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!
Silvia, LOOK!!!! This is progress, right?!?!?
Da Vinci really started picking up some speed. I was going to wait until I got the tricks included on the video, but I was too excited to send this to you….and you see the tricks in puppy class. I cut out the first couple sessions from another day because the video was too long and we were working many things out. He had trouble with me on his right side so I realized I probably shouldn’t expect him to generalize so much. Sorry, the program wouldn’t let me edit out the slow motion on those.
He was really excited and even trying to burst out of my restrain towards the end. We are done with RC training for this week due to the weather so we will spend the rest of the weeks on tricks. What do you suggest when we get back to the planks? Should I continue restraining for awhile and just work towards some successful sessions running or add challenge?
I hope you are happy with what you see. I’m pretty excited.
Cool! That’s going really well now. When you’re on the other side of the board, you need to send him another way around the cone. If you keep sending him to a right wrap, his line is taking him towards you when you are on his right. If you sent to the left wrap, you fix the line with a front cross 🙂 But yes, for now, do whatever gives you best results. I think both restraining and send around the cone are good. As the next step, I would add some height. I only add other challenge when the plank is already somewhat raised, so that would be your next step. Have fun!
Did I reward ok? Was it right to be generous with the rewarding at this stage? I wanted to keep his enthusiasm up. Thank you for the advice with the cone. I see that now. Is he running the way you want now?
I shortened our sessions this week too…seemed like I was asking too much so I focused on keeping them short and intense and FUN. When we finish, I put the MM and all food away and get out a toy to play…is that the right way to apply what you’ve been teaching us in Puppy Class?
Sure, it’s o.k. to be generous. Those tries that you were asking about, I probably still wouldn’t reward as they were somewhat leapy, but it’s no big deal if you sometimes reward few more as you would want -- better as the other way around 🙂 I think he is running well now, you can raise a plank a little. And yes, apart from sessions with food, work on his play too, it would be good to be able to use a toy at one point too, but for now, you can continue with food.
Barb and Mercy
Trying both the dw with a plank for 12 inches and just the dw at 12 inches high. I will attach the video of the plank first. I have tried different start points, first at the top of the down ramp to the beginning of the up side of the dw
Looks good! For others, switching from a plank to a DW: that’s the easiest way to do it, you must make it look as much as a plank work as possible.
My favourite try is the first one, I would extra jackpot tries like that, especially as she seems to have a tendency to be thinking about front feet more as about hind feet -- maybe because you were jackpotting front feet more? Anyway, keep working on as you are now, just make sure you don’t favour front feet too much 🙂
Hi
Barb and Mercy here
Yesterday I only posted the plank on the dw video. Today I have the edited video of yesterday’s sessions of the dw on 12 inch high crates. I sent Mercy into a tunnel to the dw in this video. I am having a little trouble with the back feet. I think they will hit low sometimes, and then he pulls them in tight and they hit the ground. I should know that when the front feet hit low in the yellow.
Which was is best to proceed, the higher dw with the plank or the low dw.
It’s normal hind feet only come to the ground when both front feet are in. But that’s o.k., you do want to reward that too. Front feet are perfectly o.k., the best is actually when you are getting a nice variety of hits and Mercy is sure showing it all in this video: two front feet, two hind feet or one front + one or two hind feet in. That’s great! To me, it looks like she is adjusting the stride already, meaning that she already has some understanding about it. Looks like you’re ready for the next height. I would keep using a lowered dog-walk as we actually don’t want too much flying over the apex as she doesn’t have enough room for another stride then.
OK Thank you
We are off to video our tricks now.
Barb and Mercy
Here is a sample of Mercy learning the tricks. He did want to do hand stands and I thought it was cute, so I clicked that too. Then back to just backing up.
Barb and Mercy
Wow, that’s GREAT! No wonder he understands the plank work so well, he sure knows lots about his hind feet!!! That was a really tiny bowl and a really cool handstand! GREAT job not only with the plank, but also with the tricks!!!
I think that could have been highlighted? Is it my imagination or does it seem that those students who are doing the trick work as much as the RDW are doing better?
