Welcome to the first post of our Training Notes! If you haven’t already, please feel free to check out our ‘Welcome to Training Notes‘ post!
So, you’ve already gotten started with your agility jumping? Your dog is jumping at a good (and safe) height, but you just can’t seem to get the speed? Well don’t worry! This is the post for you!
I have also come across this experience, where you have the jumping down but just can’t seem to get your dog running up to it faster! Well, all you need is a smaller hurdle!
With your agility jump set up normally, place a smaller hurdle about a meter or more away from it. This should be at least half the height of your normal jump. If you are training a smaller dog, simply putting a jump pole on the ground (instead of a hurdle) could also work!
Now you can just take your dog through the sequence again this time with the hurdle before the jump! This should get your dog going over the hurdle and continue running to the jump!
Remember to use positive reinforcement with lots of praise and rewards!
If you’re looking to extend the sequence or are aiming for more speed in between jumps, simply put one before and in the middle of the sequence!
This exercise can also be good if you’re looking for better stride with your dog! It will also help dogs that tend to crash into the jump to crash less!
We hope this helps! Please check out the video below that we made to go along with this post!