Great job so far everybody! Again, please see as many videos of others as possible and read my comments to others too - I'm trying to bold the answers you really want to read, but the more you read, the easier it will be to understand what you're going for.
But things are mostly going well now, the only problem that I'm seeing more as expected is "up-in-the-air" movement. It looks like some dogs are leaping in order to get away from the plank. I think it's mostly due to the fact that everybody is going for those narrow planks and those are hard to run full speed on + they might sometimes be stepping on the edge and that can be uncomfortable and make them want to leave it as soon as possible. So again - it's no hurry to get to a narrow plank!!! If you can use two, side by side, with a carpet over, that would be perfect!
Anyway, here is your new list:
1. gradually make that plank higher&higher, still jackpotting the best hits, but make a criteria for a jackpot somewhat more strict and at this point also already stop clicking the highest hits even if the dog is striding equally - but at this point, don't click anymore the highest 20% of the hits you're getting (meaning that from 10 tries, don't click the highest 2 hits). It's no problem if the dog still gets the toy, just take it immediately when he comes back. When it's good, praise and tug and when it's especially good, be especially excited and play especially enthusiastically 🙂 And yes, dogs are smart enough to know the difference.
2. as the dog is probably already searching for the plank better, slowly start throwing sooner&sooner. Don't rush it, but you eventually want to throw that soon that the dog is technically running to a static toy. But again, you don't want to get there sooner as in 3 weeks as it's only then that we'll start using a static toy - you do want to throw it for those 3 weeks more! It's better to throw somewhat longer if necessary - usually not an issue with BCs, but with my puppy, I needed to throw VERY long to keep the speed and focus - if any of that gets weaker when you start throwing sooner, go back to whatever gives you back the speed and forward focus, we can deal with that later!
3. as you are still throwing a toy, your movement and position probably won't affect the dog's performance - but just to be sure, do try to run with the dog here and there, just to check if that's correct. If it does affect your dog's performance, add movement gradually, by first walking slowly along, then walking faster, running slowly etc. You don't need to do it on every try, especially not if it doesn't affect the performance, but do try it here and there.
4. another difficulty we can slowly start introducing now is changing starting position of your dog. Don't use the best spot all the time anymore, but vary it a little bit. If it makes their hits too bad, go back to the good starting position. But bad hit here and there is good, that's how they learn the difference between what gets rewarded and what doesn't.
5. new trick: shape a dog to go with all 4 feet in a box that is ideally as long as he is. Then gradually use smaller&smaller objects, your goal is the dog is standing with 4 feet in a small bowl. Good for balance and rear legs awareness! Also, teach backing up with you standing still, by throwing a reward for them first for one step back, then two and then add more&more distance. Great for rear legs awareness and coordination!
Send videos of the tricks and the plank work. For slow motion part of a plank work, PLEASE cut out all the parts where I can't see the dog! It's very time consuming and not much fun to watch just the plank or you, throwing a ball, in slow motion!
Also, here is a video showing different striding on a dog-walk. My puppy Le is showing the most common striding: two hits on up plank, two in the middle, two on down. Bu has this same striding. Bi can only do that if I start her from such an angle that she has no speed coming up. Her normal striding is 4 steps on whole dog-walk, on down ramp rear feet hit first and then she lands front feet above the contact, hind feet in the middle. I think that since US dog-walks are significantly shorter as mine, many of your BCs might end with this striding. Bi usually does shorter dog-walks in 3 steps (our dog-walks come in different lengths) - you can see one of those tries in this video too. She is pretty high on my dog-walk, but comes deeply in in 3 strides on shorter ones. At the end, you can see what big area she is covering with one hit, thanks to good reach forward and hind feet separation - with one hit, she is touching almost 40% of a down ramp, that's 1,5m!
Hi Silvia,
Welcome back 🙂 You guys had so much fun from the vacation, that was awesome
Here’s the video of plank works, im still using double planks and added a bit more height to it. pls let me know how it goes and what we need to work more.
The second video is 4 in a box, its the size i could reduce to for now, i have another smaller size to work with him this week. each time when i reduced a size, i put the smaller one into the bigger size as you suggested and it worked great. in the video i only showed you the final work on this size, i didnt put it in the bigger size box.
