Tonight's Training is Brought to You By... Straight Line, Equal Distance Grids!

 Tonight, I chose to train the next grid in Punch's foundation training: Straight Line, Equal Distance. The drill is exactly as the name describes. A straight line of 5 jumps that are of equal distance. For Punch, the distance was about 4'. I have posted screenshots from my DVD that give verbal descriptions of the setup and ultimate goal of this grid. My video wasn't cooperating tonight but if you watched it you would see that I tried to increase the distance to 5' and was not as successful. Part of the problem is that my jump bars are 4' and easy to use for measuring distance. The other issue is that, not only did I increase distance too much, but I also didn't make the distance EQUAL! 

The bounce jumping was much more present once I went back to 4'. The goal was to use the jumps at low heights to facilitate the dog to bounce without adding a stride between each jump. I will try to load my video another day. I was very pleased with my execution and my dog's performance. Punch is really starting to understand that there is more to this jumping stuff than just acting like a whacko! 

The next grid was a variation of the SLED grid. Spacing was the same but jumps 2 & 4 had height. The bars never went higher than 10" and that's about as high as I would go for Punch. It was very cool to see the change in elevation with him. At one point I had to substitute a bar for a stride regulator because he was trying to much to jump the facilitator. That seemed to do the trick and I don't think it hurt anything. 

Before I move on I would like to add something. If this is the first time doing this grid, and you haven't done much jump work with more than 1 or 2 jumps, you should target the jumps starting with jump 1 and adding one jump at a time. See the photo to the lower right for reference:


With Monster, I chose to work a very simple layout that tests timing of different handling choices. I haven't gone through the video yet but, when I do, I will post it to this blog post. This drill gave me the opportunity to test out the "early" front cross I've been training with him.  I got to test it turning him to the right as well as the left. 


Video of Punch's SLED:

A couple of days later, I worked on a straight line w/ distance grid. This was a little bit harder for me to set up because I don't have a good eye for measuring and no good tools for measuring distance. I have been using my 4 ft jump bars but needed more distance than that for this grid. I don't think my distances are 100% where they should be with Punch from jump 3 to jump 4. I did get a nice bounce jump for jumps 1-3 though! 

When I worked the same grid with Monster he didn't bounce 1-3 but I did get nice distance from him. I will have to work more SLED with Monster to find the best distance for a bounce from him. Is it possible that Monster and punch both need the same distance for bouncing jumps? They can wear the same jackets, almost have the same distance between fore and rear limbs, and both are very powerful dogs. Punch may have shorter legs but could their strides be similar? that's something I am excited to check out over the next few weeks! 

Bonus News!: I ordered 3 new jumps (practice jumps off eBay) and jump cups and some jump cup strips for my jumps! I am so excited! I have always had to eyeball jump height and now I won't have to!!!

Punch's Straight Line w/ Distance:

Monster running Straight Line w/ Distance: