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:
Anne and Tai here again. The attached video shows me trying your 1st suggestion to start Tai farther back and then your second suggestion to add another table. The best success -- 3 really nice ones in a row are at the end of the video (11, 12, 13) with the 2 table setup and sending him around a cone. This accomplished what you suggested he needed…to hit the beginning of the plank with his front feet at speed. Would love your comments and suggestions for next session and how we should progress from here.
Anne & Tai
I agree, 11, 12 and 13 are beautiful 🙂 -- Exactly what we were looking for. Keep that set up for a while now and make a big party about those good ones. We need some more of those -- when you have at least 80% of those for several sessions in a row, you can add some height. If it stays good, add some challenges (your positioning etc.) and earlier throws.
We did some more flat work (it hasen’t been possible to get longer plank yet). I also did use poles instead of wings. With tunnel he didn’t search the plank at all so I restrain him.
We got some good ones, some not so good ones and two “turns”, when he decided that my ball is better than the one he was chaseing 🙂
I have feeling that he doesn’t understand the difference between bad, ok and jackpot. If try is bad I just ask him to bring the ball. With ok I use my voice and when jackpotting I use voice, throw another ball, tug or/and play with hime and many balls. After jackpot next 2 tries are normally quite bad ones. After bad one, I mostly got ok try.
Cool, he definitely looks to be running better now, not so much in the air anymore. Why don’t you use clicker? I think it helps a lot with their understanding with what you want and what you don’t want. You don’t see the difference in his excitement when he is coming back after a good one vs. bad one? -- That’s what is telling you if he understands or not. Not reproducing the behaviour again after the jackpot is not so strange, it’s a hard behaviour to reproduce, thanks to speed and no angle yet. The behaviour gets easier reproducible when you add some height. I hope you get a longer plank soon, you could add some height already.
I use clicker. But still I do not see any difference in his excitement or understanding.
Yes, he is running much better and he likes the balls more and more. And he likes to run.
I keep looking a longer plank.
Hm… What’s his favourite thing to do? Could you use that for a jackpot? If you don’t think he notices the difference, then it’s important to do the #1 of lesson 3 as soon as possible so that you can stop throwing it for unsuccessful tries… It takes a while, so maybe you could start right now, either leaving the toy at the jump or throwing it over the jump, to get him pull towards the jump as fast as possible and then switch to a toy, thrown after the contact is done (or not at all when not good). But don’t rush it too much, it’s more important to keep the speed and this form of running as to fade the toy.
I think that his favourite thing is chasing a small football or Lili (who doesn’t like it). I’ try to jackpot him with several footballs and longer chasing game when hit was excellent.
In other situations I say “oho” if he makes something I don’t want. It means pay attention what you’re doing /nice try but you now this better, try again. Could I use that also, when the hit is bad?
Static toy is not a problem. How about a assistant, who could throw the ball or trop it behind the jump? Or take it away if hit was bad? Of course it’s more difficult to fade an assitant than a toy.
You can try. If you see you loose some speed, go back though. Try static toy for now to get him focused on a jump and once you have it, start throwing it yourself over the jump, IF his running was o.k. But mostly, his running IS o.k. for bow, so I wouldn’t rush things too much and expect more as it is realistic to expect on a flat board. You can only work on low hits once you have longer, raised plank.
These are the first four session we’ve done on a higher plank that before. After the first session not going very well, I like how he has progressed over the last three.
I am experiencing what you’ve talked about before, where sometimes he hits with front feet, and split feet on the ground right after. It kind of tricked me to start off with, then I read what you talked to other people about and I think I can start seeing and rewarding it myself.
I’m also wondering how low the back feet should hit on the board ideally. Sometimes he hits between the lowest and second lowest slat(bottom of the yellow)….sometimes its between the second lowest and third lowest slat, the middle to upper of the yellow. …there are examples in the video.
Thanks!!!