Great progression with box size and great plank work! Other than 1st try, they were all great! For next step, I would add some more height first and if that goes well, start adding more&more variables, but would keep the double plank for quite a while. Great job, great speed!
Hi Silvia, thanks a lot for encouragement 🙂 ok I will add more height to the planks. For the variables, I change my position and throw sooner and sooner? I will put his back up video on tmr also some video with my pug crash. Thanks again!!!
Yeap. Those two and his starting point.
ok, got it 🙂
Hi Silvia and classmates,
So here is an update on Maia and I. As you know, I went back to just a plank three weeks ago. I started with the plank on one brick, then added another brick in the second week, and just a few days ago, added a third brick.
The problem I am seeing is this, no matter what the height of the plank, if I start her in front of the plank, she has nice hits in the yellow 90-95% of the time I would say. If I have her go through a tunnel, she misses almost all the time! I’ve changed sides, I’ve changed how far the tunnel is from the plank, and nothing seems to get her to understand to hit the yellow -- she gets airy and leaps the yellow each time. I am stuck. What am I going to do if there is a tunnel in front of a DW on course??? I do not know what to do next?
Here is a video compilation of the last few weeks. Not all lessons are on here and not all the tries per lesson either, except for today’s lesson (June 26):
Well, the situation when you have a DW before full DW is definitely very different from when you have a tunnel before just the plank as the DW is so much longer, so a tunnel or not won’t make such a big difference. However, with DW, even with a less speedy approach, she will get to a better speed until the down ramp as she can come to when you start her that close to the plank, so the tunnel start actually gives you a more realistic picture. Starting her in front of the plank gives you one step more: and when she comes with more speed, she does one step less and is too high.
Did you try starting her on cik/cap around the object? If that would work, you could proceed as I suggested to Barb&Mercy -- see her video and the discussion we had. I would keep this height for a while and try to play with that some. The good thing is that she is not airy in your last session at all and you got some really nice running even with the tunnel. You’re getting high enough successful rate now to be getting somewhere and the good thing is you know how to help her get in if you get too many failures in a row, so that’s actually a good start for a learning process, all you need now is some more training for her to learn what you like and what you don’t.
Hi Silvia,
Since I have not tried anything other than a tunnel I tried it today and that was a complete disaster. I used a jump with the ‘around’ cue, I tried sending her around a cone and a pole. She does not understand cik/cap that well yet that I can send her to the object and get her to wrap it tightly. No matter what I used, she would miss the plank or go off it. I moved the jump and the objects farther from the plank to give her room to adjust her line, but that did not help either. It’s embarrassing but here is the video:
Should I continue with the tunnel and this height for a while then?
It’s good you posted it as there is a very easy solution to the problem 🙂 Use an object again, but send her around in the other direction, so that you are doing a front cross as she is wrapping it (as I show in the Foundations video on that one jump with Le). Front cross will put her on a right line for the plank.
Thank you, I will try tomorrow and see how it goes. 🙂
Hi Silvia,
I tried your suggestion and it did work -- the FC put her on the right line for the plank and she stayed on. But it still looks like it did with the tunnel -- no hits in the yellow at all and after 6-7 tries, she shut down and basically quit. Should I toggle back and forth between starting her around an object and then just infront of the plank just to give her something positive?
Sure, go to just the plank as soon as you have two failures in a row. Does the same thing happen even if you put it really close to the plank?
Another, crazy idea… Could you get somewhat shorter plank? My plank is 3m and I was getting nice hits from Le, doing 2 strides on it. There is no way she would be hitting nicely on 4m plank in 2 strides at that point and I could only get 3 if starting her with no speed. By the time we got to the real DW, she started to fly over an apex so much that getting deep in on 4m down ramp in 2 strides is no issue. In your set up, she couldn’t do it and I guess she would have exactly the same problem as Maia. I think she will have the same striding as Le eventually (see the video I posted) and it’s a really nice striding as it’s so symmetrical, so I’m not sure if trying to force 3 strides (by putting the speed away) makes any sense, considering that 2 is what you will eventually be looking for. Any chance you could get somewhat shorter plank and try that one, starting her from the tunnel again?
