You may wonder why we have dogs do the 8 jumps, or as some call it, Power Jumping, instead of just the 4 jumps we actually jump during competition.

My first introduction to Power Jumping was at a Tornadoes training session in England. On grass, or weather permitting, at the beach in heavy sand, they would set up to 12 jumps and run their dogs for physical conditioning.

Whilst I am unable to quote the name of the book (fading memory syndrome) there is a very good book written about jumping for dogs in agility. The author conducted an extensive study on how dogs learn (teach themselves) to jump, and the finding was the dog had to jump a sequence where the dog touches down at least four times between the jumps, giving us a minimum of 5 hurdles. Combine this with Power Jumping, and we have settled at 8.

How do you get started?

You simply continue the gradual process that gets you to 4 jumps until you get to 8 (refer to Training Notes: Awesome Pawsome Beginners Stage One - Attachment D).  Once your dog has progressed to being released 15 feet from the first of 8 jumps it becomes a timed exercise, allowing the handler an opportunity to make a conscious decision to work on improving any one or all of a number of  things to make their dog faster, including diet, fitness, handling technique & motivation.

It is very important to find out what rewards your dog considers to be best. The mistake most owners make is that they give the dog a reward that they prefer to give rather than the reward the dog would prefer to have.  Every dog is different. Some like praise, some like games, but without doubt most pet dogs like food. My dogs like playing with a ball, so therefore I use a ball on a rope to reward my dogs when they recall. It is important that the owner controls the reward. By playing with a ball on a rope I can keep possession of the reward and produce it when I decide. The same applies to food when it is used as a reward - it should be used 'little and often'.

Whichever reward you use make sure that your dog knows it's available and NEVER stop using it.

Flyball Training Articles

By Kevin McNicholas

http://flyballdogs.com/bfa-training.html