Suzanne Clothier's Natural Jump Method

[Root Beer]

I have a copy of Suzanne Clothier's Natural Jumping Method. It's kind of an old book - probably outdated by today's agility standards.

 

But I was reading through it and thought the jumping chute exercises might help Dean develop a nicer jumping technique. Right now he kind of hurls himself over the jumps. I don't think he is really paying much attention to what he is doing when he is jumping.

 

Has anyone used this? Was it beneficial? If I'm going to try it, I need to build some jumps. I only have two.

[Shetlander]

Has anyone used this? Was it beneficial? If I'm going to try it, I need to build some jumps. I only have two.

 

I never used it but have heard people say they thought it was beneficial. I did some Mecklenberg jump training with Quinn which seemed to be helpful. She's supposed to have a book or DVD coming out in the next few months on jumping. It's been in the works for a long time.

[Kat's Dogs]

Dazzle is sort of a bar knocker - doing jump chutes really helped her to better judge how she should jump.

 

Although I haven't read that book, I definitely think that jump chutes are effective and a great training/evaluating tool.

[Tassie]

I did use it when my two were learning to jump about 4 years ago. I found it beneficial, but starting now, I'd probably also look at a couple of other things. There's the Zink and Daniels book Jumping from A to Z - teaching your dog to soar - and there's articles in the latest and the next to latest Clean Run mag about teaching dogs to jump - haven't got the mags here with me at work. There are differences in ditances between jumps - Suzanne starts with a 2 stride - some of the others go straight to bounce, then widen out - and some don't use fences down the line.

 

I certainly endorse using some sort of sytematic jumping training program of having dogs learn to jump by themselves - figuring out for themselves what works and what doesn't, and what they have to do to avoid knocking jumps in particular circumstances of speed, distance of take off etc., and the difference between collected jumping and extension.

 

These sorts of programs can work for initial training, but can also be used for refresher or simply for conditioning later in the dog's career.

[MickeyDogs]

Hey Kristine,

 

We used it with a sheltie coming off an injury to help him regain confidence and improve his technique. Suzanne's program made the difference. And, yes alas, this was probably when the book first came out. Dang! this age thing isn't for sissys!

 

Chris Zink's technique is a good 'un too. Both get the dog thinking about jumping rather than mindlessly throwing themselves over.

[Root Beer]

Thanks, everyone, for the input. I ordered the Zink book, too! I think it's important to teach Dean a good jumping technique at this point.

 

I set up a mini-jump chute with my two jumps and I'm trying the first week of Suzanne Clothier's method with Maddie to test drive it a bit. So far, so good!

[Alaska]

I've used it, but I have heard others complain that one shortcoming of the Clothier program is that the distance between jumps is never varied. I think newer, dog-centric programs avoid this flaw (Clothier is coming from a horse background).

 

Building jumps is easy. Get yourself a PVC cutter and go to work. What's harder for me is finding a suitable linear space to put the chute (in Clothier's program, you basically need a fence on either side of the jumps so they can't choose to run out to the side to avoid a jump).

 

Overall, I think jump chute training is very beneficial for all agility dogs. The Nov issue of Clean Run has a nice looking jump training program that I'm going to try with Mr. I'm-In-Too-Big-Of-A-Hurry-To-Bother-Going-Over-The-Jump-When-I-Can-Just-Crash-Right-Through-It. It shares some features with the Linda M approach, but you don't need to buy 3 issues of CR to get the whole program

 

Another idea to consider is Susan Garrett's one-jump DVD.

[airbear]

We tried the Clothier method in a class, but it took so much time with the measuring and the jump spacing that I think we spent most of the class just standing around. Being more of an instant gratification kind of gal, I used Christine Zink's Jumping A to Z with Wick, and I have to say, she knows that jumps are for jumping! Jump chutes are really fun too, and a good exercise to keep a dog honest at high rates of speed. I also like to set the jump bar at different heights (perhaps one side of the bar at 22" and the other at 26"), add some lower and higher jumps in the chute, muck around with the spacing (Wick will bounce anything closer than 15', so I like to mix bounce sequences at about 15' with bigger gaps, say 25'), omit the ground bars in a double, etc. I think the purpose of this is to teach collection and extension, and to teach the dog to think about how to execute each jump. Oh and let's be honest, sometimes, the jump spacing is predicated on avoiding the horse poop on the ground.

 

The other thing we work on more than jump chutes is simple one-jump exercises, such as wraps, flips, figure 8's, and the like. Very useful when a mean ol' judge decides that threadles would be a fun thing to put in a steeplechase course!