Teaching Him To Jump

[Reddii]

My boy is a 17 month old BC. Competely nutty, not in the really mega high drive way, just in a doofus, teddy bear kind of way. He's really eager to work and gets 'that' look when in drive, but is really controllable and doesn't lose his head like some seem to.

That said my problem with him is that it seems he's in too much of a hurry to get over flyball hurdles and agility jumps and can and does run into them. We don't have him at his full maxi height yet because he's still coming to terms with the whole jumping thing. He knows the jumps are there, but just doesn't jump high enough to clear them because he prefers speed to clearance. (Not good with flyball hurdles!)

I'm not sure if this has anyting to do with it, but he broke his elbow at 4 months and was kept pretty much on lead and confined until about 10 months, but he was still goofy before that so it might be a combination of the tow.

Aside from jump grids and lots of them does anyone have any thoughts about how to help him 'learn' jump heights and spacing? I don't reward for sequences where he hits hurdles/jumps and do reward BIG time for success. (increasing the reward to try and help at present)

Cheers.

Tony

Edited April 17, 2008 by Reddii

[leopuppy04]

What do you do when he knocks a bar?

I know a lot of people drop their dogs immediately - but I tend to find this sometimes can be counter productive, particularly with super, super high drive dogs because they've already done about 5 other jumps so *what* exactly were they dropped for

One thing that was mentioned to me is that if your dog knocks a bar, you stop immediately saying something like "whoops" and put the bar back up. Go back to 2-4 bars before THAT one that they knocked and start the sequence from there again... IF they get it right, reward IMMEDIATELY. It's almost as though you are acknowledging that they got it right this time round. After the reward (food or whatever) you continue with the course.

For my dogs, who are pretty sensitive and slow down if they think they got anything wrong, this seems to work for them (so far... it's a new concept for us!!!)

[poodlefan]

Reddii, is he taking the bars off with his chest or his hind legs? Where he hits them will give an indicator to what's wrong with his jumping style.

I assume these are straight line jumps. More often than not, if a dog takes a bar where directional change is involved, late or poor handler cues can shift the dog's position, dropping a leg and taking the bar.

If he's taking them off on a straight line approach/landing with his front end, it may be that he can't judge the take off point. You'd never teach a horse to jump by sticking one pole at the desired height - you give it a ground line. Lay a pole in front of the jump at the same distance out as the jump is high. You can also try jumping him over drums layed on their side - the round shape encourages a rounded jump. "Filling" a jump with more bars or crossed bars can also be useful to give the dog more to judge.

If it's the hind legs that are taking them off, you have another issue.

Have you tried the Susan Clothier jumping stuff? There are some really articles on jump style in Clean Run too.

If he hasn't been very carefully checked over by a vet/chiro, that would always be my starting point. I've heard a lot of dogs called 'lazy' or 'stupid' that are just plain sore.

Can you get him to jump in front of a very experienced instructor - a good one will be able to spot what's going on.

Some dogs take bars off because it doesn't matter to them if they hit them.. seems to be very much a working dog thing.. they are so intent on speed that they take a lot of bars.

Edited April 10, 2008 by poodlefan

[Reddii]

Hey there,

Some good food for thought.

First off - he's at the chiro/vet every 2 months and is not sore. One of his front legs is about 98% of the other, but not causing him pain.

He can do either. If we are doing one jump stuff it is often his hind leg that he will knock it with, on a series it will usually be his front.

I have a feeling that the last sentence in your post PF is the problem. He jumps beautifully - we were practicing the tyre at home the other night at his height and he looked just magic and didn't touch it once. But, he knows it gets ugly if things go pear shaped.

I'll get the guys to have a look at him on Sunday night at training and see if one of them can pick anything up. They usually rave about how good he looks over the jumps though - it's just as I'm picking up the jumps he doesn't 'want' to jump any higher - it's too slow for him. You know how with most high drive dogs they just do it at 100 miles an hour regardless of the handler - CK will do it at 100 miles an hour if I can keep up, anything less than 90 miles an hour and he just loses interest.

