Friday, February 24, 2006

Generalizing Different Broad Jumps

Wyatt has trouble with the broad jumps used in class. They are large, wooden broad jumps. At home, I use plastic, lightweight broad jumps. When we go to class, he frequently goes around the jumps or walks on them. In the interests of science, I brought my plastic broad jumps to class to see if he still had a problem (indicating place related stress) or did fine (indicating a lack of generalization to different types of broad jumps).

He did fine with the plastic broad jumps in class. I have to conclude that he has not generalized the broad jump exercise to the large, wooden broad jumps. Unlike the dumbbells and scent articles, you can't bring your own so I guess I need to train him on the kind they use in trials!

Though I probably could train him in class, I think I will make some wooden broad at home since they are easy to make.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you're on the right track here. Being a complete novice, I had never considered this. It was a very rude awakening when I took my dog, who had been training indoors in Open for several months and was easily jumping a smaller-than-regulation-size PVC and canvas jump, to his first UKC Novice trial outdoors and he came to a screeching halt when he saw the regulation-sized wooden jump! (UKC Novice recall is over the jump.) The moral of the story, as far as I was concerned, is that they have to learn that jumps are jumps, even when they look different and are in different places!

John Heffernan said...

Sounds familiar! Thanks for sharing your story, Lois..