My friend does have a shorter dog walk so I can use one of those planks, it will not be 12 feet long like this one is. I will try that late tonight and report back.
Ok, so I went to a shorter plank again. The first session, I had about a 50% success rate. The second session -- 99% success rate! I’m sending her around a pole first, FC to keep her on the path to the plank and it’s working! So I will keep this for a few more sessions and then I will report back for further instructions 🙂
Sounds good! How long is that plank?
The plank is from a short dog walk, so it is about 3 meters long. The other one I was using was 12 feet (4 meters) from my adjustable dog walk)
Good, that sounds about right. 12 feet is 3.6m, so you have US version of a DW, ours are somewhat longer. Still, Maia striding on DW should be the same as Le’s.
Hi Silvia, this is our last trinning session, We had done a couple of sessions on this heigh and I´m now trhowing the ball earlier, I´m moving and changing the start position, but allways from a tunel. This session last 2 runs I used a stationary toy to see what happens, do you think acqua was with good speed? Now I don´t know what to do, I should continue with this heigh and begin with the jump? or do I should raise the plank first?Do I should start with the real DW?
Thank 😉
Looks good! When working with a stationary toy, always put it at the jump, so that she is starting to focus on it and you can then quickly switch to a toy thrown after the jump if you think she is too slow with a stationary toy, so definitely begin with a jump after. You an also go to the next height: you can do it using real low DW if you have one that can be lowered???
Yes, I can use a real low DW, but just once maybe twice in a week, would that be a problem?
Well, it would be perfect if you can use a full dog-walk once or twice a week and keep working on that plank the other days.
Hi Silvia,
Our latest practice:
She touched the contact zone in 10/12 tries, with many starting positions, some walking and jogging with her. The misses were at 21 feet. She got 2 wrong, and then got 2 right at that distance.
What do you think?
Hm, I don’t like those hind feet together and a head turning to you (like 0:58, 1:05, also 1:13 is not good…)… Where did her nice hind feet separation go? I would go back to wherever you last saw it and try to not loose it this time…
Thanks Silvia,
Today’s practice is at:
Vite’s experimenting now that we’re trying different starting positions. She’s trying to hit the zone. Sometimes her rear separation is even better than the front. There’s a lot of deep hits, some with front, some with rear.
I’m not sure what the ideal performance should look like.
What should we do next?
Carla
The ideal hit is for example 1:05: two front feet and one hind foot with great hind feet separation. 1:20 is not ideal -- it’s nicely low, but hind feet are together. I would keep working like that, with different starting position and adding more&more of your movement if that’s an issue with her, while going for as many perfect hits as possible, focusing on hind feet separation as it’s still not as good as it was before the last video and actually my only concern at that point. As soon as you get better hind feet separation, you can add more height and also go to low DW or plank on a DW set up.
Here’s my trick homework for lesson 2. Sorry this is so late. I taped it the begining of June. I don’t really like how I have to continually say back up to get them to keep moving but what do you think about it? Oh and they have both gotten considerably better at back up since this video.
Again I am so sorry this is so late. I’ll post the running contact homework tonight then hopefully I can get going on lesson 3. When is lesson 4 coming out?
Nice bowl balance! 🙂 That’s a really small bowl for a Golden, great job!!! For back, you have to make sure they are still moving when you click. If you click when they’re stopping, they learn to back and stop and then you need to say it again. Also, it’s much easier to get speed and distance with backing up when rewarding by tossing something at their feet… Toys are the easiest for that, but maybe you can also find a treat that flies well enough. Lesson 4 coming Monday!
Here’s an update on Sage and Oliver’s running contacts. Honestly, I’m feeling a little lost. I’ve fallen behind on the lessons and I’m not quite sure what to do next and what steps I may have missed. Here’s an overview of what I’ve been doing.
