Clean Run - March 2018 - 29

Distance Jump Training
for any Dog, Part 3
By Stacy Winkler, photo by Frank Barnhart

Welcome to the third installment of
my distance jump training series.
This isn't a standalone article so if
you haven't already done the work
in the first two articles, please get
your hands on those articles and
begin with part one so that you can
work through the progression!
If your dog is driving confidently
through 180s independently, with
the jumps a minimum distance of 18
feet apart, you are ready to move
on to the next phase of training.
But please keep in mind that your
goal should be to accomplish these
jumping skills to extremes, especially if your dog is faster than you;
for example, I need my dog to drive
away easily, with me supporting him,
to a jump that is 30 feet or more
away! But you can continue working to increase the distance on your
180s as you introduce the next skill.
It's very important, as you work all
the drills in this series of articles,
that you intermittently reward all the
jumps. We want our dog to power
just as hard over the first jump as
he does the third, middle, and last
jump. By keeping our reinforcement

March 18 | Clean Run

level high we increase our dog's
understanding and value for all the
jumps and handling maneuvers
which will translate to more speed
and confidence around the course.
You will never have a dog that is
slow for the first two-thirds of the
course and speeds up for the last
few obstacles-your dog will drive
hard all the way around.

Drill 7: Foundation for
Independent Pinwheels
The pinwheel configuration is another behavior, just like the 180, that
in one form or another we see in
agility constantly. The angles may
be tweaked a bit, or the pinwheels
may include other obstacles besides
jumps, but pinwheels are all over
our agility courses here in the U.S.
Therefore, it is another behavior
where independent understanding
is vital if you want to work from a
distance to your dog. This is a brilliant distance skill as it really creates
flexibility in handling skills. If you
can trust your dog will take jumps in
his path when you give him enough
impulsion and keep your connection, then you can leave him to take

care of the jumps while you run to
get ahead.
Setting Up
Begin by setting up a pinwheel with
the jumps about 12 feet apart as
shown. You can bring the jumps
closer together if you are concerned about having success, but
as soon as you see that your dog
is looking for their next jump, and
is confident, spread the jumps out.
As in the previous drills, you will not
use jump bars.
The behavior we want to see looks
like this: with our dog in drive, we
send him over the first jump and
rotating our shoulders to commit the
dog to the next jump. As the dog
runs through the uprights and turns,
he will see the next jump directly in
his path. Because we have built a
ton of value for going through the
jump uprights in the previous drills,
the dog should get a bead on the
next jump and run right through.
Your dog's approach to the first
jump is of paramount importance.
You must set up your dog so that
he is headed straight to the first

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - March 2018
