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)11_wks_jump_step_in2 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!