Jumping Guru's? - Page 1

Hi

Some people are known as 'the best' to see when it comes to tracking problems, as some are known for their brilliance in protection work etc.

Does anybody know someone they would consider as a 'Jumping Guru'? 
 
Thanks in advance,

Jason.
 

You mean jumping as in retrieving the dumbbell over the high jump? What breed of dog? how old and what problems are you encountering?
Fry

What is the question?

Cheers guys,

Here goes......

My boy doesn't know 'when' to jump regarding the IPO hurdle retrieve.

He jumps very well, just terrible 'space awareness'!

He jumps far too early and is on the way down when reaches the hurdle.

Things tried:
Placing a marker on ground and not letting him jump until he reaches it
Placing distance markers so he has a place to focus on
Long line and not allowing him to jump too early
Making a corridor of 3 low jumps equally spaced apart hoping it will help with feet placement.

I have had him for 9 months. In that 9 months we have titled IPO1 to IPO3 selection trials. Every trial we have lost major points when it comes to hurdle retrieve to the cost of a team placing for WUSV.

If I place him directly in front of hurdle he can jump perfect. But this isn't feasible as he then has no room for a present of dumbbell on return.

Its worth noting he is a former PD and I'm guessing he was encouraged to get over any obstacle in any way to get the bad guy.

He and I are not averse to e-collar usage, but I don't want to add too much stress into this already stressful exercise

I have had him extensively x-rayed and MRI scanned to rule out any potential health issues.

Hope I've made sense.

Jase.



 

First thing that comes to mind is have you had his eyes checked? Because i know of another shepherd that had the exact same problem and she retina damage and was depth blind.
They found it when she was sent to an eye specialist. Otherwise in her normal everyday life she functioned completely normal. She just had no clue how far away the jump was.
Before going any further with this dog please for his sake have his eyes checked by a specialist.
If his eyes are fine then work on fixing his jumping timing.
Fry

go back to basics and use/introduce touch pads and forget about the apport for a while. the trick is to space the pads pretty close to the take-off positions on both sides of the jump. start with no/low height basically have him trot over the jump and touch. back and forth. also, you want to stand at the side of the jump and not the send position. just have him bounce back and forth. don't be in a hurry raising height.

"Making a corridor of 3 low jumps equally spaced apart hoping it will help with feet placement."

This is the best thing, IMO.  This is how we work "jump grids" for agility.  It helps get the right stride and collection in front of the jump (assuming your small ones are spaced correctly).  This is also how people train dogs that do super high jumps. I have a very small pit mix I am training to jump, hopefully near 60" and this is how we train it, two strides into the big jump using really short jumps (once she jumps over 44" or so I will be catching her on the other side just to spare her always landing such a high jump).  Did this help at all?

Another thing is to just have the dog sit or platz in front of the jump and pop over.  Even the IPO jump at full height should be fairly easy for a full grown GSD to clear without any strides leading into it.  If the dog can pop over and back and easily clear the jump with NO buildup, that is when I feel my dog is actually trained to do the jump correctly.  Sounds like you've done this though and he CAN do the jump.  Sounds like he knows how and is probably pretty good at it.  When he takes off early, is there a dumbbell involved?  Usually the addition of a toy, reward, or dumbbell causes it to go to shit, lol.  My good jumping agility dog I only give about 6' or so in front of the jump in training.  The nice thing is that I was told your throw should match your buildup, so if my buildup is pretty short then my throw is short and the dog can't always see the dumbbell.

When you say you don't want to add stress to a stressful exercise, was he force trained to retrieve?  I'm not against this but it is a different picture.  Jumping and then doing a *retrieve* with a jump are two different things.

+1 for the sight and structural checks FIRST.

as for the training problems - skip all the high tech crap and just let yr dog find it's feet by being a dog outside of a "training" format. go for vigorous long hikes off leash and let yr dog be a dog running around and causing trouble chasing shit etc. 

it won't b able to help itself but learn correct body placement before jumps etc.

At one time, my boss had the highest jumping the in the world. The way he did it was amazing. If I had an issue with a dog jumping, he'd be the one I'd ask. Does that qualify as a "guru"?

gotta watch the bull dog at the end, wasn't sure if the dog failed or was part of a set up??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFZHmEKaoR8

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