Ok, I have a question. I"ve never really had a problem with dogs jumping before, till now.

The problem I have is she doesn't "flatten out" when she jumps. Her front half is always higher than her back half, and either her back feet, or her tail hits the jump every time.

Does anyone have any tricks for getting a dog to get their butt up? any agility people?

We've put obstacles up before it to make her jump earlier. We tried moving her closer, further away etc. started low....moved it up. We use markers, used a wooden jump, a pvc so it would fall when she hit it and make it more clear, but nothing seems to make a difference. I just can't get her to make the connection and nothing has changed anything really for better or worse.

If we raise it to full height, she'll hit her back feet or tail, do 5 of those, no reward, and if we take 5 inches off, 10 inches off, it's the exact same jump, tail or feet hit. It's frustrating, because physically she can jump, she's very athletic and very fast.

I tried going back to the beginning again, with it low and try to make it clear, no touch reward, touch, nothing. But it doesn't seem to matter if it's a foot high or a meter, it's the same. I need her butt up when she goes over. But i'm just not getting her to make the connection.

I know it's going to take a while, she has to relearn her jumping motor pattern. Just not sure how to go about it.

First, has the dog had her hips checked?

If so, and everything appeares fine, I would look at food delivery. Do you have a video of what you are doing? What your jumping exercise looks like? How are you giving the food - by hand?

I will attempt to explain how I teach the jumps, but bare with me, I should probably video it too

Ok...

#1. Start with the jump super low and just teach a basic back and forth across the jump (if its a puppy the pole will be on the ground) - your dog already seems to know this though, so #2

#2. I start throwing food in different places (I stand beside the jump, facing the jump) for the dog to jump across and get. So the food should form a semi circle on both sides (one piece at a time, mirror each side as the dog is jumping back and forth). This gets the dogs to learn to do tight jumps, where they are going to have to spin their hind end, in mid jump, around to be able to get the food. Some of these pieces will literally be a few inches out from the jump bar. I will do 5-6 back and forths, then a break. **This will get her hind end up over the bar**

#3. Once my dog can sucessfully do this on each side, I will THEN put up the height. Then start again, doing each height.

#4. Then we would start putting jumps together and adding turns into the jumps, tunnels before and after, etc.

Another way, which I have used previously with my husky was to teach her the contact equipment first. Basically, you train the dogs to go on the contact equipment, but do a quick stop on the end before coming off, keeping their back legs on that contact until released. This really helped my girl with hind end awareness. Because they have to pay attention to where their back feet are, and when they can move them.

I had to slow things way down because even with a lot of the things you mentioned, he just wasnt learning. The No, and witholding the reward clicked with him then. I spent a lot of time working like this:
http://www.youtube.com/user/stromsdogs#p/u/11/Sv-ZNs9-_ug

I don't have video, we're going to try and get some next week. She's an adult and her hips are good. She doesn't seem to have anything physical that's causing this, other than the way she jumps. Her butt just doesn't seem to get high enough and the height doesn't matter.

I"m not training for agility, but I figured they jump enough in that sport, they might have a few tricks. She doesn't have much hind end awareness. It's better in heeling, but overall her hind end awareness sucks and could use some work for sure.

Thanks for the ideas, I'm going to see how many I can get, then formulate a plan, because right now, all my plans have gotten me nowhere with this.

Eric, if you are doing something like IPO/SchH or Ring you probably don't want sideways agility jumps.

For Ring and IPO jumps I've seen people using a thin stick to gently tap the dog's rear legs when they are about to go over the bar to make them pick up the feet. Ideally you want the legs straight out behind the dog, this way the tail doesn't hit the bar.

Another common solution is attaching a bungee line above the top bar like this.

Is she calm, or super loaded to jump and pick-up?

 Quote: Ana Kozlowsky

Eric, if you are doing something like IPO/SchH or Ring you probably don't want sideways agility jumps.

For Ring and IPO jumps I've seen people using a thin stick to gently tap the dog's rear legs when they are about to go over the bar to make them pick up the feet. Ideally you want the legs straight out behind the dog, this way the tail doesn't hit the bar.

Another common solution is attaching a bungee line above the top bar like this.

I was thinking of making a flatter table top like platform to put on the top to see if that would flatten her out some. She doesn't push off the jump, it's like she gets her front up and just forgets about the back and either her tail or feet hit. I haven't seen the bungee lines across it. I've been leaning towards doing something like this.

We've put a PVC pipe on the top and also had someone lifting it slightly to tap her back feet, but no change in jumping behavior.

 Quote: steve strom

Is she calm, or super loaded to jump and pick-up?

I have not been throwing anything over. I either reward at a touch pad, or she's jumping over right to me, which is making my wheels turn again. I'm thinking back to how this progressed. Her first jump when I slyly hid a tug in my pocket rather than food, she lost her mind and did a flip through and over the wooden jump, rather than jump over. She still bit me in the stomach looking for the tug when she finished rolling, so I went right back to food. and worked my way back into a toy reward.

I was at a point when I could stand behind her, send her and she'd go to a touch pad and did clear the jump at least as many times as she'd touch it. Something changed though and I started going back and calling her over for a toy. I can't remember exactly why, maybe that's part of my problem but I think I was trying to bring up the level of excitement a bit because eventually she's going to have to see something thrown over, and she's going to have to remember how to jump at that point. She does tend to have a singular focus when a toy or bite is a possibility. I like it, but it works against me sometimes I think.

So I think you're on to something with that.

I just wanted to add, that her jumps were still a bit off in how she does it, even when she was clearing the jumps a lot of times. I don't like her biomechanics at all and i'm not sure how to get them to change. I'll get some video next week. I'm not going to do any jumping between now and then anyway until I have a better plan that what i've come up with so far.

When she jumps, does she tuck her back feet up under her or stretch them out behind her? The tuck up means the dog has to jump 4-12 inches higher with their rear, depending on how large of a dog it is, than they do with the kick out.

Moving the dog further back to build up speed helps with some to convert from a tuck to a kick. With others the tapping with a pole as they go over can do it. And with others height is the key, I have a dog who EASILY clears maximum on the FR hurdle, but if I lower it down to .9 will knock bars because she's not trying.

If your dog is consistently "skimming" the top of the hurdle regardless of how high it is, then making them think it's going to be higher than it was can help, by holding a bar near the top of the hurdle then as they jump raising the bar 3-4 inches. Gets them out of that "skimming" mode and into thinking about clearing it.

Video will be the best though, try setting up a camera from the side, and then having her jump from various distances, using various methods (tapping with the pole, the bungee, etc) and post it. Then you, and others, can go back and look at what she's doing in various situations and come up with ideas to fix this.

She tucks them up, and I'd like the kick out.