Agility Training

[J...]

Just a comment that popped up in the overweight dogs post - what height do you train at at home and at club?

Does it change depending on how accurate a jumper the dogs are? I.e if a dog is completely comfortable with jumping their height and rarely drop bars vs a dog who drops bars more often?

FWIW One club I attend sets the bars at correct height for all dogs, with the exception of dogs under 18 months. The other trains at 300 mm to 400 mm (with no dogs smaller than that) regardless of what height the dog is.

[Cosmolo]

Where i train they usually have it at 500 as most of the dogs there are that height or bigger. They only change it if there are the really small dogs there but no consideration for cleaness of the dogs etc.

[poodlefan]

For beginner dogs, we generally have the jumps set low and work up to competition height.

Regardless of the number of dogs in each height most dogs train at their competiiton height. People get used to adjusting jumps. If there's a lot of jumping sets, people do choose to train lower.

Some of the 200 dogs will train on 300 for a while and Darcy does some stuff at 400 when his competiton height is 300 (this is ANKC). Dogs returning from a spell often start low too.

Darce is the only 300 dog in his class at the moment.. I generally get a set to myself and finish it early to hand over to the 500 dogs who are the most numerous and need more time to get through sets.

Unless a dog has no idea how to jump (and that's quite a few) a lot of bar knocking tends to orginate from handling errors, mostly timing of cues.

Edited July 28, 2007 by poodlefan

[bridgie_cat]

not sure if you are refering to my comment about the overweight dogs... but will reiterate in here anyways

the majority of the dogs, the majority of the time, will jump a height that is under what they would jump in competition. The weeks coming up to a trial (now we have trials at the start and end of the year which is why we have pre-trial weeks, unlike all year round trials like in the city.) the dogs will then jump their own height.

ALSO dogs that are infamous for dropping bars will jump at their own height during training. This is both so they dont get lazy on a lower height and also so dog and handler get used to lining up jumps correctly to minimise chance of dropping bars.

Bridget

[Sayreovi]

I train at what height the dogs jump at, at competitions although if i am feeling lazy i will keep it on 400 as i know my 500 dog will jump over anything and still not knock the bar.

Club changes with what dogs we have training for the more experience dogs, we have a couple 300s one 400 and the rest 500. If everyone goes in and changes the jump heights its simple and quick to put it on the correct height.

[J...]

We have the same thing at my main club, one dog on 300 mm then most of us are on 500 mm, putting the jumps to correct height doesn't bother anyone.

I was more curious whether people trained at a lower height to take the pressure off their dogs joints?

I'd not really considered it but then again I only do jumps once a week at training or a once a month trial.

[Vickie]

I generally train at the heights my dogs will jump in competition. Occasionally higher, occasionally lower. I don't start my dogs on lower heights & increase them gradually. I wait until they are ready physically to jump & then start them at the height they will jump. I also teach them to jump, stride, collect & turn over a jump before running sequences with them.

[sandyl]

At training we usually run our dogs on whatever competition height they are. When there's no other 600 dogs we usually just jump 500. At home though, I sometimes put the jumps on say 300/400 to encourage my Border to go faster. I'm also doing low jumps with my Shepherd for the time being till she gets the point jumps are for jumping not running under. ;)