Sitting her far back might be part of the problem - with Auggie I set him close enough to the jump where he could take just one stride, then jump. Basically the beginning of every course was a set point exercise. In fact I just realized I do it with Payton and Georgie too, not intentionally, I'm just used to setting Auggie up that close so I still do it...
I forgot I never posted my jump building instructions. I did some googling and found a post AllieMackie did on her blog that shows the same way I build mine, haha:
http://alliepets.wordpress.com/tag/pvc-agility/
The sizes I use are a little bit different though. I cut two 4' (48") pieces, one for the base and one as the bar. My uprights I cut at 26" since my guys only jump 16" at the max, but for bigger dogs you can certainly go taller. And my feet are only about 5" or 6" instead of 10", but it's usually because I'm cutting scrap for the feet and just making do with whatever I have left, LOL.
For my jump cups, before I bought jump cup strips, I clamp a T upside down (with the T part going towards the ground) in my vice and use a saw to cut out about 1/3rd of the back. This way I can snap it onto my uprights. Then I cut a little over half of the T part off so the bar can sit in it nicely and still pop out easily.
But for jump work it's a lot easier if you have jump cup strips, because you change heights between grids. I dealt with sliding my snap-on cups up and down for Auggie for a long time, but when it came time to get Payton, I decided it was time to get the strips because the baby would be using completely different heights than Auggie. So I made the investment from Clean Run to get the strips. (In fact, I remember the morning I was going to get Payton, I was sitting outside in the yard attaching all the strips to my jump uprights...) You can certainly do it without on a budget though! A 3/4" T is only 33 cents here so even if you made three or four sets for a jump and left them on so you could easily switch between jump heights, you're still a ways away from the cost of the strips. =P