Teaching a dog in need of a home a new trick can do wonders for it’s publicity. An especially fun and creative trick can have adopters lining up eagerly to see your champ. For dogs who are older or those with disabilities, these tricks can be life savers!

One eye catching trick is soaring over the double bar jump - and it’s relatively simple to train. All you need to do is lure your dog over the jump enough times that you can add a command such as “over” to the task.

We decided to train our residents a thing or two about this jump via tasty snacks and a clicker, but you could also use a variety of lures such as toys along with any number of markers such as a hearty “yes!” to capture the moment your dog sets sail!

At first, you may want to jump over with your dog so that he/she gets the idea, then you can start running along side the jump with the lure in the hand closest to your dog for easy delivery. As you can see, dogs are often so focused on the treat that they don’t even look at the jump!

Start out at a low height so that your dog can learn the trick without straining to perform. Once your dog gets the idea, they’ll really start to soar over the bar! When that happens, you may consider adding the higher bar too.

Oops! Don’t worry about form right now, just keep at it! Soon your dog will be correcting themselves as they get used to the motions.

Much better!

If you’re the ambitious type, you might consider training two dogs to jump at the same time- what better way to impress visitors with your adoptables?!

No way man! When introducing a new variation to an old trick, you may have to back track some. If your dogs run around the jump, it’s probably because you aren’t following through with the luring. With two dogs, it makes luring a bit more tedious, but just try different techniques till it works.

Look at us go!