We’re into week 3 now, which leaves the jump heights the same, so we’re still at 8 inch jump heights.

He does VERY well the first day! Jump 5 is gorgeous! I’m starting to see real improvement. During day 2, I realized I forgot to put my memory card in, so I didn’t catch every jump we did. I also decided to try running with him to see what that did… I’m running funny because I’m in my snow boots and they aren’t exactly the best thing to run in, so it seemed to throw him off just slightly at the beginning. Then he kind of decided to ignore me and focus on the jump, and he did a lot better! During day 3, I started just running with him to watch his strides more than really running to run with him, so I’m getting a really good look at just how his strides are. Runs 5 and 6 are really great!

During Week 4, we will move the jump heights up. My jump cups for the two jumps I built (the final two you see in the chute) only go every two inches, so I’m going to have to move up to 10 inches instead of gradually moving to 9, then 10… I hope it’s not going to throw things off too much.
Next week is also the final week in our 8-week long agility classes, and I think I will stop for just a bit… give Auggie a few weeks to work on his jumping and nothing else. Once he starts to improve and the weather warms up, we’ll pick up again, probably going to private lessons back out at his breeder’s place! Gotta work on those contacts, too.

I meant to start last week but things kept coming up. So as of yesterday we are in week 2. Week 1 is getting dogs used to jumps/jumping multiple jumps; Clothier gives people who have dogs used to that sort of thing, IE flyball, permission to go straight to week 2. We don’t do flyball but Auggie IS used to jumping a ton of jumps in a row, so I went ahead and skipped to week 2.

Please forgive my very ghetto jump chute… I am in the process of trying to decide on some kind of fencing to build the other side, and until then I’m using my two ex-pens and the plastic playpen I’ve had since Auggie was a wee puppy. Also please forgive some of the camera angles… I know it’s hard to see a lot of the jumps. I was still trying to figure out the best way to shoot the videos.

Some details: per the measurements and formula in the book, our distance between jumps is 90 inches. I had a lot of trouble deciding on what height to start working at, and ultimately I decided to start at 10 inches (Auggie normally jumps 12), and if it seemed that was too high to move down to 8. The jump heights were all set at 10 inches during day 1. During day 2, I went ahead and moved the jump heights down to 8 inches after the third jump. They will remain at 8 inches for a while.

During day one, he basically stutter-steps the ENTIRE length of the chute. I apologize for not having all six jumps filmed, but my mom was helping me and by “helping” I mean she was putting her terrible camerawork to use. Only four of the videos she shot were any good, so those are the four jumps I show.
By the sixth jump on day 2, he actually appears to run the length between the jumps (it’s supposed to be two stride lengths) instead of stutter-stepping the entire length between jumps. He’s still not taking normal stride-lengths; he still stutter-stepped just about the whole length of the chute. But he is smoothing out a little.
Day 3 gives us some better results and he really begins to smooth out more. There were multiple times that I could count the two strides between jumps. Day three was encouraging to start seeing progress already!