The Bichon Frise Game Of Jumping (Part 1) - Building A Jump Structure

December 17, 2006 on 1:00 pm | In Bichon Frise Articles |

Jumps are simple. Depending on the size of your Bichon Frise, you can turn picnic table benches or chaise lounges on their sides and have usable jumps. For higher jumps, you can use panels from large cardboard boxes, propping them up so they will fall if the dog hits them. You can place a broom handle between two cinderblocks and have a beginner’s bar jump.

You can make an inexpensive bar jump using two electric fence poles as posts (not ELECTRIFIED fence poles!). Electric fence poles are lightweight posts that stick in the ground and are available at farm supply stores. They come in heights up to four feet. Pound them into the ground a little less than four feet apart. Buy a four-foot length of skinny (half-inch) PVC pipe; this will be the bar the dog jumps over. For a fancier look and more stability, slip two more four-foot pieces of half-inch PVC pipe over each upright.

You want the horizontal bar to fall off if the dog hits it, so you can’t attach it to the vertical poles. Instead, clip clothespins alligator clips or large paper binder clips around the uprights to provide a ledge on which to rest the PVC pipe. A ledge that slopes downward won’t work; one with a slight lip works best.

The Bichon Frise should only jump in the direction in which hitting the PVC pipe would knock it off the uprights. You can buy more horizontal bars and clips for a multi-barred jump, and you can hang a sheet from the top bar for a jump that appears to be solid but still has plenty of give.

For larger Bichon Frise, you can use larger PVC pipe, but if the upright pipes are too large you’ll have to devise another way to hang the horizontal bar. Some people drill holes in the large diameter uprights and then hang the horizontal bar from pegs placed in the holes. This works, but unless the pegs are very short the bar won’t fall off as easily as it should. The best solution is to use “jump cups” which are rounded cups in which the horizontal pole rests. When knocked, the pole rolls right out. Making a jump cup is a little tricky. The best way is to take a PVC end pipe and cut it into lengthwise quarters, then screw what’s left of the cap part into your vertical pole.

If you don’t have any land to pound posts into (maybe you got fed up long ago with your dog’s digging and covered the yard with concrete), you’ll have to add legs to stabilize the jump. The easiest way to do this is to add a four-way elbow fitting that enables you to place the upright section in the top of the fitting and attach one-and-a-half-foot PVC pipe “legs” to the front, back and sides. (You can also run a pipe between the two uprights to connect them at the base.) The greatest challenge here is finding the four-way fitting; if your hardware store doesn’t carry them, a PVC supply company will.