Teach a New Zealand Heading Dog To Jump for Agility

How to Teach the New Zealand Heading Dog to jump: Start with Four

You can teach your New Zealand Heading Dog many exercises, skills, and drills with four jumps. 4 jumps will allow you to work on a short jump chute or jump grid. You can position a “box” with your jumps and work on 270 degree jumps, collection, and handling. You can teach your New Zealand Heading Dog jumping right and left. You could be outside the box and send your New Zealand Heading Dog or you can handle from within the box. Your jumps can be staged in a horizontal row, so that you can practice serpentines and threadles.

Teach the New Zealand Heading Dog 8 Jumps

Go to the next logical step and practice eight jumps. Now you can position 2 boxes with one starter jump. Now you’ve multiplied the number of routines that you can try with your New Zealand Heading Dog. Your jump grids can be of recommended size and number of jumps. You can also setup the jumps in a circle with the jump bars normal to the circle or on the perimeter of the circle. This setup also allows you to develop a variety of drills.

Teaching a New Zealand Heading Dog Double and Triple Jumps

Your next level is a double jump and a triple jump. You could position 2 or 3 solo jumps together to make your expanded jump, but having double and triple jumps in your course work is really helpful to work on. We’ve seen many New Zealand Heading Dogs run a flawless course and the last obstacle is a triple and the New Zealand Heading Dog is not equipped to do it, and bang, down comes the bar.

Don’t forget to check out these other articles about New Zealand Heading Dogs.

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