Clean Run - February 2013 - 27

It is important to work each step of the exercise on both your
left and right. You will often see that your dog has more difficulty maintaining a good bend in his body in one direction, but
not the other. This is the side you need to pay special attention
to, and reinforce more, so you increase the dog’s understanding and likelihood of success.
Once your dog has perfected his turning movement at this distance and height, work to bring the dog up to his competition
jump height. After you reach full height, you can increase your
starting distance from the jump, a couple of feet at a time, as
your dog’s success rate and understanding allow. Progression
is the same over a jump as it was for the plunger work on the
flat: if your dog is successful a few times, increase the difficulty slightly; and, if he fails a few times, go back to the last
spot he was successful.
When you can send your dog to the jump from 20' away and
get a good, smooth wrap, you can repeat the exercise progression with a toy as a reward instead of food. This will increase
your dog’s excitement so that you can proof your turn work.
Remember to start at the beginning again, with the bar 4-6"
lower than what your dog would normally jump and the two
of you starting 2-3' in front of the jump.
Troubleshooting: If the dog knocks a plunger, mark it with
a light verbal marker, like Oops, and take the dog with you
while you reset the plunger. Let your dog see you put the
plunger up, and call his attention to it by giving it a couple
taps before trying it again. Reassess the turn you asked him

February 13

| Clean Run

to make, and decide if you progressed too fast, or added distance and speed too quickly. Try again, and when the dog
leaves the plungers up, make a big deal of him with genuine
praise and jackpot rewards.
Angled Approach to the Turn
While you always want your wrap in the previous exercise to be
a tight bend, when you send your dog to a jump from an angle,
you may require a tight bend or a softer bend, depending what
is before and after the jump on course. The work on angled approaches allows you to teach your dog about his tight turn radius when approaching the jump at a different orientation, as well
as other degrees of bend he will be asked to negotiate. My main
goal when working this setup is to have my dog show me that
he understands how to turn over the jump without slicing across
the bar and overcorrecting on his shoulders when he lands. As
the dog approaches the jump, his head, back, angle of lean, and
feet should tell me that when he lands he will be able to travel in
a direction consistent with his approach arc.
Again, our setup consists of a jump and two plungers. Imagine
that the jump bar is the apex of the plunger triangle. Place the
two plungers so that you can control the entry and exit points
of the turn. The positioning of the plungers should be based on
the size of the dog, place them a shorter distance from the bar
for small dogs and a longer distance for large dogs. The positioning can also change based on the degree of bend you want
your dog to complete. The jump should be 4-6" lower than
what your dog would normally jump. Start by standing

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Clean Run - February 2013

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