Yeah, there definitely is the connection between the two! That’s why we’re doing tricks in RC class 🙂
Hi
Barb and Mercy
Lately Mercy is leaping. He was running on the dw at 15 inches but started to leap after a few sessions so I lowered it to 12 inches. Leaping did not improve. On the attached video the first two tries are from the end of the dw. The others are from the tunnel. The last two tries, I raised the dw back up to 15 since being at 12 inches did not improve on the leaping. That is where I stopped. Not sure how to proceed.
Barb
Well, the last two were sure great! 🙂 First, he seems to be trying 3 strides… -- not so good. I wouldn’t worry about occasional leap -- that’s how he will learn. If he leaps three times in a row, though, try to change something: as his leaps are caused by trying 3 strides instead of 4, you can try taking off some speed, maybe doing just the down ramp a couple of times to remind him of the importance of low hits -- and then try the whole thing again. You can also try to switch to a static toy, that might put him back to 4 strides mode. How many leaping sessions did you have? And what was his % in those? Anyway, try the above and report back if his successful rate gets better or stays low.
Hi Silvia:
Since I last posted on May 20th, I’ve been gradually raising the height of the “double wide” plank. I’d like you to take a look at two sessions from today. In the first session, I varied Tai’s starting point quite a bit and got a variety of hits…including ones that I thought during the session were leaps. But after looking at the video, I think he was still in running stride but with his long stride, was extending beyond the bottom. Good examples are reps 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 and 14! Question # 1: Do you agree that these were NOT leaps? I started him quite far back or sent around a cone on these reps so he was really in full stride. Question # 2: How would you react to these trys?
Toward the end of the session (which went on longer than usual because I was trying to get some really good hits at the bottom), I positioned him about 20 ft back from plank, restrained, threw and released. This resulted in much better hits for 15 & 16.
I used that same starting position consistently in the second session and was more successful with all 7 reps much closer to what we want, I think.
So I think I need to be more careful about where I start, varying the starting position only a little at a time so I can continue to get more hits like session 2. Question 3: Do you agree?
Also, I’m still using a double plank setup, covered with carpet. Question 4: Would you suggest that I keep going higher with this set up or would you suggest I transition to a single plank before going higher?
Thanks -- Anne & Tai
I think the tries you list are leapy, way too much up in the air movement, so I definitely wouldn’t reward that, meaning take the toy immediately, you could also mark it with “ups” if he is o.k. with that and won’t be slowing down because of it. But yes, do try to avoid too many repetitions like that by varying his starting position slowly and going back to his good spot if other spots give you too much leaps in a row. I would keep the double plank for a while and add height on this set up.
Here is a video of the tricks for this lesson. Delta did them as a puppy. They are a bit rusty as we haven’t done them in a while. She still understands them though.
Very cool! It’s really good to work on those tricks while clicking her hind feet on a dog-walk! How is that going?
Hi Silvia
Here’s a couple of videos showing how I’m getting on with Bilbo. I have raised the plank, but only a little (not in a rush, as going to get it right this time!)
After watching the first I decided that the problem with so many misses was that the pallets I had rested the plank on were setting his stride wrongly. I therefore added more length with another set of pallets, so he could pick his stride better.
There was no training between the 2 videos, so it definately seemed to make a big difference. I’ve posted both videos as it may help someone else.
What do you think of the last video? I have started mainly only rewarding the hits, as whilst he is a very sensitive dog in many ways, he is fine when training. He is clicker trained and is happy to fail and work things out, and doesn’t lose enthusiasm.
Time to move up, or stick at this for longer??
TIA
Karen and Bilbo
Yes, the first set up didn’t allow him two strides on a plank, that’s why he was just leaping off after landing on it. On the few tries when he is in, he is really trying hard to shorten his second stride to put that front leg in. That’s a good news: looks like he is understanding something about the end of that plank. The bad news is that I see “Delta syndrome” -- see my discussion with Gary.