I took some time off this past month but when I did train I kept the height really low for both Sage and Oliver (about 2 feet). The video of Oliver below was taped May 31 and shows the plank on the first step of the deck but I’ve since moved it to the second. The reason I have it so low is because I don’t really have a good way to raise. If I do it encourages jumping the apex and I really don’t want Sage doing that. Anywho I was focusing on challenging Oliver and Sage to see if they would adjust their stride when needed. They both always seem to adjust before the board so it’s not necessary once they’re on. I rarely see adjustments (especially from Sage) on the board. She either 2 hits perfectly or 1 hits and bails. It was encouraging that Oliver does look like he’s shortening his stride to hit the end of the plank in the video below. I’ve tried to add in the challenges in lesson two by changing both my position and the dog’s. Neither seemed to affect them much. I did notice in this video Oliver seems to leap when I’m ahead of him so I since have worked on that and it doesn’t seem to be an issue anymore. Since neither of my dogs start well from a standstill I’ve always given both a generous head start of 15-30ft before the plank. Neither dogs have “sweet spots” but do have trouble if I start them closer than 10ft from the plank. Should I be working on this? I also I have experimented a lot with rewards. With Oliver I’ve used a food target, a thrown toy, a static toy, (often treating after Ollie picks up the ball) and I’ve begun using two toys as described in lesson 3, same thing with Sage except I haven’t done much with the static toy yet. I’m not quite sure how to do lesson 3 though. When I introduce the 2nd toy they’re simply supposed to ignore the 1st toy??? I’m afraid if I focus on getting them to leave the 1st toy they won’t drive to the jump anymore.
Sorry this is so scatterbrained. I guess what I’m asking is have I completed lesson two with both dogs and what should I do next? Thanks!!
For a toy, my dogs will just ignore a static toy if there is a moving one too 🙂 But you can simply put the static one away now and go directly to a thrown one. If you think your dogs run better for food, you could also use that and fade it I suggested to Kristin with Da Vinci: using a curved tunnel and treating after. Oliver is running really well on that plank, all you need to do now is to transfer it to a DW. With Sage, it would be good to get that 1 and a half stride… You never get it, not even if you put a plank one step higher so that the beginning of the plank wouldn’t be too obvious? Any change you could try low DW? We have many dogs in this class offering this striding on low DW. I would definitely try to get that… And if really not possible, then I would insist on two strides. I don’t think she can consistently do it in one so I would go for two. If you go that way, then it’s better not to do too many straight approaches and exits as those promote extension, so you could go directly to lesson 4, but I would definitely try for 1 and a half stride first as there can be problems getting 2 strides when she is very excited.
Ok thanks. That helps a lot. For transfering Oliver to the dogwalk do I use the extra plank on the dogwalk and reward after the jump (or tunnel) with a thrown toy? With Sage I definitely want to keep trying for 1 1/2 strides. I really think that would be best. I’ve been working on the 2nd step and with another plank leading up to it. I really thought this would encourage 1 1/2 strides but so far no luck. I really wish I could try her on a low dogwalk but the adjustable dogwalk at my local dog training club is on the trailer and really can’t get it unloaded. Could trying her on the full height dogwalk with an extra plank help? I’ll keep experimenting…
Yes, for Oliver, try an extra plank and at first reward him in his favourite way, the way that will most likely give you a success. After a couple of successful sessions, switch to a toy or food after the jump or tunnel. For Sage, I think an extra plank will promote two strides as then things will get too long for 1 and a half… So low DW would definitely be best… You can also try to play some more on full height, I was able to get this striding with Bi on full DW as I didn’t have a low one either.
Here are some videos of recent plank work with Nessa and Taari. Note that I switched to a wide board (16″) with wide mats. I had been using a narrow board (12″) with narrow or wide mats. I started to wonder if they were catching the edge of the wide mats on the narrow board and not liking it. I also decided to stick with grey since Taari was jumping over the yellow and then avoiding the end regardless of colour. Another possible complication is working both at home and at an agility field. I don’t have wide boards at the agility field so I have been using wide mats on the narrow board. For Nessa I was using the bare teeter board but she wasn’t staying on it very well.
Taari -- out of 17 -- 3 off side, 6 air, 5 jackpot, 1 reward, 2 misc
Only 2 had nice feet placements (the other 3 jackpots were front feet).
