Teaching a vault

Disc dog people! I need advice for teaching a vault. I found some videos on youtube done by some big name disc dog guys but... come on... that CANNOT be the starting point of a vault. I need more baby steps than that. They're like "You position your dog close to you. Hold the disc up for a take. And there you go... the beginnings of a vault". Really? Maybe for a border collie. My dog is going to look at me like I have horns and get frustrated not knowing what I want.

The big thing with Kili is that she is BIG. Which means she doesn't think I make a very good platform. Teaching the rebound was really minuscule steps... but I'm not really sure how to do it with the vault.

I've thought about using a small chair or something, and asking her to jump on and then off the other side... and then doing it with me on the other side of the chair. But then I'm stuck because I would then have to phase out the chair... and it would be easiest to do by making it smaller and smaller... but I'm not sure what else I would have to use smaller than a chair.

Other ideas?

Ugh. So frustrated. Obstacle number one... apparently the dog doesn't know how to jump and keep her eye on something above her head. So having her jump up on an object is useless because she looks DOWN when she jumps off. She won't leave her hind feet to take something unless she's on flat ground. And I don't know how to teach her to jump without looking down. I've been trying to teach her to jump up for a toy or food from a low box. No go. She'll leave her front feet, but just comes back down on the box. I can't get her to actually jump horizontally. I am beyond frustrated right now. I don't know how to break this into any smaller steps. And I don't know how else to teach her to jump.

What kind of vault are you trying to teach?

A leg vault. My plan was to start with a kneeling leg vault so she won't be getting too much air. I want to see how she handles vaulting and landing. If she's good about getting all 4 under her and landing well I might consider leg vaults with me standing... but nothing enormous. Maybe in future some low back vaults.

My leg is a narrow platform for her so I'm trying to start with larger platforms. But the problem is she just can't seem to jump upwards if she's not on flat ground... and I'm not sure how to teach her. Everything I've tried has been a total bust.

I'm wondering if I'm just not picturing it right, but the way I've been told is to sit on a chair, legs up on another chair, cue dog over after food or a toy. You want to be waiting to feel two distinct hits for front and back feet.

I have nothing helpful but literally lol'd at that, because I've seen the same video and basically echoed your thoughts

Hmmm... I'm going to try that next. I feel like she's just going to jump right over since she is so tall... it's basically the height she jumps in agility... probably lower. But maybe I can sit on a couple of pillows. Definitely worth a shot.

Glad to know I'm not the only one that was like :rofl1:

Sadly, I don't have much help.

Most disc doggers aren't like Lindsey and Sara, and don't *know* how to train a dog to do things. They know how to manipulate a dog's drive for a disc and mark/reward for a basically lured/offered behavior.

Check out pvybe videos- they are LOADS of help for teaching foundations with a peanut/yoga ball for vaults and stalls. (they are loads of help for everything disc related, seriously!)

I cheated with Recon and did what most do as far as luring/marking a mostly offered behavior in drive for the disc to get his leg vault, but I'm going to start Patton jumping onto and off a peanut for the "vault" cue, and then translate that to a kneeling leg, then move upwards from there.

Ok so I've been brain storming a bit and thinking about what I've been thinking about doing with Fergus since while he isn't a greyhound he is bigger than most disc dogs.

I agree with Danielle about the Peanut but with your girl you might even want to start with a sturdy table (unless she's comfortable with a peanut or ball!) with grip (I used sandpaper before when teaching a foot rebound with Didgie to give her extra grip and it worked but I bet you could use anything really) and try to lure her up there (which, you've done perch work with her before right? So this might come more easily) and reward her at head level or a tiny bit above her head on the table and then cue her to jump off. I probably wouldn't throw a treat to get her to jump off because you want her to be ready to get that reward while she's up.

I would honestly stick with that for a good while, putting a name to it, getting the muscle memory down and getting her comfortable. Maybe start moving yourself in a position where you would be close to where you would be for a vault?

The video you're talking about I've seen too and even with herders it's not that easy. Traveler was like "Oh, jump over your head? OK!" and Didgie though launching at my face was fun. With Traveler I ended up putting myself up against a wall with my knee as high as it would go and marking for him touching my leg at all and slowly increasing what I asked for. That along with good reward placement got me there and then I backed off and started kneeling like in that video to clean it up a lot but it took a bit and that was with a dog that is super comfortable jumping on and at me so basically, you're going to be breaking this down into TINY parts I think, which you also know.

But anyways, just brainstorming with you pretty much! Hopefully other people can chime in with more ideas.

I will check out the pvybe videos. I want to get a peanut in December too.

Linds - She'll jump on and off stuff no problem. The problem is when she jumps down it is purely down. Like head to the ground, looking down. But she's up and down no problem. I just don't know what the next step is.

I tried getting down in position on one knee and she'll put both her front feet on my thigh but I don't even convince her to jump over from that point (just jumping right over without touching isn't a problem, but with those front feet on my leg... no go).

Could you get a video Krissy?

Absolutely. I think I have something on my camera from the other day. But I only really filmed the up and down off the box. I didn't film anything else I tried because I was just so flipping frustrated that nothing seemed to work. I'll see if I can post a video tomorrow.

Just checked out the Positive Vybe video for leg vaults... "Put her in position, present the disc, and...." Yeah, that doesn't work when your dog is as tall as mine! Sigh.

There are foundation PVybe videos that actually break it down. I know because I've watched them. I wish I wasn't mobile so I could find it!

I found another one after about ball work for vault training. Guess I'll have to look for more.

Apparently all I had to do was ask for advice and Kili learns how to jump. Go figure. Anyway, here's the video. First segment is from a few days ago when I first started trying to work on this. The second segment is from this morning when she suddenly woke up knowing what I wanted. Gotta love dogs. lol

[YOUTUBE]C4MynoULckw[/YOUTUBE]