This blog is about teaching the Miniature Australian Shepherd jumping for agility. We are often asked, “What number of jumps is best to begin with?” You can’t ever have enough single jumps to teach agility. One good starting place is four jumps. This is the absolute least number of jumps suggested.
Teaching the Miniature Australian Shepherd to jump: Begin with Four
You can teach a Miniature Australian Shepherd a plethora of exercises, drills, and skills with 4 jumps. 4 jumps will let you work on a short jump chute or jump grid. You can practice on a “box” with your jumps and practice 270 degree jumps, collection, and handling. You can teach your Miniature Australian Shepherd jumping right and left. You could be out of the box and send your Miniature Australian Shepherd or you can handle from within the box. Your jumps can be staged in a lateral line, so that you could practice threadles and serpentines.
Teach a Miniature Australian Shepherd Eight Jumps
Take the next logical step and develop eight jumps. Now you can position 2 boxes with 1 introductory jump. Now you’ve increased the number of exercises that you can practice with your Miniature Australian Shepherd. Your jump grids can be of suggested size and number of jumps. You could also position your jumps in a circle with the jump bars normal to the circle or on the circumference of the circle. This pattern also allows you to work on a variety of skills.
Teaching Your Miniature Australian Shepherd Double and Triple Jumps
The next consideration is a double jump and a triple jump. You can position two or 3 solo jumps together to make your expanded jump, however having double and triple jumps in your course work is really valuable to work on. We’ve seen many Miniature Australian Shepherds run a clean course and the final obstacle is a triple and the Miniature Australian Shepherd is not ready to do it, and bang, down comes the bar.
Don’t forget to check out these other articles about Miniature Australian 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 🙂