Taari -- out of 15 -- 5 jackpot (2 front feet, one slow, 2 one back foot), 10 air
Nessa -- out of 14 -- 5 jackpots, 1 grass, 5 no rewards, 3 should have been no rewards or bad throws. Some of the jackpots were better than others with respect to feet placement
Nessa -- lots of running on grass -- may be due to red pad (noticed afterwards) or just too excited. The last tries are in the video. It looks like she is running better in these ones -- less or no air. Not sure why I wasn’t sure about 36 at the time. She isn’t very close to the end with her rear feet. I think that I was throwing the ball too hard as it was ending up at the fence and she was nearly running into the fence. She seems to be much keener on the ball and even retrieving it. Perhaps that is why she was almost running into the fence.
I would like better consistency with both Nessa and Taari. I also would like Taari foot placement to be better. Should I be trying a different length of board? Since I can’t lift anything heavy due to my injured arm I am piecing together 8 and 4 foot plywood planks to make 12 feet in length (2 layers). It would be easy for me to switch to an 8 foot plank.
Nessa may just require more practice.
Will post tricks soon.
Hm, that’s in fact very weird, where did all that air come from, especially with Nessa… It is definitely better in the last video, but 32 and 37 are still airy. 36 is fine, she is running normally and that’s the most important thing right now. Can you spot a moment when she got so airy? Did you try what you get if you only use mats? Then add a wide plank -- the longer the better and stick with a wide one through much longer in a process, there is really no hurry as it’s no issue once the plank gets higher. And yes, you definitely don’t want mats to be wider as the board -- if you will still be using those on a narrow plank, you will need to cut them. For now, simply don’t do it at your agility field if there are no appropriate planks. Fixing the mats well is important too.
For Taari, I agree to keep the mats on if yellow is so confusing… You can still try to expose some yellow at the beginning of the plank, just so that she is learning to ignore it… Or is that confusing to her too? It’s very unusual to get stuck already at this point, even with a retrain… I would probably just start from zero again, running over mats only, trying to get as much of a normal running as possible and then add the wide plank again, paying close attention to any airy tendencies. Gitte and Ania had to do that too, it must be the Sheltie thing 🙂
I hope your arm gets better soon! Not so good to have this when teaching RC…
Thanks for the comments. I have lots of mats now 😉 -- 24″, 18″ and 12″ sets.
I am not sure when Nessa got airy. I need to go back and review some video which I will do this week as I took some time off to catch up. I tried the 2 foot wide mats at the agility training facility and they were both better. This was after a training session with my instructor so they may have been a bit tired especially with the heat though they do have more energy when I train there.
It is a bit hard to see Taari’s feet due to the sunlight and shadows. She didn’t start out running very well on the mats but improved by number 3. I am not sure if 8,9,10 are more airy than others. I am wondering if my throws are late too.
Nessa was much better with only one really bad airy try.
I used the same mats this morning at home and Taari was better though I am not sure if she had the same enthusiasm and speed. At home I don’t like them to bark much since our neighbours are close and my husband doesn’t like them barking especially when he is sleeping.
Nessa was a bit crazy and not as good. My camera malfunctioned and of the 6 tries I got on video she had one good one and the others were airy and one was on grass.
Will try again when the weather improves (very hot and humid and storms probably tomorrow).
That’s definitely much better as the last videos you posted! Still, sounds like it’s not yet consistent… Very strange. Definitely try throwing sooner yes. That airy stride in the middle was funny too, not sure where the air comes from, would be good to know the pattern…
I did some more mat work in my backyard today and one thing that I noticed was that when Nessa hit the mats with her front feet close to the end then she was likely to have nice striding and have her back feet near the end. If she didn’t hit the mats in the “good spot” then I seem to get air. I guess I need to find the spot that she should start from to get her to land in the right spot. I was trying to get some speed so she was running around the picnic table. She did have two scraped pads recently and I wonder if she scraped them on the board so maybe the air is an attempt at avoidance. I will look at more video.
Here are some tricks. Nessa is picking them up quicker than Taari.
Great job with tricks, love Nessa’s side version of climbing stairs backward 🙂 Would be good to practise the other side too, though, she seems to have a preference for the right leg. Where did you get the objects you’re using for the last trick and how they’re called? It looks like a great awareness and balance exercise, would love to try it with my dogs! And yes, would be good to find a good starting spot for plank work…
Thanks Silvia!
