Teaching young dogs to jump

[Blackdawgs]

At a few days short of 14 months, my guy is ready for formal jump training. Over the past few weeks, I've been fooling around at 16" and he has a tendency to flatten, omit a stride, and knock bars. I have the Salo Foundation DVD set and have been working thru the grids. He certainly is capable of jumping in a round, balanced manner, but he is a very go go go high drive kind of guy. This is compounded by him having an enormous stride. In the Salo distance grid, he successfully and reproducibly bounces a distance of 14 feet, so in order to get the 1 stride, I am working at distances greater than 14 feet.

 

I've been looking at and playing with the LM Developing Jumping skills book and I have to say that I am not thrilled with this because 1) her method of teaching jumping is highly dependent on her handling system and 2) I think that it creates too much handler focus. Yesterday, i videotaped a training session and although he is being more careful, he is also contorting himself like a pretzel because he is focused on the cookie in my hand. When jumping, i really think that the dog's focus should be on a point in front of the single jump or on the next obstacle rather than on a cookie that I am holding at my side.

 

My guy is about 22" now, so we are looking at competition heights of 20-26" depending on the venue and program.

 

So, how do you teach your high drive dogs how to jump?

 

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[mum24dog]

I don't like the SS programme - it teaches dogs to flatten and land with forelegs extended which means that impact is transferred to the shoulders, where so many traumatic and chronic agility injuries occur.

 

I'm not familiar with Linda Mecklenburg's stuff,

 

From a performance pov you don't need to encourage a high drive long jumping dog to jump like that. Teaching him to collect is going to be your problem. I would bring the jumps closer together.

 

And a 14 month old dog shouldn't be taking the strain of bouncing jumps like that.

 

Does he knock bars through baby clumsiness or is it that he has no regard for the fact that the jumps exist? It sounds like you are asking a lot of him at such a young age.

 

Cookies aren't the best way to teach a dog to drive on ahead as you have found. What does he do if you don't use them and throw a toy over the last jump or get a friend to do that?

 

Dave Munnings' Q me video has some simple exercises to help with forward drive.

 

We thought it was great when our BC flew over the jumps when he was young but it took him to the age of 6 before he learned to turn tightly instead of going so wide on turns because we concentrated on speed over everything else. Won't make that mistake again; we'll get a better balance in future.

[Blackdawgs]

I think that he knocks jumps because he has no regard that jumps exist, that he doesn't understand how to compress his stride, and he is a whoopee kind of dog.

 

He needs to compress his stride and rock back on his butt

 

Throwng toys increases his arousal and has caused many dropped bars.

 

I only jump him every other day and the SS bounces are only 8" high

[gcv-border]

We thought it was great when our BC flew over the jumps when he was young but it took him to the age of 6 before he learned to turn tightly instead of going so wide on turns because we concentrated on speed over everything else. Won't make that mistake again; we'll get a better balance in future.

Yup, for my dog too.^^^^ [isn't is awesome to have this powerful, lighting-fast dog go flying over the jumps -- until he passes you looking for his next obstacle, and then it is "OH SH*T", and you realize that you will never catch up and the dog is taking off-course obstacles. I can't tell you how many times my trainer told me to "MOVE. Stop looking at your dog!"] :^)

 

I don't have any suggestions for specific training regimens,(probably because I am a crappy trainer), but my dog now (at 6 years old) is probably better than 90-95% clean on his own without a specific jumping program. Most of the time when he drops jumps, it is because I have spoken to him while he is in mid-air over a jump. Being the good boy that he is, he tries to respond instantaneously - usually resulting in a dropped bar. I have seen his jumping cleanly improve as I have started to work on collecting before a jump requiring a tight turn. I believe it makes him think a bit more rather than racing flat out. As mum24dog says, this type of jump training may still be too early for a youngster.

 

Jovi

[mum24dog]

I only jump him every other day and the SS bounces are only 8" high

 

8in isn't really jumping; it's just galloping over sticks. It's not teaching him anything useful in terms of jumping style.

 

Most dogs seem able to figure out how to jump pretty well without following a specific programme as long as the handler gets it right.

