No video today; my camera had some kind of error... I'm not sure what because I was working Auggie right before leaving for work so I was sort of in a hurry and didn't realize there was an error message until I'd already turned the camera off and cleared the message. Oops!
Anyway, for the first two runs I kept the bars at 4", and then, since he was jumping nice and smooth still and bouncing the strides, I put them up to 8". He continued to bounce each jump smooth for the next three runs. For lack of any other idea of what to do (like stretching out his bounce to 5') I've decided I'll do this exercise two more days, and if he continues to succeed, I'll begin with the straight-line equal-distance grid with height.
My plan is to see if he succeeds there, and if he does, do that exercise for a couple sessions, then alternate between the two grids for 3-4 sessions until moving on to adding the distance grid into our arsenal. No idea if I'm moving too fast or too slow or if you can do a couple grids a day or what, but we'll make it up as we go along.
March 31, 2010
March 29, 2010
Susan Salo Jumping 2
So the plan today was to set the bars at 4" and see what he did. The very first attempt, he took an extra stride on the third jump again. I took a good look at the jumps and thought, okay... maybe 5' distances is too much for him to bounce. The DVD was pretty clear that you shouldn't practice failure so I had to change something else besides the height in order for Auggie to succeed.
The difficulty here is that I have no idea if Auggie should be considered a "small dog" or a "medium dog." I don't consider him a small dog - I think he's medium. But that's MY scale. For the program, small dogs had distances of 4' to 5', and for medium dogs 5' to 6'. So I thought I'd be safe settling at 5' - right there on the cusp of small and medium. But obviously that wasn't working out for Auggie.
So I took a shot and moved the distances to 4'. And ta-da! Lovely bounces.
Looking back at Clothier's Natural Jumping book (which has you measure your dog's height and body length, determine their body proportions, and then look on a chart to determine distances for bounces, 1-stride, and 2-stride lengths) Auggie's calculated bounce distance there was 30". I guess I should have looked at that earlier; I would have realized that 5', or 60", was not appropriate.
So Auggie must be a "small dog" for Susan Salo's program. Which is sort of confusing, because in the DVD Susan works her JRT, and says his jump height is 12" (Auggie's height) but yet she runs him at the 5' distances. Or maybe we should be able to, and should try to, work UP to 5' bounce distances?
I really don't know what I'm supposed to do here. It was much easier to have a chart rather than trying to blindly dump him into a category of "small" or "medium." Again, I feel like I've been given a box of tools, but I'm supposed to go build a house now without really knowing how to use any of them.
So I'll just hope for the best, I guess. So much for measure twice, cut once.
Video here:
The difficulty here is that I have no idea if Auggie should be considered a "small dog" or a "medium dog." I don't consider him a small dog - I think he's medium. But that's MY scale. For the program, small dogs had distances of 4' to 5', and for medium dogs 5' to 6'. So I thought I'd be safe settling at 5' - right there on the cusp of small and medium. But obviously that wasn't working out for Auggie.
So I took a shot and moved the distances to 4'. And ta-da! Lovely bounces.
Looking back at Clothier's Natural Jumping book (which has you measure your dog's height and body length, determine their body proportions, and then look on a chart to determine distances for bounces, 1-stride, and 2-stride lengths) Auggie's calculated bounce distance there was 30". I guess I should have looked at that earlier; I would have realized that 5', or 60", was not appropriate.
So Auggie must be a "small dog" for Susan Salo's program. Which is sort of confusing, because in the DVD Susan works her JRT, and says his jump height is 12" (Auggie's height) but yet she runs him at the 5' distances. Or maybe we should be able to, and should try to, work UP to 5' bounce distances?
I really don't know what I'm supposed to do here. It was much easier to have a chart rather than trying to blindly dump him into a category of "small" or "medium." Again, I feel like I've been given a box of tools, but I'm supposed to go build a house now without really knowing how to use any of them.
So I'll just hope for the best, I guess. So much for measure twice, cut once.
Video here:
March 27, 2010
Susan Salo Jumping 1
I haven't totally abandoned all thought of the Natural Jumping program, but I got both the beginning and advanced jumping DVD's by Susan Salo for Christmas. So right now I'm learning another method and exploring it. So far I can say that the Natural Jumping program is a very clear regiment of "do this on this day; do this on that day," and so on and so forth. Susan Salo gives you the tools for your toolbox and you are sort of left to decide which tool you should use when. The disadvantage of this is that somebody who doesn't know (like me) could easily end up using the screwdriver when they should still be drilling holes.
Obviously there are probably people who would prefer just being given the tools and left to their own devices; personally I liked being able to look at the book and know exactly what to work on with my dog and which point. My plan is to actually try and write up a schedule for myself to try to keep us on track.
Today is the first day I have begun to put into practice training with Susan Salo's methods (not counting the set-point exercises I've been doing since last week and do not have video of.) Today I set up a straight line equal distance grid and worked Auggie through it a few times. It consists of five jumps, set 5' apart, with the bars at 8". It went... well... it went I guess.
Here's video:
Watching these, I think I'm setting him up way too close to the jump. He's supposed to take one step and then jump... I'm setting him up so close that he's basically popping out of his sit and over the jump. Ouch. So that is my fault. I'm pretty sure his one-stride on the second and third runs there is a result of that. Not really sure what happened towards the end there where he strides on jump three.
I took a LOT of notes while watching the Beginning Jumping DVD and I need to go back to them to remind myself about troubleshooting and see what I might do here. I think the first thing to do is to drop the bars down to 4" and work him for a few days at that height... see how he reacts.
Obviously Auggie has major jumping problems and it's going to take a ton of work to help him one way or another.
I will say that Auggie was REALLY EXCITED to see a jump chute set up again. He kept blowing his sit-stays because he was so super excited to get through these. I don't know. It's weird. His confidence isn't 100% even in the jump chutes but he seems to LOVE jumping. My mom would tell me about times last year when he would go to the back of the yard where I set up the jump chutes and he'd pace around crying and whining at her, because he wanted her to set up the chute so he could go work it.
Obviously there are probably people who would prefer just being given the tools and left to their own devices; personally I liked being able to look at the book and know exactly what to work on with my dog and which point. My plan is to actually try and write up a schedule for myself to try to keep us on track.
Today is the first day I have begun to put into practice training with Susan Salo's methods (not counting the set-point exercises I've been doing since last week and do not have video of.) Today I set up a straight line equal distance grid and worked Auggie through it a few times. It consists of five jumps, set 5' apart, with the bars at 8". It went... well... it went I guess.
Here's video:
Watching these, I think I'm setting him up way too close to the jump. He's supposed to take one step and then jump... I'm setting him up so close that he's basically popping out of his sit and over the jump. Ouch. So that is my fault. I'm pretty sure his one-stride on the second and third runs there is a result of that. Not really sure what happened towards the end there where he strides on jump three.
I took a LOT of notes while watching the Beginning Jumping DVD and I need to go back to them to remind myself about troubleshooting and see what I might do here. I think the first thing to do is to drop the bars down to 4" and work him for a few days at that height... see how he reacts.
Obviously Auggie has major jumping problems and it's going to take a ton of work to help him one way or another.
I will say that Auggie was REALLY EXCITED to see a jump chute set up again. He kept blowing his sit-stays because he was so super excited to get through these. I don't know. It's weird. His confidence isn't 100% even in the jump chutes but he seems to LOVE jumping. My mom would tell me about times last year when he would go to the back of the yard where I set up the jump chutes and he'd pace around crying and whining at her, because he wanted her to set up the chute so he could go work it.
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