I bought the red ones at a fitness store. They are called balance pods (6 inch size). When I could not find more at that store I bought the yellow ones from Clean Run and they are called FitPAWS Paw Pods. Round side down is more challenging and requires more balancing. Only tried it a few times with one pod and the rest flat side down.
Will try the other side with Nessa on the stairs.
O.k., thanks! Will check the fitness stores here and if they don’t have it, order via CleanRun.
I reviewed some video from this past weekend. I didn’t get many reps in because of the weather. Here is a summary:
July 23
Nessa rewarded 5 out of 7 but one looked a bit airy in the middle. All were front feet hits near the end of the mats. Of the other two one was a bad throw and the other one Nessa ran partly on the grass.
Taari -- did not reward 3 out of 5 due to air, 2 I rewarded though one I shouldn’t have because it was air.
July 24
Nessa -- first one was really good back feet at end of mats, then two I rewarded but front feet, then a bad throw and 2 I didn’t reward because of air.
Taari -- rewarded first one (bit slow), then two with air that I didn’t reward, then 4 that I jackpotted -- all with back feet the last feet on the mats (in one case just one back foot, two were really good).
Let me know if you would like to see video.
I am still struggling with getting Nessa’s back feet to be near the end of the mats (and seeing which feet it is at the time). I am worried that I have rewarded too many front feet. Will keep experimenting with starting distance away from mats.
I should probably keep doing the mat work but not sure for how long. I think that my next step would be to add a board under the mats to make the mats stiffer to run on. Long grass isn’t that good under the mats because they don’t sit that close to the ground.
Good luck at the EO.
Yeah, I think I would stay on the mats until airy tries drop to almost 0%… But try to play some with different form of rewards… For Gitte who had the same problem, a tunnel after the plank and then a static toy after made a big difference -- still gave her lots of speed, but less air. Dogs are different and different things might work for them, so I would definitely experiment some, as it is highly unusual to have this problem for so long… You could try static toy/food and then racing them, your running might help them too (it’s a distraction for some dogs -- and helpful to others… -- hard to know without trying)…
Since I thought that you were not going to be reading the posts to this list for a few weeks I asked a couple of people I know to take a look at my videos. I found out later that you are still reading and commenting on the RC classroom while the other classes are on a break. They thought that perhaps Nessa was slipping on the mats (they were moving on the grass). She was often at the edge of the mats so not sure if it was the way I was throwing the ball or her desire to not run on them. So I went out and bought the pad that you put under carpets to prevent them from slipping to put on top of the mats. I also put a thin piece of plywood under it as well since the mats were flexing quite a bit (especially when on long grass). Here is Nessa’s video of three sessions. First is just with the mats and the pad. You can see it flex quite a bit. Then with the plywood underneath. You see a bit of movement of the plank/mats because there are two boards underneath end to end. Nessa started to get tired in the second session at the end (1-8 1-9 1-10). It has been very hot here.
I am really starting to wonder if I am getting confused about what her good running style is. So I looked at this video again
It looks like she can naturally take an “airy long stride” when she is running on grass.
I am really not sure about whether or not there is air for 1-4 and perhaps some of the other videos. I am wondering if she looks a bit more airy on the plywood plus mats because on just the mats she needed to push off more because they flexed. I think that I need help in determining which tries are good again.
I signed up to continue with Nessa for sure. I am working on Taari’s videos and will ask you about her too. She is complicated to say the least.
Yes, she is definitely airy on grass too -- some dogs are even real leapy when running after the ball -- but if you tape her chasing a rabbit, I’m sure there won’t be any air 🙂 -- So that’s the form of running you should be going for. Maybe a tunnel would help? 1-7, I wouldn’t reward. 1-8-9-10 are perfectly o.k., 4-3 you could definitely jackpot. From 1 to 4, I probably wouldn’t reward 1, but would jackpot 2 and 4 -- it’s almost no air there and a great hit. But yes, it is somewhat hard to decide even when seeing it in slow motion… Even more in live…
Thanks Silvia. The night you replied I was at a friend’s place for dinner and they had a rabbit in their backyard! I will try the tunnel with Nessa.
