Dog jumpers!~Agility trial people!!?
So can all the agility trial people answer my question or actually comment on it. A dog starts training as soon as she steps in the house for ground manners . Learns all of them by 6 months.This is for big dogs only! The first time you start trotting over jumps you put a little piece of metal- lets call this a bit specially made for dogs- and use the halti to create some sort of bridle . And use the double looped training leash as reins and work the dog like a horse and i think this would be useful for the dog to learn to see the strides and be much more careful to all of the jumps that she’ll see and it’ll help her develop a sensetive contact with the leash and actually i would like to consider the idea of teaching a dog to do lounge work. So just pop me with ideas please and some neat jumping technique dogs pictures would be nice! Thanx from now!
I’m totally unclear why you’d want a modified bridle of sorts on a dog. You say “see the strides” but you absolutely do NOT want the dog down looking at the strides. Having the dog looking down or looking at the obstacles as or just as they’re performed is how you get dropped bars.
Your suggestion is based upon at least two assumptions: that it’s best (or better) for the dog to look at the strides he’s taking and that a dog would tolerate a bridle of sorts. I think both of those assumptions are inaccurate. You do NOT want the dog looking at his strides. And I think a dog would adjust poorly to bridle of sorts with a bit. Remember–horses aren’t carnivores–there instinct isn’t to chew something in their mouth. Dog do chew like crazy–I’d think a bit would be a tremendous distraction.
I don’t know how much experience you have with agility. But the mistake that the vast majority of novices to the sport make is that they think agility is about the obstacles–it isn’t. Agility is about two things:
–teamwork
–how you perform in between the obstacles (ie: the “white space” on the course map). Seriously, look at top level dogs and they all pretty much run the dog walk at the same speed, do the A-frame at the same speed. And you don’t want dogs jumping higher than necessary (that’s wasted speed). It’s what the dog does AFTER or BEFORE the obstacle that matters. How sharp is the turn? Does the dog take the jump straight on (which results in a wider turn) or at an angle? Do your instructions cue the dog to the next obstacle?
The primary reasons that some agility dogs have problems with jumps (especially dropped bars) are:
–dog gets tired (so improve conditioning)
–dog is out of shape or overweight (so improve conditioning)
–cue is late or confusing (so handler needs to cue earlier or more clearly)
–dog has poor foot placement (so work on procepetion with a rope ladder or cavelitti’s)
In any case it’s all irrelevant because all dogs must run naked in agility. Running with some sort of leash/bridle arrangement would be dangerous–get that caught on a jump stanchion or the apex of the A-frame and you could hurt a dog badly.