Jumping Class

I feel bad that I haven't kept up with this at all. Tessa has made so much progress.

She is now taking a jumping class, and she is doing very well. The first week she was reluctant to go over a 16 inch jump and now she is going over 20 inch jumps almost comfortably!

We started out the first night of class doing a curved line of 5 jumps for evaluation. Tessa ran around all but the second one! They were set at 16. I had told the instructor that Tessa was a beginner, so it was fine. The evaluation confirmed what I already knew - that Tessa was starting from scratch.

So, we started with a foundation exercise where I sat on the floor next to the jump with one of the stantions in front of me (so the jump is perpendicular). The bar was low and I was to lure Tessa from one side to the other with the treat low. When her back feet got to the other side (obviously after the front feet), I was to click and treat. Then lure her the other way. After doing that a bit, the criteria is gradually raised by waiting for the dog to over the move from one side to the other or I was to raise the height. It's a pretty cool exercise.

The first time she did this at jump class, Tessa never got to the point where she was offering the movement from side to side, but she did get up to 12 inches. That was pretty good.

The best thing about that first class was how much Tessa enjoyed it. She was laying on her mat, happy as happy can be. A few people gave her treats and started to make friends with her. That is even more important than the jumping.

We worked on the exercise at home that week and got to 16, but not 20. She still wasn't really offering the behavior, but I figured that I would raise one criteria at a time.