Clean Run Magazine - March 2008 - 22

Trainer’s Forum By Brenna Fender Anne Andrle Depending on what you are trying to train, the answer may change. Generally, when you are training a new skill, such as tight jump grids, or perhaps a jumping conﬁguration that represents a new handling skill for you (serpentines or threadles, for example), I recommend lowering the jumps to somewhat below your competition height. This allows room for less precise jumping while both of you learn the timing and physical dexterity necessary to perform the new skill. Once you and/or the dog become proﬁcient at the new skill, the jumps can be raised slowly back to competition height. If the dog knocks bars while using the new skill after you’ve raised the height, it may be a sign that you have not perfected the skill. As always, rule out physical injury ﬁrst. When running sequences or courses, I recommend training at the dog’s competition height most of the time. At the 26" jump height, with a dog that is a well-trained jumper and proﬁcient at 26", it is probably I’ve heard different things about which jump heights I should use in training. In practice, should I jump my dog higher, lower, or the same as his competition height? Should I vary the heights or always have the jumps set the same? Anne M. Andrle, MS, PharmD and her seven-year-old Border Collie, Ski, will represent the USA at the 2008 IFCS World Championship in Belgium. She is an eight-time USDAA National Finalist with her dogs, Cody and Ski. Contact her at anne@xtremeagility.com. reasonable to train at 24" most of the time, putting the jumps up to 26" before a competition. When doing a jump oval, or other controlled jumping setup, I sometimes put the jumps at different heights, or put one end higher than the other in an attempt to remind the dog to think about the bars. I try to do this in a controlled course design, so that I can quickly mark a knocked bar before the dog moves on to the next obstacle. There are many reasons why a dog is often jumped higher than his measured competition height in training, or even in competition. Creating a rounder jumping style, teaching a dog to better use his body, slowing a dog down, backing a dog off that tends to travel primarily on his forehand, allowing the handler a bit more time between obstacles: all these things may often be helped by jumping a dog higher, perhaps even on a temporary basis. Good luck! Jean Lavalley I believe which height you spend most of your practice time doing depends on the dog. I have trained several dogs and each has needed a different regimen. Most of my dogs are trained with a variety of heights, but I can honestly say that is because they jump a variety of heights in competition, depending on the venue. My young Sheltie, Spec, for example, is 13 1/2" tall. This means she jumps 12" in AKC, 14" in FCI, and possibly in the future 16" in USDAA. For her I think it’s important that she see the different heights and learn to cope with them on a regular basis. On the other hand, she didn’t start out as the most naturally driven dog, so I tend to spend more time on the lower jumps to encourage her to go forward more aggressively than is possible for her over the bigger jumps. This does not seem to negatively affect her ability to jump the higher jumps when I set them up for her. 22 This makes handling him at higher heights seem easy. I guess on the whole our dogs mainly see their competition heights on a regular basis with a tendency to spend more time training at their lowest competition height. If I need to work on my timing or handling I will jump them lower. If I see a need for the dogs to work on their jumping, I use their higher competition height. If I have a big event coming up, they see jumps that they will see at that event for both my timing and their jumping. All this advice is for light-bodied, athletic dogs that clear all the heights they are required to jump easily. If I had dogs that were more structurally challenged, like a heavier breed not built for jumping, I think I would err on the side of caution and not do tons of repetition at a high height that is physically challenging to the dog. For those dogs the higher jump heights are more likely to cause long-term damage or wear and tear than they would with a lighter-built dog. Clean Run | March 08 Jean and her husband Joel have been involved in agility with their Shelties and BC since 1995. Jean is a small animal veterinarian in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and she and her husband own Its4dogs, an agility equipment/ rental business. They travel about 30 weekends a year to agility trials. Visit their website: www.its4dogs.com. Taz had a competition height of 12" AKC, 16" USDAA, and 18" for FCI. She was a somewhat careless jumper early on, so I tended to make sure she spent a good deal of her time at 18" so that she learned to handle it. Before a big event where she would be required to jump 18", I would do most of my training at the highest height. She even saw some 20" jumps on rare occasions. I think that, for her, having the heights varied made her a more thoughtful jumper. As an older dog, she jumps 12" only in competition. I’d train her on even lower jumps, but frankly we now spend most of our training time off the agility ﬁeld to keep her from getting injured at 11-1/2 years old. Our BC Beep doesn’t seem to require much in the way of keeping him honest at the higher heights. He gets trained a lot at lower heights to help us improve our timing.

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Clean Run Magazine - March 2008

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