Jumping early

Ok I watched the video. This is my take on it. No, I'm not an instructor but I have been competing for 11 years now. You need to work with her at individual jumps first. Sit her RIGHT in front of a single jump. Keep it down low. Kneel at the side of the jump and hold a treat down on the ground on the other side of where she is. Have her jump with her head down to get that treat. Her feet should pop up to make it over the jump. Then once she has that raise it to 12" and then to 16" if that's her jump height. She should be able to pop that jump with her body being no more than 12" from that jump.

Once you have that down completely then start to set up the jump grids I showed you before. Once again you're going to sit her right in front of the first jump. Have the jumps set up 6 feet apart. Lead out to the other side and call her to you. I'm willing to bet the first time she's going to try and jump two jumps at once and will crash it. Definitely keep the jumps LOW. Do not try this at full jump height. Once she can do 3 jumps at 6 feet apart you can add the last jump at 9 feet. Then she should put no strides in between the first three jumps and then before jump 4 she should put one stride inbetween. Once she has that down then you can start working at taking that last jump and moving it to 12 feet, then 15 feet then back to 9 feet, etc. and she has to learn to interpret how many strides to put inbetween it each time.

This whole experience should take at least a month in my opinion. Don't rush this. If you go out every day go and do the single jump then the grid work, she should pick this up and fix her jumping issues. If she doesn't get her jumping issues fixed you're going to have a dog that gets badly injured or becomes terrified of jumps from all the crashes.
 
ortegah said:
Ok I watched the video. This is my take on it. No, I'm not an instructor but I have been competing for 11 years now. You need to work with her at individual jumps first. Sit her RIGHT in front of a single jump. Keep it down low. Kneel at the side of the jump and hold a treat down on the ground on the other side of where she is. Have her jump with her head down to get that treat. Her feet should pop up to make it over the jump. Then once she has that raise it to 12" and then to 16" if that's her jump height. She should be able to pop that jump with her body being no more than 12" from that jump.
Click to expand...

This is how we teach jumping at my club. It works and it works well.

The Linda M book we've been recommending for her goes into this process in detail and with pictures to help her along.

Yes, running a sequence is more exciting than working a foundation skill but, believe me, if you get solid foundations in place everything else will be that much easier.

Nellie123: If you start working with her now, you may be able to improve her jumping for the June CPE trial you want to enter - HOWEVER - based on her jumping, I'd advise you to consider skipping this trial and wait for the next one. You don't want to unintentionally reenforce bad habits and you really shouldn't trial while training/retraining a skill.
 
we've got a training system given from a physio, who also does a lot of warm up and cool down in her lessons.

this system uses cavalettis (from showjumping), so the dog must touch the ground at the right point in front of the jump.

also the 1. "right" jump is higher than the usual high in competitions, so the dog has to make is back round and long legs (so he can't take the legs under his belly).

the first step looks like this:

Jumping 1.step

the first jump is very low (5-10 cm) and is only used for the right point of groundcontact.
the distance between the low and the high jump is about 2 length of the dogs body, so he has exactly 1 step between the 2 jumps.
the second jumps high is 10 cm higher, than the normal jump used in competitions. (for example on the picture: the maximal high in competitions is 45 cm; the jump on the photo is 55 cm high)

Jumping 2. step

2. step other point of view

here we add a 3. jump in usual high about 2,5 length of the dogs body behind the 2. jump, so the dog has to jump in a bit long stride.

here you can see it in a very short (bad handy) video with our sheltie rocky.

video jumping training rocky

finally I have to say, that this is more kind of gymnastic than "training". its very exhausting for the dog and you should only do it in short sequenzes (4-5 times).

one final question: what are jumping grids someone mentioned?
 
Thanks for all the great info! The jump training method that I think ortegah posted is what our club trains( or at least a slight modification of it. )

Why do you think Nellie forgot/ignored/didn't understand i? Is it my fault, handler-wise? We weren't able to train anywhere during the winter months- that could be the problem. We also haven't found an intermediate agility class that we can attend. Would the lack of class environment/trainer be part of the issue. I know that there might not be a solid answer, but it would be nice to know so we could try not to make the mistake again.

Thanks again.:winkgrin:
 
nellie123 said:
Thanks for all the great info! The jump training method that I think ortegah posted is what our club trains( or at least a slight modification of it. )

Why do you think Nellie forgot/ignored/didn't understand i? Is it my fault, handler-wise? We weren't able to train anywhere during the winter months- that could be the problem. We also haven't found an intermediate agility class that we can attend. Would the lack of class environment/trainer be part of the issue. I know that there might not be a solid answer, but it would be nice to know so we could try not to make the mistake again.

Thanks again.:winkgrin:
Click to expand...

She has lots of drive and is anticipating the next jump way too early. The foundation work should be done all through their career to remind them of how to jump. I notice that when you do front crosses and you're up on that jump that she pays closer attention. I think that when you work with her and she jumps too early that you should stop her right where she is and go back and do it right before letting her go on. If you let her go on, you're rewarding the behavior. There are lots of methods for teaching collection. I say if you can't make it to a class, find a video that teaches it. We spent a whole summer with our instructor on just teaching collection and extension and how they tell the difference. We practice it at EVERY trial's practice jump before we get out there to remind him.

The grid I showed you with the 4 jumps is really the best possible way to teach her what to do. By moving that last jump from 9 feet to 12 to 15 and back again it makes her think and helps her figure out what to do. If it's the same distance every time then she will just get patterned to it. Changing it up is really the key. I really think if you bring it back to basics that she'll pick it up. She reminds me a lot of my Trax. She's got great drive, all you need now is the control :wink2:
 
my understanding it is common for baby dogs to use more extension. You need to return to balance and train for collection. I love Nellie's runs, she looks great! I think once you work out your glitches, she will have amazing runs!
Very few places around me really care teach jumping right way, I think most people do have this attitude "my dog knows how to jump" even experienced handlers. Club that we go to is great place to practice but teaching specially basics needs to be done somewhere else. I find Linda M books awesome help even if I have very good trainers.
 
ortegah's mention of videos made me think of this...

If you don't have a class near you where you can work on improving her jumping skills, perhaps you can try Susan Salo's videos on jumping: Foundation Jumping and Advanced Jumping, http://www.jumpdogs.com/. The DVDs themselves are available at http://www.cleanrun.com.

You can also check YouTube to see if there are any videos on jumping using Susan's techniques there.

Like Linda M, Susan Salo is a very respected agility trainer and her jumping techniques are fairly well known.
 
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