Just a cute pic of Abby girl This past weekend Abby and I attended a seminar put on by Maria Duthie (http://www.annisage.com/) I've been nervous to go to her seminars, but figured why not...and I really wanted her opinion on what jump height is best for Abby. She just measures out of the 8" class, and being a pug, she's not ideally built for jumping.
In these seminars you learn a variety of massage techniques, (which I'm awful at doing), proper warm up and cool down techniques and Maria watches your dog pefrom the A frame, teeter, weave poles and jumps.
Her A frame isn't bad, could be improved with the use of hoops on both sides and possibly a foot target coming of the frame. She powers up quite nicely, rather than pulling herself up with her front, but does come off and land a bit hard on her front. the hoops and foot target would help her run straight through the contact.
Her teeter, isn't too bad either. Just as I already knew she's not shifting her weight back enough as it hits and she's jumping as hits the ground, probably to avoid the shock/vibrations coming through the board.
Weave poles, Maria said she would not change a thing, Abby has perfect form going through the poles and great speed, she thinks the only reason she pops out sometimes is she's in such a rush to just move on to the next thing. Maria generally likes channels for teaching weave poles, but will probably use 2 X 2s for her new puppy, she said all the dogs she's seen taught with 2 X 2s have nice footwork, speed and very good entries.
Jumping, Abby has great jumping form at 8" but really doesn't know how to properly jump at 12" Maria thinks Abby will be just fine jumping 12" after a bit of re-training.
Now to make sense of some of these things. She recomends doing jump grids
3 jumps set 4' apart at 8" for now and then a 12" jump a bit farther away, you keep changing that last jump. I'm trying to see what I can do to use this technique, but not confuse the cues for collection/extension. Maria feels it doesn't matter, because this isn't about "handling" it's about teaching jumping.......
4 comments:
What a seminar! Maria Duthie sounds like she's quite knowledgeable. I'm sure her ideas will assist Abby with her jumping skills. What she is saying makes sense. Besides you're a phenomenal trainer & handler. I watch your vids and read your blog. I know she'll have her MACH just like Kittie.
Abby is such a cutie! :-)
Pugs & Paps rule.
This sounds very cool. I can't wait to hear what your thoughts are once you start to put it into practice.
I want to learn what I can do to warm up and cool down Jasper's muscles when we're at an obedience competition and during a regular training session.
I also want to learn message. Since you went to Marie Duthie's seminar, do you think her booklet and DVD would be easy to understand and worth it to purchase it? Or is there someone else you would recommend?
Absolutely. Nothing compares to hands on instruction though. I know Maria does travel a bit, so you may want to see if she would want to do something similar near you.
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