Susan Salo Jumping 5

Today was our first day with the equal-distance grid with height. This means that our jumps are all still 4' apart, but a few of the jumps are actual jumps and the others are not jumps but stride regulators. I had to check my notes over and over again to make sure I had the right jumps as jumps and the right jumps as stride regulators... it just doesn't seem totally right. I think I'm going to watch the video again even though I can't figure out why or how I might have written it down wrong, so it must be right.

Anyway, we began with the jumps at 8" which is where we were last week, and the stride regulators for small dogs should be at 4". The first time through, he dropped the bar on the second jump. The second time through, he dropped the bar on the FIRST jump. So, since we're not supposed to rehearse failure, I took away one part of the equation and lowered the jumps to 6" instead. Height is supposedly the easiest part of the equation for a dog, though we believe Auggie's problem with jumping came as a direct result of not being confident about the height... either way, dropping the jumps to 6" did the trick. The only weird thing is that I've noticed he's sort of hopping the last bar as though it's a jump rather than just running straight over it. He doesn't have that problem with the first and third jumps (stride regulators) but that last one there is a little different. Obviously it doesn't seem to be a problem so much as it just struck me as odd.

Video is here:


I noticed while watching these and then watching back through my Clothier jumping videos that in the early weeks of Clothier's chutes, Auggie was still stutter-stepping a LOT. Even in the later weeks when he was successful at the first four jumps, he would stutter-step up to the fifth jump. Those chutes were set for two stride lengths and Salo's chutes are set for only one stride length. Obviously the question of distance as not as big of a question here so there's no real room for stutter-stepping. The real test will be when we enter the next grid, which is where I imagine we'll see Auggie's stutter-stepping return with a vengeance...
We won't be trying those grids for another week or so, so we'll all just have to wait and see how things develop.