This blog is concerning how to teach your Rat Terrier to jump for agility. Often we are asked, “What number of jumps is best to start with?” You can’t ever have enough solo jumps to teach agility. A good starting point is four jumps. This is the minimum count of jumps recommended.
Teaching a Rat Terrier jumping: Begin with 4
You can teach the Rat Terrier many exercises, drills, and skills with four jumps. 4 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 Rat Terrier jumping left and right. You could be out of the box and send your Rat Terrier or you can handle from within the box. Your jumps could be positioned in a lateral row, so that you can practice threadles and serpentines.
Teach Your Rat Terrier Eight Jumps
Go to the next step and practice eight jumps. Now you can setup two boxes with one starter jump. You’ve now increased the number of drills that you can work on with your Rat Terrier. Your jump grids can be of typical size and quantity of jumps. You can also setup the jumps in a circle with the jump bars normal to the circle or on the circumference of the circle. This setup also allows you to develop a variety of skills.
Teaching Your Rat Terrier Double and Triple Jumps
The next step is a double jump and a triple jump. You can chain 2 or 3 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 several Rat Terriers run a perfect course and the final obstacle is a triple and the Rat Terrier is not equipped to do it, and bang, down comes the bar.
Don’t forget to check out these other articles about Rat Terriers.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 🙂
Follow