I’m an agility fanatic. I’m no expert, but I work hard and like to try new things. I mostly show hounds, but I got an Aussie (Artemis) a couple years ago and found that training a herding breed was nothing like training a hound. You may think that hounds are stupid, but they are not- I find them to be very easy to train with proper motivation. The hard part is showing them (once the reinforcement is no longer on the handler). Hounds have a distinct advantage over the herding breeds in that they are forgiving of training mistakes- if your timing is poor they likely won’t notice, but with my Aussie I found I was inadvertently rewarding the wrong behaviors due to lousy timing. The Aussie will be confused for weeks if I screw up in training. This can be very frustrating, but it is quite an education. Anyway, I must be improving, as the Aussie is frequently awesome (but still suffers from confusion, as I will never be perfect).
Since I got Veri I’ve been watching GSDs run in agility and I see a great many with jumping issues. They don’t necessarily drop bars, but they are not confident jumpers. I see a lot of dogs flinging themselves over jumps, and it is often painful to watch them jump, especially over the spread jumps (this really isn’t confined to GSDs- I’m seeing all sorts of dogs with poor jump work). Maybe I’m too picky, but I don’t want this with Veri- I want a confident and effortless jumper. She’s too young to work on formal jump skills (not quite eight months old), so I borrowed Bailey from Julie to study foundation jumping skills and develop a plan for training GSDs to jump.
I had to do a lot of jump skills training with Artemis; she was not confident and dropped a lot of bars early on at her AKC height (16”). We did a lot of Susan Salo jump grids and setpoint work and she slowly improved. She’s two and a half now and can finally run in USDAA championship (22”). I had to do a lot of core strength work with her too to give her the physical foundation she needed (this was mostly balance disk work and a lot of sit up/standup work).
Anyway, with Artemis I started with Mecklenburg type one jump training and got the height up quickly; it did not take long before she could clear 24” with no issue. This is basically a single jump with the trainer kneeling on the floor by the jump and rewarding the dog for every offered jump. The idea (as I understand it), is to get the dog focusing down on the floor, so the treat is not delivered from the hand, but rather is always on the floor. This develops a rounded jumping arc. This approach focuses on collection- there is no extended stride jumping in the early work. There is a lot more to it, so if anyone is interested consult the book (I think it is Developing Jumping Skills).
That approach wasn’t enough for Artemis though, so we also did a lot of Susan Salo grids and setpoint exercises. Susan Salo has a background in training horses to jump and brought a lot of her ideas to the dog agility world and modified them to develop a strong and confident jumping dog; her work is available on DVDs. The setpoint exercise teaches the dog where to take off and also develops a rounded arc. The grids get the dog comfortable with the balance and striding needed for multiple jumps, as the grids are typically five low jumps with the distance based on the dog’s shoulder height. The jumps are very low in most of the grids. With repetition the dog teaches herself how to jump comfortably. It is time consuming, but it worked well with Artemis.
I did not know if this approach would work with a GSD. So I got Bailey after she weaned the Z litter and I’ve had her about a week and a half. I realized pretty quickly that we couldn’t hop right into jump work, as she did not appear to understand the notion of operant conditioning. I prefer to do foundation work with a clicker, feeling that a behavior that is offered freely is more likely to be retained. So we worked with a box (put feet in the box), then a different box (get on it), then went to my agility table (16”). Once she caught on to the idea of the clicker she progressed well. The table work started well enough, with quick work getting on it, but I noticed that she was clumsy about it. It wasn’t long before she was avoiding the table. I upped the treat value (ball!) and she was willing to try again, but she was still clumsy. I didn’t like that clumsiness and thought I’d better stop the table work for now. Interestingly, I also observed her actively avoiding the jumps in my training yard; these were set pretty low and when we were playing fetch games I saw her running around the jumps, even when the most direct approach to her ball was over the jump.
We started a few days ago on jumping, using the Mecklenburg approach. I started with no bar at all- just the uprights to get the idea of going back and forth. That went well so I put the bar up to 10.” She offered the jump, but her style was awful- she just threw herself over the jump. Yuck. I continued, hoping that she’d figure out a comfortable style. I tried a higher bar (14”) thinking it would inspire more arc, and she started avoiding the jump. Not good. Finally last night I got good work over an 8” bar- happy with decent style. I think we will continue with the very low bar and perhaps will start with the Susan Salo jump grids soon. I think any height at all will have to wait awhile.
I tried getting Bailey to sit up (beg), and found she didn’t have the balance or strength to do it (those darn babies sucked all the strength right out of her!). So we will work on core strength.