LP, I like your idea. From now on we stop as soon as he hits a bar. Flyball will be a bit different, but we can work on that too.

[poodlefan]

We all have our methods, but I never stop my dogs in the middle of a sequence. I've found it kills speed quicker than anything else. I complete and work on the issue separately.

If the issue is jump bars, then my advice is to fix it with jumping specific issues. The other thing that can assist is to vary the height of the jumps (both above and below the desired height) to encourage the dog to actually look at the jump rather than simply flinging itself into the air as some are prone to do.

The tyre is an interesting obstacle. Very few dogs will be casual about hitting it because it's pretty solid. Taking a bar on the other hand means nothing to many dogs.

Reddi if he tends to chest bars in a sequence, I think he has balance, judgement issues. Do you space the jumps/heights randomly?

Edited April 10, 2008 by poodlefan

[Reddii]

Reddi if he tends to chest bars in a sequence, I think he has balance, judgement issues. Do you space the jumps/heights randomly?

That is what I meant by jump grids (probably got it wrong) - we do a fair bit of them in 'class'. He's fine on the lower heights, say, up to mini, but at midi and above he begins to make mistakes.

The varying points of view I get are why I post on here as well as talk to the instructors at the club. They are very experienced (Cathy Slot et al), but it's always good to get other ideas to think about as well - helps me to understand how much I don't know.

I'm resigned to the fact that I'll 'ruin' these dogs, but will learn a hell of a lot and have a lot of fun on the way there. Good thing that for me this is about the dogs and not about me!!!

[poodlefan]

Sounds like he has yet to learn balance over higher jumps, which due to take off/landing distances, tend to have less time to adjust to the next one.

Here's a quick experiment. Set a sequence of jumps out at the height he takes bars off, but further apart than normal. Let me know if he knocks bars off.

Every dog benefits from the lessons the handler learns on the previous ones. He may simply need more time learning to balance himself at new heights.

The best exercise for many sports dogs is hard running over uneven/hilly ground. Does he get much opportunity to do free running over such terrain?

[dogdude]

I would put a peice of white tape a few inches above the jump height (accross the jump) and slowly fade it to a black string to get the dog used to the idea that he always needs to allow an inch or two for clearance.

I do this when teaching broad jump and high jump in obedience

[Reddii]

Sounds like he has yet to learn balance over higher jumps, which due to take off/landing distances, tend to have less time to adjust to the next one.

Here's a quick experiment. Set a sequence of jumps out at the height he takes bars off, but further apart than normal. Let me know if he knocks bars off.

Every dog benefits from the lessons the handler learns on the previous ones. He may simply need more time learning to balance himself at new heights.

The best exercise for many sports dogs is hard running over uneven/hilly ground. Does he get much opportunity to do free running over such terrain?

Thanks for that. Will have a look with him on the weekend and let you know.

Free running on rough ground - no. Not really much opportunity where we are. We do run 3 or 4 days a week over rough tracks in the forest, but although it is a good run it is on lead unfortunately. It's an on lead area strictly speaking, but most people don't bother with leads. I can take them one at a time off lead and have about 98% control, but don't have as much control as I would like with the two of them off lead to let them run together. Sadly my body won't cope with running the two dogs on their own - already doing 2 to 3 hours exercise/training a day so splitting them for a run just wouldn't work!

I might try and get them to the beach on the weekend a bit more often.

Have a good one.

[leopuppy04]

We all have our methods, but I never stop my dogs in the middle of a sequence. I've found it kills speed quicker than anything else. I complete and work on the issue separately.

I agree with this in relation to my dogs PF, but I do know that for other dogs it doesn't phase them in the slightest, hence why I mentioned it Just more food for thought

Best of luck Reddii!

[Ptolomy]

I did a jumping workshop with Cathy Slot from Queensland - it was fantastic and actually taught the dogs how to jump and to judge distances between jumps using jump humps.

Simone from WA actually did a write up on the seminar on her blog http://ravencypher.blogspot.com/2008/01/ca...ng-weekend.html.

It is worth a read and no not all dog know how to jump naturally.

