Agility training has changed a lot since I last had a puppy in 2001. “Teaching a puppy to jump” back then meant teaching it to run over a low pole between two uprights … and then suddenly raising that pole up to competition height during the last 3 or 4 months before he hit the ring. And it worked well enough – most dogs figured out how to get over the jumps with some degree of accuracy, although not always in the most efficient way.
Since then most people have begun to use jumping grids to actually teach their dog the skills that go into jumping – identifying the correct spot to take off from, estimating the size of the gap between them and that spot, and adjusting their stride so that they can arrive there with their legs organised and their weight in their rear end, ready for takeoff. This concept came from the horse world (where it’s too dangerous to let the animal just “figure it out” through trial and error on full-height jumps) and has become popular in agility circles through a series of DVDs published by Susan Salo.
I’ve watched Susan’s Puppy Jumping DVD a couple of times, and last week I finally had the chance to try it out with my puppy for the first time. I don’t have any jump bumps at home yet, but I’m lucky that we have a set at my club so I got them out after rally-o training for Able’s first gridwork session.
Before Jump Bumps
This turned out be a learning experience, rather than an actual gridwork session, because he didn’t actually go over many of the bumps. Here’s some things I need to work on or remember for next time:
- Sit Stays. Yes, this again (my puppy learns more quickly than I do). Able can hold a reasonably long sit stay at club now (puppy class has helped), but he hasn’t done a sit stay while I walked away for 5+ metres before. I’d get partway down the grid and then there’d be a frantic little whimper and my puppy would join me. If I had someone to hold him I could manage without this – but I don’t so I have been working on adding distance to our sit stay this week.
- Driving to a Toy. This is such a simple thing, but apparently I hadn’t done it with Able yet. Gridwork requires your puppy to focus straight ahead on a toy and run to it, while you are standing off to the side. Able had no idea about this and kept coming straight to me. I started with a grid of 4 bumps which was a mistake (2 would have given him a better chance to see his toy since it would be closer), but even after I reduced it to just two jumps, he was still too focused on me. I haven’t done any work with him on placing a toy on the ground for him to retrieve (rather than letting him see me throw it) so that’s something else we’ve been doing in the hallway at home.
- Use wing jumps for your first attempt. I popped the jump bumps over the rally-o hurdles which were already out – but these just have narrow metal uprights with no wings. Even if I stood right in the centre of the jump bump lane so that Able could see me over the two bumps, he still preferred to swerve around the funny things while he ran to me. I’ll use wings next time and hopefully that will make the correct path a little more obvious; he won’t be able to swerve around them without briefly losing sight of me.
Agility Practice On a Walk
Able now spends over half of his walking time off lead, and I’m super stoked with how reliable his recall is. I usually throw in small pieces of agility training during our walk, both because it’s fun, and because as the days get shorter I don’t have a lot of other opportunities to work with him outdoors in daylight.
This week one of the things we’ve been working on is sit stays while I walk away a few metres. I usually come back and feed him, and then for the last one I call him and we play a game of tug.
It’s also a really great chance to introduce basic handling skills. I live alone so I don’t always have a helper ready to hold my puppy so I can get ahead of him for restrained recalls. Walks give me a chance to get some distance – I wait until the puppy is 10ish metres away from me, then I call him, wait until he starts coming, and turn to run in the other direction. (It is important to wait until the puppy is coming anyway … otherwise you may create a puppy who only comes when you turn and run).
Able and I are pretty good at the classic restrained recall now, so I have begun to introduce two basic agility handling moves – the front cross and the blind cross.
Blind Cross
When you are running ahead of your dog, you will have one arm out and your torso rotated slightly towards that side, and your head angled so that you can see him in your peripheral vision. These are the cues you use to let your dog know which side of your body he is supposed to come to. I have been working on this with Able for a few weeks, and he’s now finally got the hang of it.
A blind cross occurs when you are running ahead of your dog and he is driving to one side of your body, but then you switch all of these cues and ask him to come to the other side. You’ll briefly lose your “connection” with your puppy as you turn your head, but try to pick him up on the new arm as quickly as possible.
You can start this in your hallway or garden at home. Leave your puppy in a sit stay, walk out a few metres and stand still. Make a connection with your dog on over one arm, call him, and then immediately switch to the other arm (as shown in this snippet of a very long video on training blind crosses). Mix this up with lots of straight recalls where you don’t switch sides on your pup – aim for 60% or 70% straight recalls with just a few blind crosses sprinkled in.
Once you’ve learned how to do it standing still, you can call your puppy while you’re still walking to practise it on the move. Then it’s time to take it to the park and try it out at a run. Make sure your puppy is still a good distance (ideally 10m) behind you when you do the cross at speed while you’re both learning. You can gradually reduce this distance as he learns, but you should always be far enough ahead that he has a fair chance to see your change of side and respond to it before he catches up to you.
Front Cross
The front cross is a handling manoeuvre where you change sides without breaking your connection with your dog. It’s easiest to learn with a 180-degree turn at walking pace, as shown in this video. Walk along with your dog next to you, and your closest hand out. Rotate your body 180 degrees towards your dog – he will likely rotate towards you as well, and voila you are both facing the right direction and your dog is on the other side of you.
Back to the video I linked – there is an example at 1:53 where the handler turns 270 degrees while the dog is coming towards her over a jump, and the dog then turns 90 degrees to be parallel to her. This is a less abrupt change in direction for the dog, so it’s easier for your puppy once you start doing it at full speed.
Once you and your puppy both have the hang of doing a front cross at the walk, it’s time to add more speed by throwing it into a restrained recall. Always give the puppy fair warning by slowing down and taking a couple of short strides before you turn. This is how you will let him know that he needs to prepare for a turn when you are running agility later. He’s only learning at the moment, so make it as dramatic and obvious as you need to for your puppy to succeed.