Great job! Very nice progression, definitely ready to add some variables if you haven’t yet (earlier throws, different starting positions etc.) If that goes well, you’re ready for the next height! You’re getting many of what I call a low hit. 13 for example (also 27, 34, 38, 45, 46, 47) is a low hit -- 14 is somewhat higher hit (but definitely still good enough to reward!). 17 is perfect -- doesn’t get any better as that 🙂 I agree with how you jackpotted, just make sure you also make a difference between tries like 14 that you would still click&reward and tries like 15 that you don’t want to click. 28 is o.k. too as he runs normally, what I did’t like in Alicia’s video was that the dog was really actively prolonging the reach forward with hind feet to avoid putting them on a contact.
As you said, we worked with the full dogwalk without a plank. And here is the video:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xj3i56_03-06-2011_animals
I’m so proud of Obi, he does so well and try hard to hit the contact! The work is not over but waouh, it was such a pleasure to see him running a full dogwalk! Thank you soooooooo much 🙂 🙂 🙂
Can’t wait to see lesson n°3! Will we deal with the A-frame in this one?
Wow, definitely getting there! He definitely needs some more sessions to do all the maths 🙂 and figure out the striding, but he is definitely trying -- great progression already in one session! The A-frame only comes in lesson 4 as most people are still working on a plank.
Ok thank you! Maybe I’m anticipating a little but when can we start training on other dogwalks? I have an opportunity next week but I don’t know if it’s too early or not.
Ok now I need your help for sure! This morning we had our second training session a full dogwalk without any plank and he didn’t made a SINGLE contact. As if he never did a running before! I’m quite lost, I don’t know what to do. I tried every configuration: static toy, thrown toy, me running, me static, nothing worked. And it got worst and worst because he didn’t want to run fast since he was never rewarded. Did I miss a step? Do i have to go back to the plank and use more my clicker? I was so proud of the last session, and this one is just a disaster… 🙁
I’ll post the video later…
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xj6brg_08-06-2011_animals
Now looking at it, I was giving up since the beginning, and I never do that (when he fails I just signal and run happily to the beginning of the dogwalk so he can try again). But here, I don’t know why, I was really upset by the failure.
Hm, well, he is first trying one hit on a down ramp, then gets frustrated and is too short even with two hits… When he is trying one hit again, I would start him somewhere in the middle of the dog-walk a couple of times (or maybe right in front of DW), that will probably give you two strides and a hit, so that you have something to reward and then go from there. Usually, when they do one stride less as wanted (as in the beginning of the video), the best is to use a stationary toy and not too speedy approach. When they’re too high even with wanted number of strides (as at the end of your video), then you can help him with a speedy approach and a thrown toy. Long-strided dogs usually take a while to figure out their striding on every approach… You don’t need to go to the plank, but it is very good if you find a situation that would help him get it. For Bi for example, starting her anywhere on a dog-walk or right in front of it (from stand still) will always give me a hit, so I will always do some of those if things go wrong…
Ok thank you for the tips! I will try this afternoon 🙂
Sure, try it!
Bit of bad news. Delta has injured a hind leg. She won’t put any weight on it for 8 days now. She has seen the vet and an orthopaedic specialist who say soft tissue injury in the hip. She will recover fully but we will have some time off 🙁
Our last session felt like we were getting worse not better. I am having a hard time getting any rear foot hits, and now we are having more misses than ever.
The good news is that her rear foot separation is getting much better.
I hope she recovers before the class is over.
Oh, so sorry to hear it… How did that happen? On this video, she seems to be adjusting her stride less as before: and as a consequence, she runs more normally, hind feet well separated… -- but also missing more. But maybe, that’s not too bad, maybe she will get hind feet in by accident here and there. I think she is missing more now because the dog-walk is lower and she doesn’t jump an apex now, but often puts rear feet first on a down ramp (how did you get that -- we need exactly that with several dogs in this class 🙂 ) and then her next stride doesn’t take her deep enough. When she lands front feet on down ramp first, then she gets nicely deeply in. From that reason, higher dog-walk might actually be better, but not sure if we can get the same rear feet separation there?