I see the same thing starting here. He is either getting in with front foot and then runs beautifully with good hind feet separation as at 1:25 and the tries after that one -- OR he is somewhat too high with front foot and then instead of reaching in with hind feet, he leaps from that very spot with hind feet together, like at 0:25, 0:33, 0:44, 0:55 -- those tries would all be good if only he would run normally. To me, it looks like he thinks it’s about front feet (the first video definitely talks in that direction) -- and if he thinks he is not deep enough, he leaps. After he corrected the striding at the top and was able to get in with one front foot, he started to run normally and had perfect hits only. But it would be good that you had an option of “not a perfect one, but definitely a hit” hits for situations when he won’t be able to correct the striding at the top enough. It would be good if he understood that when he is too high with front feet, he can still save the situation by reaching in with hind feet. That’s the part of the understanding I’m missing here and might get you in trouble as “a perfect hit or no hit” are the only two options he is showing now. So yes, I definitely wouldn’t reward the not-hits on this video as those were all leaps. But I would jackpot a non-hit if only it would be close to the limit and with good hind feet separation. This is what I would focus on the most at this stage. Of course, reward the perfect tries too, but definitely reward not perfect tries that still give you good hind feet separation too at least that enthusiastically!
A warning for all: don’t get too strict with your criteria too soon and don’t show the dog the clear preference for front feet as those are easier for the dog to understand in a first place! They need to know all their options 🙂 as the more options they have, the bigger chances there are they will be able to be in in whatever situation
Where is the discussion with Gary, I searched and can’t find it. Thanks!!!
Oh, I have no idea either… Good thing about having many participants is to address many different problems and styles and learn a lot, the bad thing is finding things… I maybe need to think of easier to find system… It must be somewhere on either introduction or lesson 1 page, not really sure…
Thanks Silvia. I can see exactly what you mean -- well in slow motion anyway! Now the challenge will be spotting it at speed.
I think he learnt this criteria from when I taught him previously, as I hadn’t picked up on the importance of hind feet separation at that time. (Think I just got lucky with Puzzle as she has all sorts of tricks she pulls out of the bag if she gets on the wrong stride and thinks she is going to miss!)
Silvia,
I added a bit height to the double planks. Toby is getting better at finding entry to the planks from a easy position. I threw the ball sooner, whenever he ran on the planks, I played tug with him on his fav tug toy. If he missed the plank, I didnt play tug, he has a better idea now. today he had 80% correct entry onto the planks. So I will keep doing this way with him. A video will be up tmr 🙂
Angela
Well, only start him from easy positions! You don’t need him searching for the plank!!! You can also put a chair at each side to make an entry more visible but do NOT spend time focusing on getting to the plank. Focus on HOW he is running, who cares about the plank!
I put 2 poles around the entry, I thought that I cared too much on running on the planks. From now on I focus more on the running. Thx a lot
Angela
Hi Silvia,
I took your suggestion and moved the plank onto a real dogwalk and am having her run the entire dog walk. She is much faster running the full dog walk. We’ve had 6 sessions at this height. On the video is our first, fifth and sixth sessions. I think the plank I am using is too short! It is only around 8 feet and I think she is having the same issue as some people above. Today I am going to see if I can transport my 12 foot teeter board to the agility field I use so I can use that as the plank and see if it makes a difference. So far, I am ok with her performance, but not thrilled with it. I think the plank will make a difference.
I’ve been varying my position but have not been able to get any lateral movement away from the DW. I will work on that -- or is it too soon? Should I just stay parallel with the DW for now, but maybe not so close to the DW?
Oops, here’s the video:
Hm, she is very airy… She jumps over the apex nice and low, but then goes more up in the air as I would wish for… She does land on what will once be the contact, but I think if there weren’t that plank there, she would only land on the ground…. -- Or maybe I’m wrong and she wouldn’t be so “airy” without the plank in a first place? That way or another, this set up is obviously not o.k. You can try with a longer plank or a lowered dog-walk, but I wouldn’t keep practising on this set-up, it’s giving you wrong movement. So no, I wouldn’t worry about moving lateral for now, getting rid of that up in the air movement should be the very first focus.
Thank you for the observations and the advice. That is what I thought too. She did much better on just a raised plank or the lower, but shorter dog walk. Today, before I read your response, I tried her on the full dog walk again but this time with a 12 foot plank and she did the same as above. She was very ‘airy’. So, when it stops raining here, next week, I will try her on the lower, shorter dog walk with the longer plank and if that does not fix the problem, I will go back to the raised plank on a stool again.
Sounds like a good plan!
