Well I am feeling a bit better today so I thought I should try and train my dogs. Because we have grass that is green and not too soggy I thought I should fire up my jump grids for the girls. Susan Salo will be here in a couple of weeks, and it is not like I am “cramming” or anything because I have been doing grids, but only inside on carpet. When working on carpet the grids are mostly focused on keeping the dog’s rear under them when they jump. Susan’s “spider” is a great exercise to facilitate that. I mix it up by doing spreads (both ascending and parallel) Sweedish oxers to make them think harder and I throw in the long jump. I also make sure the girls see movement from me while in the spider and occassionally I will let them load themselves (I do this by allowing them to start 6′ away from the “V” point of the spider. I will start my grid work outside today by reminding both girls of how a spider feels outside. For those that have know idea of what I am talking about I have included a picture but I highly reccommed you hop on our website and buy Susan Salo’s Jumping DVD. I have included a picture of the spider so you get the idea of what I am talking about. In Susan’s DVD she includes a pdf which has plans on how to make one for yourself. Here training Feature as a puppy I have bumps down rather than jump bars (obviously she was wee puppy!). When I train my adult dogs there are no bumps just 1 bar across the jump. This is a great exercise for dogs that want to “pull on their front end” rather than loading from the rear.
Today I am very grateful that my health is on the upswing!
Susan-
Thanks so much for this post (and the picture), I am truly struggling with my BC to engage his rear and get off his front end.
Funny thing is I own the Jumping Foundation DVD and don’t remember the “spider”, I remember the V-Bounce and the set point, but is this a combination of both? I will be running home after work today and popping in the DVD 🙂
Will this exercise assist with my BC landing heavy on his inside shoulder? I have trouble with my pup when he is bending over a jump he tends to land harder on the inside (front) leg….I work the bending grid all the time and he does this well…any thoughts to help us out?
Thanks for your wonderful posts and insights I really appreciate the time you spend sharing your wisdom.
Mary
Hi Susan, long time reader, first time poster here.
Very glad to hear you are on the mend 🙂
I find it interesting that you train your dogs on a decending spread. Everywhere I have ever trained we are told not to do that as you don’t want the dog to think back jumping a spread is a good idea. (mind you all of these dogs seem very happy to back jump them anyway given a chance) Is jumping the decending spread when doing jump grids benificial to the dogs? I think I might add this to the list of things to vary on my jump grids 🙂
My dogs and I thank you for all the big and little things you share with us! 🙂 🙂