 

Our dog is about 22in and the way he was taught was to put him up to full height as soon as he was old enough to stop him flattening too much over jumps. 26in was still not really high enough for him but that's the height he jumps in competition. (Greg Derrett says he trains his dogs over 30in and they are much smaller than ours.) The higher the height the more the dog has to think about getting over.

 

It's not something I would generally recommend for a young dog but it works well for those that need it.

[Blackdawgs]

With SS, the bounces or stride regulators are 8". When we have done the set-point and distance grid, I've gone up to 22" or so. The purpose of the bounce is to rock the dog back on its hind quarters to prepare it for the jumping effort. There are several grids, but what she calls the equal distance grid is 5 jumps set at 8" high and at a distance that the dog bounces. The purpose is to rock the dog back on its butt. If the dog is running on its forehand and can't control its own speed, it will plow through the last "jump" or try to jump 4 and 5 together as one jump

 

It may be that some of the issues that you have seen with the SS method are from people not doing things correctly. It is easy to add height innapropriately (which she cautions against).

 

Anyway, I have thought about putting the jumps up to 20" and letting him figure things out on his own. Which is why he got bumped up to 16 at a practice session a few weeks ago--he had no respect for 12"

 

But, in retrospect it seemed unfair to bump the jumps up to 16 and expect him to know how to jump w/o hitting bars.

[alligande]

I worked my way through Linda Ms jumping book with my very high drive and just plainly high dog when he was young. He needed no encouragement to take jumps his foundation work was done using Agility Right From the Start and he learned to drive forward with their exercises, Linda Ms exercises really taught him to collect and learn that he had control of his ability to jump. When I worked my way through the exercises I had not realized yet what a poor handler I was and had not started using LInda Ms handling techniques, which is now the basis for the way I handle. I did not start him at full height (26) I think I used 20" I did not jump at 26" untill he was about 20 months.

My dog is handler focused but I don't find that a bad thing, it is hard on NADAC courses but on USDAA courses having speed, drive and focus to make the turns and to play snooker and gamblers I think is a great thing I would not want him driving automatically to the next obstacle, I want him paying attention to what I am doing.

[mickif]

I do not follow LM's handling, per se, but I found the first few exercises of her foundation work invaluable. It's been a few years so they are not fresh in my mind, but the very first one, one jump, having the dog offer jumping and wrapping, with handler at side of jump, working from all positions as explained, quickly raising jump height reaped great rewards in my dog's understanding of how to jump, how to collect, etc. Plus it was great fun to play this! I did a few other of her exercises, after completing the first one... a few jumps set up, walking around, sometimes giving "permission" to take a jump, sometimes not and my dog learned about handler focus and obstacle focus early on. Though I have a "morphed" handling style, I found just doing the beginning foundation work of LM, produced my best jumper so far.

[mum24dog]

It may be that some of the issues that you have seen with the SS method are from people not doing things correctly. It is easy to add height innapropriately (which she cautions against).

 

I've only ever seen videos featuring SS herself and didn't like what I saw.

 

The LM method as described makes much more sense to me.

[gonetotervs]

And if your dog is a baby, then you might want to think about whether threadles and backsides of jumps are going to show up during your dog's competitive career in your chosen venues. I'm certainly teaching my youngsters that sometimes we go between jumps and sometimes we take them from the back.

[Root Beer]

And if your dog is a baby, then you might want to think about whether threadles and backsides of jumps are going to show up during your dog's competitive career in your chosen venues. I'm certainly teaching my youngsters that sometimes we go between jumps and sometimes we take them from the back.

 

Excellent point! I wailed and gnashed teeth (figuratively) when I was expected to have Tessa take backsides of jumps in class way before I thought we should have been dealing with that.

 

Now I'm glad we did. It is natural to her to go around and take a jump from the backside. With Dean I have had to work like anything to get him comfortable with it! After Denise Fenzi's online Obility class, of all things, he is finally doing it happily. Go figure!!

[mum24dog]

I would say that straightforward driving on independently should be the priority at this stage but doing some work that needs the dog to take direction from the handler is also a good idea.