[Reddii]

I did a jumping workshop with Cathy Slot from Queensland - it was fantastic and actually taught the dogs how to jump and to judge distances between jumps using jump humps.

Simone from WA actually did a write up on the seminar on her blog http://ravencypher.blogspot.com/2008/01/ca...ng-weekend.html.

It is worth a read and no not all dog know how to jump naturally.

That's good to hear. I'll have a chat to Cathy on Sunday night and pick her brains as well.

[JulesP]

He is quite young too. We aren't allowed to do agility at my club until the dogs are over 18 months. Especially jumping stuff.

Look on the bright side - I couldn't get my first border to jump at all! He was way too smart! Why go over the jump if you can go under!!!

[Reddii]

He is quite young too. We aren't allowed to do agility at my club until the dogs are over 18 months. Especially jumping stuff.

Look on the bright side - I couldn't get my first border to jump at all! He was way too smart! Why go over the jump if you can go under!!!

My girl was like that for a while until she 'got it'.

I know CK is young so I'm not too concerned. He's only been doing low jumps until the last month or so. Just want to make sure I get it right and don't teach him bad things.

[Tassie]

I did a jumping workshop with Cathy Slot from Queensland - it was fantastic and actually taught the dogs how to jump and to judge distances between jumps using jump humps.

Simone from WA actually did a write up on the seminar on her blog http://ravencypher.blogspot.com/2008/01/ca...ng-weekend.html.

It is worth a read and no not all dog know how to jump naturally.

I found Simone's blog entry on Cathy's jumping workshop really helpful. My mad 6 year old going on 18 months (and yes, I do mean it that way) BC boy has been a bar knocker - no respect for jumps, and no idea of collecting himself and rounding over a jump - so I've set up a makeshift bounce grid in the back yard and have been working him on that. I've also been working him over just one jump - higher than his normal height, and actually using 2 bars to stop him running under. With that, I've been jumping him from a sit quite close to the jump, to get him to use his hind legs more, instead of just relying on forward momentum. I stand at the side of the jump, and he jumps, gets rewarded for corret performance, then jumps the other way from a sit again - rinse and repet. We've only been doing this for a few weeks, but I'm seeing a lot of improvement in his jumping style - and it's helping with his impulse control measures too.

Reddii, you're lucky to be able to train with Cathy - get her to have a really good look at your boy.

ET fix racing fingers typo.

Edited April 11, 2008 by Tassie

[Ptolomy]

I was lucky enough to have a working spot at Cathy's Perth seminar with my very inexperienced, long in body duck dog, who has no fear and is more intent on getting to where she is going rather than worrying about what is in her way. We had tried the jump grids - using bars higher than what she would normally jump and also tried using heavy wooden bars to no avail.

Its now 4 months down the track following the seminar and have to say Lexi's jumping technique has improved heaps and last week she was in her first agility trial and went clear. She still does have bars down - but usually its only 1 and not the whole 16 in a jumping trial like it was a few months back LOL.

Jump humps are cheap to make and you can also teach very young puppies how to jump using them. It certainly prooved to me that not all dogs know how to jump and also that using high bars is not the way to go.

Lexi is now also able to judge distances between jumps really well allowing Helen her handler time to get to where she need to be.

[Reddii]

Bloody stupid bloody dog.........grumble grumble grumble

We didn't get ot Tivoli on Sunday as we were down at WAAG and it went for a little longer than I expected, but last night we did the novice class at BAD. Nat Kirkwood who is another great trainer took our class and I was talking to her about my 'problem' with CK. We had a bit of a chat and came up with all the things you guys have suggested. We then put him over the midi height - no problems. Then the Maxi regular height - no problems, finally had him going over the full Max height. We did have a couple of refusals, but not a bit concern because he's never been over that height before last night. I swear if he could have he would have done the victory sign on the way over he did it so easily - he's only 520mm and he was clearing 650mm by about 150mm - All I could think was idiot - get rid of that stupid border collie grin.

Any hoo, suggests that judgement might be the problem so we'll do a lot of work with jumps at different spreads and heights so he has to work it out. Thanks for all your suggestions. One step closer to our first trial hopefully at the end of June.

Tony