Archie and The "Spread" Jumps

Archie's agility instructor only competes in NADAC. I intend to take Archie mainly to AKC agility events. So what's the difference? Jumps may be replaced with hoops which sit directly on the ground; the dog runs through them with no jumping required. NADAC doesn't use the teeter. And NADAC doesn't use the spread jumps: the double jump, triple jump, and broad jump. 

NADAC also has a lot of games where distance handling is required. Archie has some mad distance skills for a novice dog. Many novice dogs have to be babied all the way to the obstacle. As long as I am clear and consistent, I can send Archie away from me 20 or 30 feet, sometimes more depending on the flow of the course. I can even do this with contact obstacles. That takes strong commitment to the obstacle on his part, and a deep understanding of what my signals mean and what he needs to do with respect to that obstacle. 

But he's entered in his first AKC trial at the end of December. And there is no question that he will encounter the double jump, the triple jump, the broad jump, and the teeter at that trial. He has never seen these obstacles in class.

I wasted no time in finding a solution to the teeter problem. During the summer, I ordered an aluminum base and prepared the plank myself. In September, Archie and I worked our way up from a tipping plank on the ground to full-height teeter. He's rather enthusiastic about doing the teeter, sometimes pulling off the line I am working with him to run off and do it on his own. Some dogs like tunnels, mine prefers the contact obstacles.

I only started jumping him at his full jump height (16") at the beginning of November so there was no point in working on the spreads until then. And I don't actually have any real spread jumps. Rather than spend more money, I decided to take a more DIY approach.

The double didn't pose much of a problem. It is a bi-direction obstacle with two bars at the dog's jump height spaced about 8 inches or so apart, and crossed bars below to give some depth perspective. It turned out to be quite easy to set two of my jumps next to each other. Archie figured this jump out very quickly, really in just one session. He has since learned how to turn and wrap the double. Rather than trying to micromanage it, I let him figure out that I will handle it like a jump but that he has to alter his take-off and landing points a little to accommodate it. 

I solved the triple problem using a similar, but far more rickety, arrangement. The triple can only be performed in one direction. There are three bars at ascending heights. The back of the jump is the highest bar. I taught Archie a new command with this one: hup. The command "over" works for jumps and for the double, but the triple requires that the dog choose a different point to take off and that he remains extended over the jump to safely clear it. This will also change his landing point. He figured this jump out very quickly too but didn't feel comfortable extending over it, instead using the fox terrier "boing"--most inefficient. Setting jumps before and after the triple and requiring him to approach the thing at speed seems to have solved the problem. Perhaps he senses how unstable this mess of PVC is because he never touches any part of it! 

The broad jump had me stumped for a while. It is a weird obstacle made out of long, narrow wooden steps. The width of the steps can be 6 or 8 inches, and you place several of them next to each other to make an obstacle whose width measures twice the dog's jump height, which in Archie's case would be 32 inches. The tops of the steps are usually sloped with the front a little bit lower. The obstacle as a whole doesn't ascend in height though. 

I finally hit on a quick, cheap solution. I bought a wooden shipping pallet for $4 and sawed off a couple of slats to make it close to the right jumping width (it was okay in the other dimension). I slapped a coat of white primer on the top and sides, then added "racing stripes" (as recommended by AKC to improve depth perspective). I used paint I already had from preparing my teeter plank. 

Then I set up jump standards on the four corners, and voila! A very ugly but workable facsimile of a broad jump. I use "hup" on this obstacle too. Archie needed the prompt of a jump bar in the middle of it for the first few times over it, but he figured this one out quickly too. At first, he sailed over it with his hind feet tucked way too far forward but adding jumps to the approach and exit to increase his speed helped him sort this out. 

Archie will never see equipment quite this crappy in competition, that's for sure. That wobbly triple I cobble together never looks the same two training sessions in a row. But I think that's okay. As part of learning the obstacle, he is learning that although there may be variations in its configuration, his performance of it will not change. He's proving to be a smart little dog who thinks on his feet.