Dryland EV Training and Correct Form

Last summer I made a freestanding bumper holding rig for use on land.  I figured I'd use it to teach the dogs to seek out non-thrown bumpers and start teaching both Aeri and Kes (Snipe wasn't in the picture yet) to jump for the bumper as well, in the hopes of the skill transferring to EV in addition to Speed Retrieve.  (See the original post about using it here: http://teammenapode.blogspot.com/2011/08/dryland-dock-diving.html)

The rig worked well for holding the bumper, but I soon realized that it was encouraging both dogs to pause and then hop straight up for the bumper instead of smoothly jumping *out* toward it, like you see when it's suspended off of a dock.  If it were purely "let's see how high our dogs can jump" this wouldn't be an issue, but when the bumper is suspended 8' away from the end of the dock, your dog needs to understand jumping out as well as up and I didn't like what I was seeing.

After watching the video, I realized that I needed to create a barrier, similar to the one the end of the dock presents, to encourage outward jumping in addition to height. Unfortunately that's easier said than done: how does one create such an edge without the dog just running off the end and onto the grass?!

Solution: you use an agility style bar jump!  All of my dogs have been introduced to jumping over a displaceable bar jump, so they understand the concepts (clearing the bar without touching it, gauging jump height, and calculating when to take off to avoid hitting the bar) already.  All I needed to do was apply it in this context!

I started with a low jump close to the bumper rig.  When I saw that Aeri was indeed adjusting her jumping to accommodate the jump, I added a bit of distance from the rig.  After several successful jumps at the increased distance, I added another 4-6". To keep things fun and progressing nicely, Aeri needed to have success several times at each increased difficulty level before moving ahead and I could only increase the challenge of one element - bumper height, jump height, or jump distance - at a time. 

With the jump approximately 4' from the suspended bumper, Aeri started landing before grabbing the bumper, so I decided to add some height to the jump to encourage a higher, and thus longer, jump arc. This did the trick, and once again she was successfully grabbing the bumper in mid air.  After 2 or 3 successful jumps with the jump set at 12" and 4' from the suspended bumper, I ended the session on a positive note.

I end all my sessions on a "high note" to keep things fun for the dog; if I had pushed Aeri to the point of tiring mentally or physically, she would have been less interested in the game in future sessions - this way she's always looking forward to our next session!

Note: I kept the bumper low throughout to allow her to be successful and to prevent excessive impact given the solid ground below and her young age.

Highlight reel from our work today: