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.
Here is Callie’s video for the week. This is the new height. I was tossing the ball pretty early for most repetitions so she is being released as the ball comes to a stop. As you will see, I tried holding her jackpot toy for a few sessions, but that may have been too much distraction so I set it back down. She LOVES LOVES LOVES to shred that toy!
I’m a little concerned about jumping up to that height (but I may just be overly worried still). Is it ok or should there be an up ramp/ bench or table for her to start on? She is fine and sound to be running…I’m still a little gun shy about her having another traumatic injury. That’s all.
Great job with the tricks! With plank work, my major focus on that new height would be to get more low hits, so don’t vary other variables before getting that. To me, looks like starting from the tunnel worked the best, so just use that for now, to get better % of low hits and be able to stop clicking the high hits. Only then, challenge her with different starts etc.
To me, this height and with double plank to jump on, doesn’t look dangerous. But if you felt better with a different set up, definitely go for it! Just try to find something long enough for her to be able to still run full speed over the plank.
hi silvia, this is our latest session. thanks, terri/wicked
GREAT!!! Ready for next heigh! -- But do try to throw a toy sooner! Much sooner! 🙂
i expected you to say that! i am working on it, thanks.
here are wicked’s tricks…
Great job with tricks too! Some of them are already from the next assignment! 🙂
I was reading semewhere here in the Running Contact classroom, that there could be some frustrating periods… I think i have been there the last 14 days 🙁
Zushi was jumping more and more on the plank. I thought it was because, she was makking a big jump to go to the plank and then it was easy for her to make another big jump on the plank.
I have tried many different setups. Doubbel balance planks with carpet on, plank plain on the grass, only carpet on the grass…
Very frustrating.
Yesterday i was using a setup with tunnel plank on grass and a short tunnel. See the first tries in the video.
This morning i tried to go back to the setup where i first noticed her jumps. But i was starting her right in front of the plank. I thougt it looked great untill i saw the video in slowmotion… She was still jumping. But i think she vas jumping a little less than before.
Well, it’s definitely better, but yeah, not perfect… It’s unusual to have problems on this height, but it can happen, I had plenty of Bi, she was jumping all the time on flat board! But then she realized what is she supposed to do and never jumped again (of course, she still missed, but not jumping)… So it’s not necessarily bad -- if that helps any… What confuses me is that she was doing really well at the beginning and that she runs normally after the ball on a grass… Seems as if there is something about that plank that she doesn’t like OR she though she is being clicked for something we actually didn’t want… How was she doing when you went back to the carpet? Another option is that it’s caused by a ball… I remember she pulls nicely towards the tunnel… Did you every try running her over the plank, into the tunnel and rewarding only after tunnel?
Here is the video of the session with the carpet the other day.
I think she is jumping a little to the carpet and off the carpet, but not as much as on the plank.
I think she has learned to jump to the plank. She makes long and high jumps to it. Maybe she think that she is prased for long jumps?
I have thougt of making the setup with the board very low on the balance. From next weekend and a week ago i am on a agility week course and i can’t bring the plank, but i have access to a dogwalk. And can make the setup with a ramp on the dogwalk. I also have oportunity to get a helper. So i thought of have a person to look and mark the good tries with a click.
I have tried to let her go through the tunnel and cathing the ball. And i have tried without the tunnel. The jumping the came after i send her from the tunnel to the plank.
Maybe i should try just sending her through the tunnel maybe to some food. She will run fast because of the tunnel.
She sure moves better on a carpet! What if you put two planks under the carpet? And if it’s still good, raise it some, but leave the carpet on? My suggestion with the tunnel was not to start her in a tunnel, but to run her over the plank towards the tunnel -- like Claire I think did with her Sheltie with the same problem -- it worked really good for her. Considering that we are getting wrong movement even on a pretty much flat plank, I definitely wouldn’t use the set up with the dog-walk yet. Take the carpet with you and try some of that and if it goes well, try dog-walk ramp on the ground or very very low.
Some days ago i tried to let her run on the to down ramps from the dogwalk and with the carpet over. But my dogwalk ramps are as high as the plank on a brick. So there is a high edge down to the grass. I let the carpet go over the edge, so there was a smooth transition. But when Zushi trot at the edge under the carpet first time, she decide to jump over it 🙁
The last two days i have send her over the plank to the tunnel.
Today i have thougt of doing a session with 5 times over the carpet to a tunnel, 5 times over the carpet with the plank over, to the tunnel and then 5 times over the plain plank to the tunnel.
… And how did it go?
And here comes the video from today -- And i am HAPPY 🙂
I send her to a static toy or food at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes food, sometimes toy. I didn’t bring my clicker because i think i have done some wrong clicks.
The tries were i am writing jackpot i praised her with my voice and the played with toy or threw small pieces of goodies to her, so she should chase them.
Huh… She runs beautifully on carpet, but as soon as you add the plank, she gets VERY airy… Last few tries (where you wrote jackpot) were nice, all other tries on a plank were airy… She does seem to jump over the white part on purpose! How about turning the plank other way around 8so that she starts on a white part), to check if she has a problem with colour change, as some of the dogs in this class? Well, don’t worry about it if you only get tries like the last few -- but we definitely need to get rid of tries like those before those!
I have a busy day today, so this early morning we had a short session with 7 repetitions.
7 RUNNING tries and 7 tries with both hindlegs in the zone. 1 or 2 in the high zone and the rest in the middle or the low zone 🙂
Happy Happy Happy 🙂
No time for video editing today, so it must wait 😉
Sounds good! Hopefully her flying ere is over! 🙂
Hi Gitte, this is Claire.
This winter I clearly taught my sheltie to jump at the end of the board (or on the yellow, still can’t be totally sure) while training in my basement.
Many reasons why :
-- Biggest reason : Silvia’s class wasn’t there yet to help me
-- Other reason : I was using my old camera which did not allow taping in slow motion and in HD during 3 second like my current camera can. Trying to see small sheltie’s leg by slowing down regular speed taping not even in HD was much harder.
Silvia told my to use a carpet and I got a green-trying-too-look- like-grass carpet, 2 feet by 12 feet.
She would run on that carpet just like she was on grass. Then I graduated her to beige and grey 1 foot by 12 foot carpet (one after the other, therefore 24 feet long of carpet) and she kept the same stride.
I then added very thin plywood underneath that she could not see. She again kept her new perfect like running-on-grass-stride.
Now I have an 8 foot board followed by a 12 foot board (1 foot wide) with the beige and grey carpet over it. Where the two boards meet there is a height of 2 bricks and she is still keeping her beautiful stride.
As Silvia ofter points out, doing this VERY gradually helps a lot.
Hope this can help a little,
Claire
Just had another thought on the subject :
I currently throw the ball much farther than you because I use a ball thrower (stick which has a place to hold the ball at the end, I think you can see it sometimes on my video).
The basement was a recipe for failure because there wasn’t enough space to encourage full speed running and I was most ofthen having her run to a remote control food target (which would not open if I thought she jumped… of course I did not have an eye for it at all, I was and still am slightly visually challenged ;-), but then a lot of us are if we compare ourselves to Silvia. The camera and my boyfriend are a very good crutch though..
Hi Claire. Thanks for your advise.
Zushi has been running beautifully on the carpet and on the plank. But it changed. I think i have learned something wrong to her.
Now we are back with running tries and hopefully it will go on from now 🙂
Hi there, ok so we did 2 days of rest after Spy crashed into the end of the DW ( in the 1st video) and then set up the new set up and we have tried 4 sessions, 2 sat and 2 sunday. Sorry i have posted it all but have done so, so you can see it all, as i think she has lost her foot work sometimes, but i am hoping you see enough good to still carry on, but if not, i guess we will have to go backwards. thanks kindly.