This hasn’t gone as expected, but it has been a learning experience. I am hopeful that Bailey will learn that jumping is not scary. She sure is a cool dog and I’m having fun with her. My harrier Vivid is helping to condition her by leading her on fast and furious chase games through the yard. It gets kinda rowdy but it is fun to watch.
I learned so much from this post, thank you! I have yet to teach Koda jumping, we will definitely need it later on. Thankfully, I don’t think they have to jump on anything to pass PSA1.
I am to google all the methods you mentioned. Thanks!!!
Just give Bailey a Kong then put a puppy on the other side of the jump. She loves getting in close and throwing Kongs at puppies.
Is that why Ziva is not into Knogs????
Great read, Charlene.
I trained Nikon (Bailey’s littermate) with the Mecklenburg method (one jump, powering and collecting over). He learned from 4″ up to 40″ since he jumps 1 meter in SchH and they are not allowed to touch. Using that method I can send him over a 1m jump from only a few steps away, command him to “platz” as he’s going over so he turns in the air and lands on his belly, and then call him back over so he’s basically jumping a full meter from the ground. He really likes jumping though, always has. The older he gets the more drive he has for obstacles and agility so after we finish his Schutzhund titles we’ll be doing agility more consistently. Nikon’s done some CPE runs and hasn’t knocked bars. His main problem in agility is that he’s completely one-sided. Doing so much hardcore obedience he’s only comfortable on my left, and he prefers to make right turns now due to all the flyball and turning (so if we’re going to a tunnel, he’d rather enter on my left and turn right even if it makes more sense to enter on my right).
I’m starting to train Pan for agility and have begun working on jumping the same way I did with Nikon. Pan is going to be more of a problem. There is more drive so he’s a flat jumper. Nikon has drive for the obstacle itself whereas Pan has more drive for the rewards and just plows through obstacles. Since he is so big it is easy for him, and since neither of my dogs are in any way soft, they think nothing of it; a big mistake doesn’t leave them wondering how to do that obstacle without everything crashing down on them. Also Pan is a super fast flyball dog and flyball unfortunately encourages all sorts of terrible behavior like jumping flat (he jumps 9″ in Singles) and even clipping jumps which is not any sort of penalty other than it costing the dog time. An acquaintance is sending me Susan Salo DVDs. Nikon learned to jump very easily so I need more “help” with Pan.
This is tremendously helpful. Batman is too young to train in real jumps, but I’ve been working on developing his rear-end awareness and doing exercises to teach him to collect his big behind under him. Even without the jumps, it is a challenge! He just wants to hurtle himself at things at full speed.
Thank you for sharing your training log with us. It is very interesting to follow your thought process. Monica says that she remembers Bailey being a pretty good jumper so we are thinking she is just out of shape from having the puppies. We were thinking you should have borrowed Allie or Maika as they are both jumping fools. But I think your intent was to learn and studying jumping. Since Bailey is more a clean slate she is a better subject for your jumping “study.” Which is probably what you were thinking to begin with?
This is a terrific post. Pieka has struggled with jumps as well (she’s a littermate to Nikon and Bailey…how interesting is that?) Part of it was the huge value I built for heeling in her initial training – if it didn’t involve being on my left side and staring at me, she wasn’t interested. But I have also seen some active avoidance of all things jumping. As we’re working towards OB1, this is on my radar! I’m interested in hearing your progress.
For the record Momma Kira is a fan-tabulous jumper.
Thank you for sharing, Charlene. Very insightful.
Please keep us posted on your jumping training. It is perfect timing for me – I have Hailey (13 month T-litter Bailey puppy) in a Intro to Obstacles class with the the Capital City Agility Club. Last week we worked on the single jump – and from your description – it was the Mecklingburg method. Our homework was to work on this one jump method – at very low heights for this week. Hailey is doing very well so far. (we will see at class tonight :)) They are also very concerned about the age of the dog in this class – Hailey will have to stay at low jump heights throughout the class because of her age.
When she was in the Intro class at another place – she kind of just ran thru the jumps – but we didn’t train like this.
I rode hunters for year – and watched them train young horses to jump. They were very thorough and slow – the horses jumped just cross poles for weeks – or longer if they weren’t doing well. Good trainers don’t push jumpers to higher heights until they are sound on the small jumps – dog trainers seem to push the jumping faster.
Karen, I found your comments very insightful. Thank you.
Great information! I’ve learned a lot. I do have to agree with Julie in that Bailey is just a woman who is out of shape after carrying and feeding all those puppies. It takes a while to get your enthusiasm back, let alone your muscle tone!