I have been experimenting with Taari to see what gives me the best results. Nothing is consistent yet though. I tried throwing her ball like toy, using food dispenser (Ready Treat), throwing a toy with food in it, tunnel with food dispenser, running with her. The move to plywood under the mats was interesting. Not only did the surface change but it got longer and it appears that Taari thought she knew how long it was. Here is a sample of what I have been getting with her. I will try the tunnel again. Her speed was better with the tunnel than with the food dispenser.
I would like to continue trying to get her to do RC but I don’t know what my chances of success are. RC was something that I wanted to do with her from the very beginning 6 years ago but I didn’t know what to do and tried several things before your class. Unfortunately she has quite a bit of unlearning to do now at the age of 8. I think that the tricks are definitely helping her.
I signed Nessa up to continue on but not sure what I should do with Taari.
Huh, it’s very weird you get a really good ones (as the one with the tunnel) -- and then airy ones again on the same set up… But yes, I think a tunnel is a keeper. Try to do several sessions with it and see what the trend is. What confuses me about Taari is that it’s hard to see the trend… She goes from running to air and back without a pattern I could see… But yes, I would definitely keep trying some more.
Hi Silvia,
I have not posted a video in RC class since june 5th. So I am trying to give you the highlihts/lowlights/turning points of my journey since then.
On june 19 and 20th I had a success rates much lower than usual despite the fact that we had been at this height for while already. So I posted you these two sessions.
We took 9 days of break after that. On the 29th of june things went pretty well so I posted you that session.
Then on july 8th I had just finished painting my new dogwalk and couldn’t wait to try it so I posted you that session also.
July 9th showed a pretty good improvement on the real dogwalk so I posted it too.
I tried to keep my movies as short as possible, hope it’s not too much..
CLaire
June 19 and 20 :
june 29 :
july 8th
July 9th
Looks like the trend is good! 🙂 I agree with your rewarding decisions and she also doesn’t seem to need that carpet anymore. What’s the red thing at the end? I wouldn’t keep it for too long, you don’t want her cue from that. Also, move the exit tunnel a little further, you want to have it at a normal distance (7m) away from the end of a plank. You can also slowly add some more height.
Thanks Silvia !
The red thing at the end is a sand bag. I put it there because I was hoping that it would protect her from hurting her feet if she stepped on the ledge at the end of the board. Not sure that it’s really protecting her…
In june, I think I noticed that if I do a lot of repetition of a set up with a jump before low A-Frame kind of ‘set-up’, she will gradually increasing the length of her stride. She has a very long stride over the jump then another very long one over the apex and after a while the other strides start to get longuer and longuer also.
Is that something I want to encourage ? I guess the longuer the stride the faster the dog so I want that right ?
Thanks,
Claire
Yes, maybe use something softer and lower instead… Long stride is o.k., but too long jump over the apex can as well cause problems, that’s exactly why I prefer to switch to mini DW set up at one point. But for her, jumping the apex some is actually good as the next stride takes her deeply in the contact then. So you can of course try starting her from the jump to see how that goes if you think it makes her strides longer as the tunnel. You’re going for the nice symmetrical 5 strides DW -- like Le is showing in the video I posted. It’s a nice striding pattern, very easy for the dogs.
Hi Silvia,
Daly started leaping again 2 days ago, so I started experimenting with a hunch :
Tuesday july 12, with kibble :
2 good nes out of 9 tries
Wednesday july 13, with bacon and a skipped meal :
3 good ones out of 13 tries
this thursday morning, with hot dogs and throwing the ball only when I click :
6,5 out of 13 (0,5 is for the one which I paid but was really high)
what do you think of all this ?
I should add that Daly only gets to run after a ball and/or run side by side with me when I do RC sessions, so maybe that in itself is more rewarding than the click and the food. I started just throwing the ball outisde of RC sessions and without paying for returning the ball this morning and I get the impression that she takes a break only when she is too hot or out of breath but other then that, she is always willing..