Hm, I don’t like this new pattern she is showing… She is trying really hard to not put hind feet on a contact but rather on the ground. She is trying so hard it’s very obvious she is not moving naturally, she is almost falling sometimes to get to the ground with hind feet… Not sure why… There are several options: one could be that you were jackpoting for front feet deep in, but were somewhat late with a click and didn’t click the landing of front feet in a contact, but of hind feet after the contact and now she thinks that’s what you want. Another possibility is that she stepped badly on that edge and is now trying to avoid it. The third option is her knee is not completely fine yet (that sure was an ugly fall…) and it hurt when she had hind feet in a contact and is now trying to avoid that place. As a consequence, her hind feet separation isn’t that good as before either…
What I would do is to tape her again running on a carpet and see how she runs there. If hind feet are still more together as before, it could be it’s still hurting and she doesn’t want to put too much weight on an injured foot alone. If she is fine on carpet, I would try this set up again, but maybe still try to fix the plank somewhat lower -- not on top of the hill, but at 2/3 of a height maybe -- and see what happens. Jackpot for hind feet in, don’t reward at all when you have one high front foot and hind feet only on the ground. We definitely want to stop the trend she is showing as to me, it doesn’t look like she would just need to sort out the striding: to me, it looks like she is performing that way on purpose, putting lots of effort into landing hind feet on the ground. She either thinks that’s what you want or is trying to avoid something. Let’s try the carpet running and if it’s good, plank somewhat lower, to see if we can trick her into landing her hind feet sooner 🙂 -- Because those tries (one high front foot) would all be beautiful if she would put her hind feet where they would go naturally (at the very end of a contact) -- instead of actively trying to only put them down on the ground. Let me know what you find out.
Hi there thanks so much, you have confirmed what i was thinking and that her foot work has change dramatictly! i believe strongly that it has to do with the fall/crash, more so than the other options you explained, so i am not going to run her the whole week now as i dont what to allow any unwanted behavior and let her knee and leg have more time to rest. i will see after the week and as you say start again on the flat. I will be behind but that is how it goes! she is only almost 17 months so there is still plenty of years ahead. Maybe i must finish my puppy class and get that posted. Thank you.
Yes, that’s probably best. She is doing so well you won’t really be behind if she goes back to her normal striding then. Also, we’ll take a 2 weeks break in June as I’ll be away, so that will give everybody plenty of time to catch up, I really don’t want anybody feel under pressure with plank work -- it’s important to take the time.
Hi Silvia,
I took your advice and went back to just a raised plank, no dog walk. I put a tunnel infront to increase her speed. This is what happened: (the yellow section on the board is only 24 inches, and the standard here is 42 inches now so I marked that with a thin yellow tape on the board)
She was nice and low on the contacts when she did not go through the tunnel first, but she was much faster if she went through the tunnel. So, now I do not know what my next step should be. I do not know how to get her to run as fast as she does through the tunnel without using the tunnel.
Well, the good news is that you’re getting much less “airy” movement and good hits when she does 2 strides. However, she doesn’t have such good speed and hind feet separation when you start from a stand still. From that reason, I wouldn’t jackpot 3, her hind feet are completely together there. I liked 21 much better as 3 as she has great hind feet separation there, but yes, she finds it hard to get in in only one full stride -- that will probably go away as when you have full dog-walk, she will fly over the apex more and one additional stride will definitely be enough to be in. So, in order to have her running like in 21, but be deeper in, you could try a bigger platform for her to first jump on and then land deeper on a plank and as a consequence deeper in the contact with the next stride. -- Maybe you can use a table I see behind, with additional object on it if you want more height -- see Ashley set-up. Maybe that way, we can get what we want: same form of running as on tries with the tunnel, but with better hits.
Great news! My uncle is a welder and is making me adjustable DW legs, so I’m making an adjustable, full length DW to train on. I am so excited I just had to share. I think Maia will do much better with that.
I tried using the table and the plank like Ashley, but Maia would not run on the plank at all. She jumped on the table and then jumped off and ran beside the plank. I tried this a few times, and each time she missed the plank all together. So this new DW I think will work much better. I see other students here have them and it works well. I hope to have it done by Thursday or Friday this week. 🙂
Cool! Till then, you can set full dog-walk on low tables or something, to get low dog-walk.