Our first session video is on here:
Here’s a video of Sage’s 4th session on a real dogwalk, 3rd at full height. It’s the worst session so far. Her hind feet separation was terrible. I’m glad I taped it because though I’m getting better at seeing what’s going on during the session and I realized she wasn’t hitting because she changed to one stride I didn’t realize how much she changed her striding on every attempt. I’m actually much happier now. It looks like she’s really trying to figure out what works. I have been wondering if I’m moving to quickly though. She doesn’t hit low with an extra low plank on the dogwalk but seems better with a higher one of without the extra plank at all. She was still running but hitting high. I decided to move on because the extra plank was adding several feet to the lenth of the dogwalk and so her hits would’ve been fine without the extra length. Was that the wrong thing to do? She also struggles to get low hits depending on where on the dogwalk I put her. Until this whole one stride thing she seemed to do better on the whole dogwalk because it gave her more room to adjust. What do you think about this? Is it a problem? Do I need to go back down? Thanks 🙂
I didn’t have much time Wednesday but Oliver also had a short rc training session after Sage’s. I was pretty disapointed with his speed. We’re dogsitting a lab and great dane this week and Oliver has been playing non stop so I’m hoping he was just really tired and will get faster after they leave tonight. He was better in the other sessions (not on video). He’s a natural at the hard part. He rarely jumps. Just once I ran him over a full height dogwalk (not in this session) and he didn’t jump but this speed wasn’t very good and he had an awkward front feet hit (he was expecting a longer board and actually jammed his toes :O). The lack of speed is strange because he loves to train and I’m watching his confidence grow in other areas of agility so I’m hoping it’s just a matter of time before he figures out all I want is for him to run. What do you think of all this?? Would you do anything differently? Thanks for all you help! 🙂
P.S Everyone may already know this but to get the normal long link for a youtube video click on the video, go to “share”, click “show options”, then check the 2nd box the one that sayes “long link”.
Well yes, he is definitely running… -- but not as fast as we would wish for. One thing is that I think he is somewhat uncomfortable on that horizontal plank, he slows down a lot there. That will go away with more experience. So when you have an access to a dog-walk, keep working like that to give him confidence. Apart from that, keep working on his speed and drive. Are you sure he would run that way even if you threw a ball?
Ummm… He usually doesn’t but you never know maybe it would help. I’ll try the ball next time. Oliver’s a strange dog. He seems to have no desire to reach the ball before it stops. He’s often faster restrained to a ball then chasing a moving one. Maybe I’ll try some of that too. Thanks for the help. I’ll keep you posted. 🙂
Well, my first idea was that running towards that wall is not perfect. I would pull a tunnel to that A-frame in a corner and start from there, towards more open space, many dogs have a problem running full speed towards a wall or a fence, on first tries she seems to be stopping already on a contact, as if hind feet together come from that.
But no, I don’t think this was the major problem in next repetitions, I think she just needs to figure out her striding, as you said. In the one you wrote you liked the best, she does 5 strides, like Le. 5 strides are actually the easiest as it’s so symmetrical: two hits on first ramp, jump the apex, two hits on second ramp, jump the apex, two hits on a down ramp -- very easy to do and reproduce. I’m just not sure if it’s realistic to keep 5 strides with a dog of this size? Her next attempt is 4 strides again, great down contact, but missing up contact… But yes, I agree she needs to figure it out on her own, so I would do some more sessions running full dog-walk, towards more open space and jackpot the good ones as crazy. If that was your worst session, then it’s not too bad anyway 🙂
Yeah, not the best set up. I’ll change it next time. Oh and I forgot to meantion I compete in AKC and they no longer call up contacts so I don’t have to worry about that. 🙂 I see what you mean it’s probably unrealistic for Sage to do 5 strides.
Oh, that’s great! I hope FCI once realizes how unfair up contacts are to bigger, long-strided dogs too -- as if they weren’t challenged enough already! But unfortunately, FCI rules are made by people who never did agility (at least not since 1989…) and they just voted AGAINST not judging up contacts and AGAINST not using a table anymore -- and FOR making a dog-walk and see-saw shorter… Doesn’t get much more stupid as that!
Yeah, up contacts are plain dumb. It’s not a safety issue at all. It’s not a problem for most dogs but when it is it’s often a huge problem. I can’t imagine how frusterating it is for people when their only fault is an up contact! Little dog people must have made that rule. I hope someday all organizations change that rule.
I’m afraid it’s not little dog people fault… I think it’s little thinking people fault 🙂
Lol true. 🙂
good point!