question!!!

[unknown007]

how old does my pitbull have to be until i make him a springpole?i got and know how to make it his k-9's are out already.so just wondering he's 5months on the 14 of this month.please reply thanks!!!

[britishbandit]

I didn't know exactly what a spring pole was till I just looked it up. haha

And I don't particularly like the idea. It says it can either be used to contain the dog by chain as a tie/out, or used for doggie entertainment (like a one way tug-of-war).

For me personally, having a fenced in yard, I have no reason to ever tie out my dogs, and I don't like the idea of tug games that aren't controlled, especially with puppies that haven't yet learned that there are rules and boundaries with such games.

[IceyBlueSibes]

A spring pole is an item used for entertainment. The one he's referring to doesn't have anything to do with tieing a dog out

Here is the excerpt from Dianne Jessup's website about the spring pole and how to make one:

History: The springpole is mentioned in many old books on conditioning dogs. In fact, "springpole contests" of sorts are mentioned in medieval text. An advertisement from 1710 (England) stated that at the Bear Garden, at 3:00 in the afternoon, there would be "a variety of bull and bear-baiting, and a dog to be drawn up with fireworks." There is no real description of "drawing up a dog" with fireworks, but it is not hard to assume that these gripping dogs were tested as to how well they would hold through the distraction of fireworks. What dogs they had then!

L.B. Hannah describes the rather cumbersome "old fashion" springpole used circa 1925:

the spring-pole is constructed with a sapling about sixteen feet long and four or five inches at the butt, tapering to one inch. This pole is placed at an angle of about forty-five degrees, resting in a strong notched stick or limb driven into the ground, the butt of the pole being stacked to the ground at the right distance to give the proper angle. The sapling should be of hickory or of some other wood with a good spring. Put a pulley o the small end and get fifteen feet of of 1/4 inch rope, which may be run through the pulley and fastened at the butt end of the pole. Attached a the other end of the rope and suspended two or three feet from the ground is a good coon hide, well sewed together. This can be raised or lowered at will be means of the pulley. The dog will soon learn to fight it, and you can pull him up clear from the ground, if desired. This spring pole will develop jaw-power wonderfully.

Captain L. Fitz-Barnard, a noted expert on fighting dogs and sports, describes a simpler springpole used in the 1800s, and notes dryly that only "real dogs" do springpole!

Another good way of working a dog is to suspend a piece of soft leather from the ceiling, with a cord and piece of rubber. He will fight the leather, and the rubber keeps pulling it away from him. He will keep on for as long as you like. Of course you can only work dogs these ways; a cur would soon chuck it.


Construction:

Building a springpole is not difficult and can be done one of several ways:

1) Hang it from a branch
2) Hang it from a rafter
3) Hang it from a constructed structure
4) Hang it from a 2x4 or cable between 2 trees

Build your own; no one really sells the complete thing. Some places sell the spring or the hide, but why spend the $$ when you can make it yourself so much cheaper? All a springpole is is a biting surface (usually jute or burlap roll, or a rope) suspended from a springy device (either a garage door spring, or what I use, two wheelbarrow inner tubes) and hung overhead.

So, decide if you have a strong branch, a strong rafter, or need to construct a device (see picture below) to hang it from, and go from there. I like to hang my rope as high as possible, allowing the dogs to swing out further. The biting surface (burlap) can be anywhere from two feet to six feet off the ground.




OK, here we go!
1) Take a nylon dog collar and fasten it around the branch/board looping it first through the wheelbarrow inner tubes (I use two for strength). Fasten the collar. Now you have a collar holding the inner tubes suspended in the air.

2) Attach another nylon collar to the bottom of the inner tubes. From this, hang a rope to which your biting surface is attached. If you want to be fancy, tie loops in the rope, so you can adjust where you hang the biting surface. You may want it lower for some dogs, higher for the flyers. Use rope or some other soft material to connect the biting surface to the snap you will use to attach to the rope hanging from the "spring". Dogs biting chain can break their teeth. For the biting surface I roll up a burlap sack and duct tape the ends and middle. I have also used inner tubes, jean material, tires, old sleeve covers and rope.

You can view a video of her dogs on the spring pole and where I got this info here:
http://www.workingpitbull.com/springpole.htm

Another site for spring poles:
http://www.pitbulllovers.com/trainin...ringpoles.html

As far as age, I'm pretty sure you can start training them at any age. However I wouldn't allow any hard tugging/pulling until ALL of his adult teeth have come in (I personally would wait until he was a 1 year of age). Read Diane's website about training, and you can start teaching your puppy this way. Make the sessions short so he'll want to come back to it later. If you go for too long, he'll get bored with it and may not show interest later on.

It's also a good idea to have your puppy checked out by a vet (if he has not recently) to make sure he doesn't have anything wrong with his bones, muscles or joints.

Another fun "toy" is a Flirt Pole. This looks similar to the cat toys that have a toy attached to a springy string at the end of a stick. Only it's big enough for the dogs and a toy they can chase after. She has information on her site for those too.

[Sophie45]

I'd never heard of spring poles. Thanks for the awesome info, Icey!

This might sound like a stupid question, but I'm wondering that if by building up a dog's jaw strength that it would inadvertently intensify his bite strength in play-kind of reverse the 'soft mouth' process puppies should learn during socialization as a pup?

I remember reading a few places that the most important part of bite inhibition/soft mouth is that if your dog were to ever bite aggressively, a dog that has learned soft mouth does a significant amount less or no damage-even if their intention is to hurt another dog/person-than a dog who never learned soft mouth.

Am I way off here?

[IceyBlueSibes]

Your welcome.

You know, I never thought about that really. I know that it works out the dogs entire upper body as well, and not just the jaws. But I honestly have no idea if it would have a reverse affect on the dog. Lugar and I play tug quite a bit, and every now and then I'll tie a rope to a tree branch with his toy on it and he'll tug, and I've never really noticed a difference. However that type of play we don't do very often, so I probably couldn't tell you other wise lol

I do know that a lot of people may sound shocked or upset about using a spring pole as a method of exercise because they say it "trains them to be mean" or "it makes them vicious". This is far from the truth, it's just a fun way for these dogs to burn off their energy. It can be fun for any dog, really.

[kcalbat]

you can also try a flirt pole. Some dogs get bored of the springpole. Both activities need to be supervised, however.