Hi Silvia,
Jake’s progressing well with his backing up and making some progress on his 4 feet in box/bowl so I’ll forward those videos to you soon after he gets into the smaller bowl.
In the meantime I thought I should send you the latest video of his RC work. I thought he was moving reasonably fast until I looked over a few of the other dogs running, so may have to work even more on that part.
I feel we’re making good progress on the criteria that I’m rewarding and jackpotting: front paw hitting bottom 1/3 of contact and rear feet separated. I feel he understands what gets the jackpots. I started running in the last few sessions and Jake’s been great with it, so am happy there.
But I also think I understand from your replies to other posts (and your latest videos of your dogs RCs) that it’s really the back feet contacting that’s the objective?
So now I’m getting confused on what my criteria should be. Our judges in Australia are inconsistent at judging dog’s rear foot contact on dog walks so I especially worry about getting incorrect judging calls with rear food RCs. Hence I’ve been focussing on front foot contact and rear foot separation. Is that the wrong reason for training a certain method?
Thanks,
Ashley
First, don’t worry about the judges. It’s VERY easy to see real running contacts. I NEVER saw ANY judge EVER to fault a dog with well separated hind feet in the middle of the contact: it’s way too easy to see 🙂 What often gets called are “creepy” contacts -- when the dog is lowering his body into a crawling, as that makes legs much harder to see. With real running contacts, the only performance I ever saw being faulted by mistake was one front foot in last third of a contact -- La likes to do it that way and was called here and there. And the reason I trained her that way was because I believed judges won’t see hind feet! 🙂 But they do -- two hind are definitely better as one front at the very bottom! However, two front feet as with Jake are very easy to see too. That style also makes turning easy, so it’s not bad at all. The only downside is that if the dog only knows one way, he might sometimes have problems meeting the criteria because of different dog-walk approach, length, slipping somewhere on it or whatever: and then you’ll get a miss. See my conversation with Gary on Delta’s performance, he’s got pretty much what you’re going for: BEAUTIFUL front feet contacts with great hind feet separation on the floor, BUT if she doesn’t get in with front feet, instead of reaching in with hind feet, she just leaps from wherever she is with hind feet together and no reach forward… I’m not saying Jack would react that way too, I’m only saying that it’s important you teach him he has this option too, so do jackpot also when it happens he is too high with front feet, but reaches in with separated hind feet! So no, hind feet are not preferred, either front or hind are o.k. But I think that once you get to lots of an angle, hind feet are easier and more natural for the dog, that’s why it’s good to have that option too. I know MANY dogs who originally did it with front feet (my Bi, Solar from Daisy Peel, three dogs from my club etc.), but switched to hind feet after a couple of months on normal dog-walk.
Hi Silvia 🙂
I’m having a little trouble with the four feet in the bowl, It’s taken me two weeks just to get to the size you see in the video. Liryk seems to get 3 feet fine, but she has trouble getting the 4th foot in. Which she didn’t seem to find hard the last time we did this (as a puppy) Will keep trying!!
The dogwalk is now at full height, but I have a question about her foot placement. Watching everyone elses plank work and even your comments, variations in the end contact performance seems desirable? ie 1/2/3 or all 4 feet in. Liryk ONLY ever has her hind feet in the contact and I’m not sure if this is an issue? vs what everyone else is getting….
Thanks!! Megan
The good thing about having a variety of feet in (I like to have 2 or 3: 1 is risky and 4 is impossible if the dog is running full speed 🙂 -- so the 4 options are 1. two front 2. two hind 3. one front and two hind and 4. two front and one hind) is that the dog knows different ways and can save a situation better when for example she slips at the top and extends less over an apex. The funny thing with Liryk is that she actually seems to be shortening her second stride in order to get in with hind feet vs. front feet. Anyway, I would leave it as it is, but would challenge her with different approaches and different exits, moving the jump after the dog walk to one and another side and rotating it. I’m at this stage with Le right now: she always does two hits on a down ramp (one more stride after jumping the apex) and that never gives me two front feet, but mostly only two hind feet, on rare occasions one front and two hind. So moving the jump produced some misses, but I think she got it now. Next step will be to teach her to do full 2 strides when cueing the turn -- she can’t do it with 2 strides for now, if she is too high with the first one, she just leaps off. I think teaching her turns will give her more options on how to meet the criteria. We’ll get there too, for now, just keep changing her approaches and exits.
