This blog is about teaching the Patterdale Terrier to jump for agility. Often we are asked, “How many jumps should I begin with?” You can never have enough single jumps to learn agility. A good starting point is 4 jumps. This is the absolute minimum number of jumps that we recommend.
Teaching Your Patterdale Terrier jumping: Start with 4
You can teach a Patterdale Terrier many exercises, skills, and drills with four jumps. Four jumps will allow you to develop on a short jump chute or jump grid. You can position a “box” with your jumps and work on handling, collection, and 270 degree jumps. You can teach your Patterdale Terrier jumping right and left. You could be outside the box and send your Patterdale Terrier or you can handle from within the box. Your jumps can be staged in a lateral row, so that you could practice threadles and serpentines.
Teach the Patterdale Terrier 8 Jumps
Go to the next logical step and practice eight jumps. Now you can setup two boxes with one introductory jump. Now you’ve multiplied your drills that you can work on with your Patterdale Terrier. Your jump grids can be of typical size and quantity of jumps. You could also setup the jumps in a circle with the jump bars perpendicular to the circle or on the perimeter of the circle. This setup also enables you to train a variety of drills.
Teaching a Patterdale Terrier Double and Triple Jumps
Your next consideration is a double jump and a triple jump. You could set 2 or 3 solo jumps together to make your expanded jump, but having double and triple jumps in your course work is extremely beneficial to practice. We’ve seen several Patterdale Terriers run a flawless course and the last obstacle is a triple and the Patterdale Terrier is not prepared to do it, and bang, down comes the bar.
Don’t forget to check out these other articles about Patterdale 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 🙂
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