Questions Re. Structure and Jumping - Page 5

SS: "Well, that dog certainly can, but some of the showlines in my club have a heck of a time making it over the A-frame and window jump. Watch the video I posted. I have yet to see a modern dog who can do what those mals are doing!"

Sun, during all the years I have seen a lot of dogs, but all of them were able to make the A-frame and the meter jump.
The dogs not willing to jump are either trained wrong ( bad experiences ), they are almost blind, or they are wimps ( and in this case it´s good they didn´t "want" to jump - no title = no breeding ).
In case the dogs in your club are no wimps you should think about the training in itself.

For canine extreme sports, I would choose a black mouth cur, or greyhound x bmcur.

Susie, I have to agree with that when my ASL CH can scale an A-frame I have to wonder why other GSD's can't.  She is nothing special and is definitely overangulated on both ends, but she will try anything I ask of her at least one time. I'm thinking either the dog is out of condition, not properly trained or just doesn't have the will to do it.

The dog I showed going over the jump with the dumbell had alot of agility titles, advanced OB titles and a Sch3. She compeleted her UD when she was 9 1/2. I showed her standing so posters could see that she was a  V rated GSL with a fair amount of angulation on both ends and was not a square dog, but she was able to jump. I'd love to see other photos of GSD's jumping and then the same dog standing still. I think that could give us a much better picture of how much phenotype effects a GSD's jumping ability vs training. Could most GSD's climb walls? I don't know. I never tried it with any of mine, never had a need to.

Blitzen, every dog over here has to do the meter jump and the A-frame. I really NEVER saw a healthy dog not being able to do this.
That said, every titled dog, be it a VA dog or a working champion, made it.

Blitze,

 

Thank you so much for the article/study of the unknown author, great info indeed

As for absorbing the shock when landing... The front legs flex to obsorb the impact. Front end which is already flexed when standing leaves not much room to flex further on impact. But, the straight front of the Mali, and considerably straighter than SL front of the working structure, affords tremendous room for flexion on impact. In other words, the already flexed front of the "correct" gsd runs out of room to flex when landing, where the straighter front has lots of room to flex and absorb the shock of landing.

 

That is totally wrong, a GSD can flex its front leg + pastern as much if not better than any other breed, That is flexing the front leg (it does not include the shoulder), ad to it the maximum absorption fold arch of shoulder bones and you have a perfect assembly in action, bone and joint wise.

Ibrahim, not for landing a huge jump. The front end as you describe is like having spring shocks on a car already flattened...no place left to absorb impact.

By the way, since you started mentioning the A frame and climbing and jumbing, a jump is not only the vertical.

There are two types of jump, the horizontal like when you jump over a hole and the vertical one like you jump from a ladder to ground. The latter is more dangerous and its shock is of bigger magnitude.

My personal understanding is most of the jump shock is absorbed by front leg, but good amount of the shock is also absorbed by rear leg. A landing dog does NOT land on fore legs both at same line and they do not hit the ground at same exact moment, nor do they hit at same line and same second with the rear legs. That is what I know about the GSD and sure of. For other breeds, not sure how it is done, maybe Joanro can shed some light on the way others land.

As I said before, safe and good jumping needs several elements of structure, weight and size play a big role, I am sure Joan, if she wants to make our life easy here , can think of a breed with a straight front but not very good jumper

Prager once showed us some patrol dogs doing the horizontal jump, it was a requirement for them in old times, I wish I could find those videos to demonstrate the landing

Please watch how this dog lands first on one front foot then the other (not both at same line and not both hitting ground at same moment then rear feet, I will post a still pic below.

By the way this is safe landing