Thankyou!! 🙂
HELP!!
Ok, so chasing her to a toy made her run faster BUT she almost always jumps the contact deliberately. And in the last session I somehow succeeded clicking several extreme jumps.. She is definetily jumping the contact very exact. I think she has understood that that is the point of the whole game. I have no idea how to proceed now. What to do? Can I fly you in here for a week and have you fix it all? 😉
In the video I threw the toy rather high (which is not good). I did so because I had forgotten her ball so I threw the jackpot toy. And yes, I still trained even though I didn’t have the ball since I had carried the plank AND the woodenblocks for 20 Min to get to the place..
Thanks a lot,
your problem-student 🙂
Hm… Back to the carpet? Another thing you could try on a carpet is to set to poles 6m after each end and teach her to run from one to another: wrap the first one, run over the carpet to another one, wrap it and run back… Maybe she forgets to leap then 🙂 and you can click and jackpot when she is running. Using a tunnel would give you the same effect, but I guess you would need to carry one more big, heavy thing then… Once you add some height, you can only do it in one direction, but maybe a pole straight forward will make her run normally… Always have her wrap first, before rewarding. Maybe it’s the toy that makes her fly so much?
You are right, I have to go back to carpet!
And the poles are a great idea (and not much to carry! 🙂 ). That could make her run more and give me the opportunity to click RUNNING.
Probably she leaps less without the toy, I hope so.
I sure hope it works this time around!!!
Here is the first try.
Perhaps I should have tried it several times to see how it goes before terrorising you with another video? 🙂
I think she is not running normal on any try but I think she bounces mostly at the beginning and then turn to leaping (that is better than bouncing I think). At the beginning she also seems to jump the “contact” and later don’t care where she lands, that is good I think. It is a new game for her so I hope there is potential here! 🙂
Note to self: No toy in my hand and running behind her would probably make her run better (as she runs alone to the pole for a quick cik/cap without looking/bouncing at me).
What do you think? She wasn’t so fast but that is probably because it was very warm and humid.
Yeah, she is still somewhat airy, but yes, the last tries are definitely much better as the first ones, so there is hope we can get her run normally that way. Let’s hope the trend stays the same! 🙂
Hi Silvia,
Here is Beatrice. I’m quite pleased with this last session. In previous practices at this height she had pretty much only had shallow hits with hind feet. I had not seen any of the 3 feet pattern that she has sometimes here and very few deep hits. Also her hind feet had not shown as much separation as she shows here. So this is the first session that has this percentage of successful trials and shows a variety of foot fall patterns. The misses that you see are when I moved her back about a meter from her “sweet spot.”
I have a couple of ideas of where I could go from here. One is that I could increase height a little bit, back to the lowered dog walk with out the ‘extra’ lowering. Another is that I stay at this configuration and work my variation of starting spots for a few more sessions.
What do you think?
Thanks again,
Heidi
I would do a couple of more sessions like this to keep her successful and then go back to low dog-walk, starting at the good spot again and then moving her back.
OK, I’ve got a plan. Thanks,
Heidi
Hello,
est ce que c’est normal à ce stade que la qualité de son running soit très dépendant de la qualité de mon lancé de jouet ? pour lancer le jouet avant qu’elle démarre il faut que je la tienne (elle ne tient pas la place sans ça) et comme elle est petite je suis courbée en deux ! je pourrai peut être la tenir avec un harnais ?
Dur dur !
is this normal at this stage that the quality of her running is very dependent on the quality of my toy launched? to launch the toy before she starts I have to yours (she does not take place without it) as she is small and I’m bent double! I may be held with a harness?
Hard hard!
Yes, it’s much easier with a harness. It’s normal the toy thrown too late disturbs her striding. But we’re working towards earlier&earlier throws anyway, so this should not be a problem anymore. How is she with early throws?