Jumping off A Frame - injuries? - Page 1

Out of curiosity...in your experience, have you seen injuries from this?  I KNOW it is far from ideal but how common is it to "jump off"?  Do most walk down or are there jumpers out there?

dependant on age weather condition and if you know what you are doing if your dog is jumping off that needs corection work on lead and teach him/her to ''walk steady'' it is common but still a fault 

how old is your dog?

if his hips and elbows are ok i wouldnt worry just keep him on a lead until he has got the right idea

good luck

of course a dog can get injured from flying off the wall and slamming into the ground.and very badly!.. that is why you start it very low and teach the dog a target spot and gradually raise the height.. build the behavior you want at a lower level and thenincrease the difficulty

You need to be careful with the A-frame.  The dog should be taught not to jump from the top as shoulder injuries can occur.  My first male GSD that I did SchH with was very high drive and would fly off the wall.  As a young dog I didn't think it was a problem till he came up lame one day at training after doing the retrieve over the wall.  I looked at how agility people train the A-frame.  You will rarely see their dogs jump from the top of the A-frame.  The A-frame in Agility is painted yellow at the bottom third of the ramp.  These dogs get penalized in competitions if the dog does not make contact with the yellow portion of the frame.  I actually went to an agility club to learn how they trained the A-frame.  The first dog I trained always wanted to jump off the wall, so I always lowered the wall in practice and worked on him walking down.  The only times he went over the wall at full height was during a trial.  Keep in mind your dog is very young now and has many years of going over the A-frame left in him.  You need to imprint the proper technique in him, so he doesn't injure his shoulders.  Think about how the dog lands when he jumps off the wall, it is not going to affect the hips but the shoulders.  My current dog is being trained to walk over the A-frame and not jump from the top. 

I agree with Dkiah totally.  If you have a high drive dog and it's first experiences with the wall are to run up one side and jump off the other, it will be difficult to re-train that.   That was the issue with my first dog, so I always worked with the wall lowered.  It wasn't worth the chance of injury.

Jim