Here is the video of these 3 sessions :
Well, I think only July 13 is really leapy… If that went came and went away, I wouldn’t worry and would keep working on getting better hits. Or was she leaping again after that? If she is running again, but is often too high, you could still try adding some more height, I think it’s easier for them to figure out their striding when you have somewhat more pronounced apex.
Hi Silvia,
Last night Daly got 13 good out of 14 but I noticed the following :
-- If I wait until I know if she is successfull before throwing the ball, she will hit the middle of the contact zone in 6 strides.
-- If I wait until she is halfway through the DW before throwing the ball she will hit the middle of the contact zone in 5 strides.
Tonight I am going to experiment more with “when I throw the ball”. I think maybe, if I throw the ball very early too many times in a row , she might start leaping again.
But to protect against that : I am also using a different meat everynight in a remote control dispenser located after the tunnel in order to make a bigger difference between good and bad ones.
The dogwalk is now 1 foot above the ground (2 milk crates) and the yellow is always completely visible.
Making progress !! I just hope that she won’t start leaping again when I stop giving meat….
Claire
So… Does she run after the ball or she goes to the food dispenser? If she is o.k. with you throwing the ball after she is successful, then you don’t need to go to early throws… -- You can skip that step and simply go directly to a toy, thrown after a good contact -- first after a jump or a tunnel, eventually after more obstacles.
Hi Silvia,
Throwing the ball after a good contact zone only worked for that one session. After that she slowed down way too much so we had to throw the ball long and early again. She then began to leap at every try, really changing her stride to skip the contact zone, even after I hid the yellow with the brown carpet.
I get the impression that many of the following things might be happening :
1- She often perceived the ball as a better reward than my click and food and disregarded everything else
2- My clicking was inconsistent enough that she wasn’t able to make a good deduction
3- Sometimes she thought the food I gave her was for bringing back the ball.. ?
So I decided to start fresh and make things simpler for myself so that I would make less clicking mistakes. This means that my boyfriend is now throwing the ball so that I can concentrate on only the clicking. The camera is therefore stationnary and the slow motion recording mode is no longuer available.
We put 3 12 foot long plywood boards in a row, they are very thin and will be rotten by the end of the summer but they were cheap.
1st session : I was sitting facing the contact zone, 15 feet away and paying with 1 inch pieces of cooked pork.
After a few successful tries she started slowing down preparing herself to turn and come directly to me and the pork as soon as I had clicked.
That at least reassured me that she realized the click was related to the end of the board and that the food was for the click.
2nd session : I put the goodies in the remote control dispenser 20 feet after the contact zone but she was still slowing down a bit. So I started to run with her. I even had to run on the other side (between the camera and her) to change things enough so that she would not slow down anymore.
Here is a tape of 9 tries. Thanks to this recording mode, you can now hear my clicks in slow motion. The wistling sound at the beginning is made by the ball.
For number 7 I clicked way too late, I was probably doing that a lot more often when I had to managed the ball and couldn’t see the contact zone as well…
As always, I am very interested in any comments/thoughts you might have. I will never be able to thank you enough for offering this class !!
Claire and Daly
If she prefers a ball over the food, one way to do it would be to have her run to a food dispenser and for the really good tries, you can throw a ball after you see her in. It is very important that she perceives jackpots as jackpots, especially if she is getting a ball in every case, that’s why I’m trying to think of another way to make it clearer for her… But yes, that way or another, you want to reward her away, coming to you sitting at the contact will not give you nice running. I still find it strange she is running so nicely one session and then just starts leaping another one… I can understand why she started leaping when there was no ball thrown in advance -- but not why she kept leaping when you were throwing it in advance again… It just doesn’t make sense why would she find leaping better as running at this height… But well, let’s hope she keep running this time around!
Hi,
So this is where we are at now. I am using a shorter plank (not quite 3 meters) and she is hitting low on the yellow 80% of the time at least. Here is today’s session:
Very cool! That’s a very good % to have and the good thing is that those tries are really nice and low -- and the remaining 20% is very obviously not nice and low 🙂 -- Sounds like a great learning situation. Keep working like this for a while you can also add some more height as soon as % gets close to 90% -- and try coming from the tunnel too!