This post is about teaching the King Shepherd jumping for agility. Often we are asked, “How many jumps should I begin with?” You can’t ever have too many single jumps to learn agility. One good starting place is four jumps. This is the least number of jumps suggested.
Teaching the King Shepherd to jump: Start with 4
You can teach a King Shepherd many exercises, skills, and drills with four jumps. 4 jumps will allow you to develop on a short jump chute or jump grid. You can practice on a “box” with your jumps and work on handling, collection, and 270 degree jumps. You can teach your King Shepherd jumping left and right. You can be outside the box and send your King Shepherd or you can handle from within the box. Your jumps can be staged in a lateral line, so you could practice serpentines and threadles.
Teach Your King Shepherd 8 Jumps
Go to the next logical step and develop 8 jumps. Now you can position two boxes with one introductory jump. You’ve now multiplied your drills that you can try with your King Shepherd. Your jump grids can be of suggested size and quantity of jumps. You can even position your jumps in a circle with the jump bars normal to the circle or on the perimeter of the circle. This setup also enables you to work on a variety of drills.
Teaching Your King Shepherd Double and Triple Jumps
The next step is a double jump and a triple jump. You could position 2 or three single jumps together to make your expanded jump, but having double and triple jumps in your course work is extremely valuable to work on. We’ve seen many King Shepherds run a perfect course and the last obstacle is a triple and the King Shepherd is not equipped to do it, and bang, down comes the bar.
Don’t forget to check out these other articles about King Shepherds.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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