It was brought to our attention the other day that Lexi may be using her front to jump, rather than her rear. I've noticed this on some occasions, where I notice her "lifting" her back legs over, rather than powering herself with her back legs. She was also, on some runs, using her front legs to pull herself over contact equipment.
It could be for a number of reasons. One, she's still a puppy, so her front and rear could be developing at different rates. Two, she's tired. Three, that's just how she is. I've also heard that some herding breeds develop their fronts more anyways due to the twisting and turning required to work sheep. I'm calling her breeder this afternoon to talk about it--just for curiosity's sake.
Whatever the reason may be, we've spent the past week teaching "back up" and "sit up". We're also doing a good deal of tugging where we encourage her to pull while backing up.
I've been watching her closely, and she doesn't do it all the time. I'm starting to think that she does it when she's tired. That being said, we set up an exercise with the video camera to watch her. From what I can tell in these, she's mostly using her rear (I slowed down the video on my computer and watch her compress and push off the back).
What do you think?
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