'd like to be a better photographer. Especially to capture Sherman doing his thing. He loves agility and to see his smiling face doing it will be great.

By the way, not to leave Scarlett out....In her glory days jumping 3'6"

Chancellor, glad you liked the idea of the book... though it might be fun for you to work through as you feel up to it and have the time. Do have your Users Guide (or whatever Nikon calls it ) handy as you may need to read it to see how the setting works. These books are more to guide you though how to use the camera functions to shoot better photos

The User's Guide is nice but pretty much "fact" oriented and not how to use the feature to change the image.

Haven't had a chance to noodle more about how to help with your current dog/agility project but it's in the back of my mind.

What ISO is the camera set at or auto-ISO?

Do you have much experience with film cameras?

Oh, and the photobucket photo is a graphic with "Please update your account to enable 3rd party hosting". Not sure if that is a security thing or??

UGH! What happened to photobucket? You used to be able to host third party pictures there. UGH!

I dunno - I don't use PB - I just post the photos here online (thank you ).

When you are up to it, don't forget the other questions

I'm so rarely on anymore, life is just too crazy. You're welcome to call me Chancellor and I'll walk you through settings or when I'm in CT for my wedding in the spring I have to meet you and your crew, I don't mind giving you some lessons then.