This article is about how to teach your American Akita jumping for agility. Often we are asked, “How many jumps is best to start with?” You can never have too many single jumps to practice agility. A suitable starting place is four jumps. This is the minimum quantity of jumps suggested.
How to Teach the American Akita to jump: Start with Four
You can teach the American Akita many exercises, skills, and drills with 4 jumps. Four jumps will allow you to work 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 American Akita jumping left and right. You can be outside the box and send your American Akita or you can handle from the inside of the box. Your jumps can be staged in a lateral line, so that you can practice serpentines and threadles.
Teach Your American Akita 8 Jumps
Take the next step and get 8 jumps. Now you can position 2 boxes with one introductory jump. You’ve now multiplied your routines that you can work on with your American Akita. Your jump grids can be of recommended size and number of jumps. You can also position your jumps in a circle with the jump bars normal to the circle or on the circumference of the circle. This setup also enables you to develop a variety of drills.
Teaching the American Akita Double and Triple Jumps
Your next step is a double jump and a triple jump. You can chain two or 3 single 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 American Akitas run a clean course and the last obstacle is a triple and the American Akita is not equipped to do it, and bang, down comes the bar.
Don’t forget to check out these other articles about American Akitas.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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