Early Takeoff Syndrome

I have been watching the videos from this past weekend over and over. Shane jumps perfectly a lot of the time, but at certain points on the course he starts jumping early. He has another acupuncture treatment on his back this Wednesday and next Monday he goes to the ophthalmologist for a full eye workup. I wish he could talk.

Sunday, I made sure that he did some 16 inch jumps from a sit during the warm up and then some running 12 inch jumps. In this video, he starts out jumping on his own without any direction from me, and he looks good. When I'm behind him he seems OK, but at some point he jumps early again. The first knocked bar may be because I threw my arm up. Not sure about the second knocked bar.

I can't believe my problem now is knocking bars! What a refreshing change from worrying that he'll charge another dog and get us kicked out of agility forever.

From Linda's Article:

The typical history is that the dog starts out his jump training totally normally and begins to compete. [CHECK] Usually problems don’t become apparent until the dog has been competing 1-3 years. [CHECK] Often the first sign of trouble is that the dog knocks the triple or the tire repeatedly. [CHECK] This happens of course because the dog’s jumping arc peaks too early.[CHECK] The dogs seem to focus on the forward-most element of the obstacle and uses that to gage where to center their jumping arc. This can also happen as a result of electronic timers placed in front of the first jump. In the case of the tire, the front edge of the base and the triple the front bar or the jump standard.

If the dog takes off too early on these obstacles, in many cases he will not clear the obstacle, which can lead to some unfortunate wrecks. [CHECK] This of course leads to a lack of confidence. [CHECK] Lack of confidence exacerbates the problem, making the dog even more likely to take off early and more likely to crash again, starting a vicious cycle. [CHECK] Not all dogs crash tires and triples, but it is very common. And, not all dogs that crash tires or triples have this problem. For some dogs, exiting tunnels can exacerbate the problem. [CHECK] Increased handler motion and handler location ahead of the dog tends to creates problems. [CHECK] Interestingly, many dogs with this problem will jump from a close distance without a problem, and they often slice jumps without issue. [CHECK]