This post is concerning teaching your Irish Water Spaniel to jump for agility. We are often asked, “How many jumps should I start with?” You can never have enough solo jumps to learn agility. A suitable starting place is four jumps. This is the minimum count of jumps that we suggest.
Teaching Your Irish Water Spaniel to jump: Begin with 4
You can teach a Irish Water Spaniel many exercises, drills, and skills with 4 jumps. Four jumps will let you develop on a short jump chute or jump grid. You can practice on a “box” with your jumps and work on 270 degree jumps, collection, and handling. You can teach your Irish Water Spaniel jumping left and right. You could be outside the box and send your Irish Water Spaniel or you can handle from the inside of the box. Your jumps could be staged in a horizontal row, so that you can practice serpentines and threadles.
Teach the Irish Water Spaniel 8 Jumps
Take the next step and get 8 jumps. Now you can position two boxes with one introductory jump. You’ve now increased your drills that you can work on with your Irish Water Spaniel. Your jump grids can be of recommended size and number of jumps. You could also setup your jumps in a circle with the jump bars perpendicular to the circle or on the perimeter of the circle. This pattern also enables you to train a variety of skills.
Teaching the Irish Water Spaniel Double and Triple Jumps
Your next step is a double jump and a triple jump. You could position two or 3 solo jumps together to make your expanded jump, but having double and triple jumps in your course work is especially beneficial to practice. We’ve seen several Irish Water Spaniels run a perfect course and the last obstacle is a triple and the Irish Water Spaniel is not equipped to do it, and bang, down comes the bar.
Don’t forget to check out these other articles about Irish Water Spaniels.Was this post helpful? If so, please take a minute to Tweet and Share below on Facebook. I would also love to know your thoughts so leave me a comment 🙂
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