Hi Silvia,
Our latest training is at
In my opinion, she is running slightly slower than she is able, seems to be thinking about what to do and being careful. I did like how she is starting to put some feet in the down contact zone, while the other paws touch the ground. So seems like she’s less cautious about hitting the edge.
Please let me know what you think.
Thank you,
Carla
Flat plank running is GREAT!!! On a raised plank, she is slower and hind feet are much closer, so I would definitely go to slightly lower object first for some sessions to get the same performance as on the floor and only then go back to this height. You can probably work through it on this height too, but making lifts smaller and more frequent is better as bigger and less frequent, that’s why.
We have had a busy week, but we have been training and videotaping and now there was time to make the videos 🙂
I have found a good spot were we have 100% succes. And we are trying some other startpoints to challenging her. But then she is often leaping.
I am sending her to a tunnel after the plank, and have a stationary toy or food after the tunnel. Ican’t through long enough to use a flying toy because it’s a 6 meter tunnel 😉
Yeap, that looks MUCH better! I think it’s too early to challenge her though, after what we just went through 🙂 I only do it after adding some height and after I got rid of leaping. So for now, focus on lesson 1 and only go to lesson 2 after you completely get rid of leaps. She seems to run fine to a stationary toy/food. SLOWLY, add a little curve to that tunnel though -- when you get to U shape, it will be get VERY easy to throw! 🙂
Here is Bender’s tricks for Homework #2:
Shona
Wow, that’s a REALLY small bowl!!! Doesn’t get much smaller than that! 🙂 Loved the backing up too, backing up into the crate is just too funny! Great job!
I think I have broken Maia 🙁
Her performance has fallen apart completely. I think with all the changes in the equipment: plank, then plank on short, small dog walk, then plank on full height dog walk (and these planks were too short), then now to a full length dog walk on crates -- it has all fallen to pieces. I am now back to a single, 12 foot plank raised only 10 cm. I think I will stay at this stage for a while again. She used to run the raised plank on a crate or a stool beautifully, and now, she is missing or jumping the end most of the time. This is very frustrating, as we’ve been at this since February.
I know it is my fault because she is very smart and catches onto things extremely quickly.
My new plan is to keep her on the plank, raised only 10 cm for at least 5-10 sessions or about 2-3 weeks. Or should I go to a completely flat plank again? My friend who has the agility field and watches my practices, says I have a ton of perseverence because she would have quit a long time ago :/
Here are the last 4 sessions. I did not do slow motion on most of it because it would have been much too long a video and you can see how airy she is:
Oops, here’s the video:
Well, the good thing is that you still get some really good ones, so make sure you make a big deal out of those. Also, lower the criteria somewhat and focus on a form of running more as hits as such. The try you were not sure if it was good to reward, was definitely good to reward as she is running really nicely there, it’s just that she is too high -- that’s still better as up in the air! So definitely reward those too and jackpot the low hits. I think low plank should be o.k. -- then just make it higher in very small steps. Running contacts are hard for the dog to understand, they definitely require lots of patience…
Hi Silvia,
these are our tries with a little bit of height. May be the plank is a little short, but if we are able to add more height we would have a lowered dog walk. I think I can see her legs much more better now and Fine often retrieves the ball so that our sessions are beginning to be longer. Shall I post a video of pivoting and 4 feet in a bowl too? Looking forward for your comment.
That sure looks great!!! You can add some more height yes, but I think this plank is actually long enough for now, so I would probably add height once or twice on this one first before going to a low dog-walk. How long is this plank? The tricks I saw already, you don’t need to post it again.
Thank you for comment. I´m glad to hear we can add more height. The plank is 3,60 m long.
In that case, I would definitely keep that plank for now as she has such nice striding on it. AND, new FCI rules for a dog-walk say 3.6 to 3.8m, so that’s actually a very good length 🙂 I also really like the way she moves, many PyrSheps have “airy” tendencies, but she moves really nicely and efficiently, close to the ground, no more air as necessary.
Thank your for what you said about her striding. We noticed it with Clara; Clara is “airy” and we didn`t do any work on it when she was a puppy. With Fine we focused on fun, tempo and body-control from the beginning -- with (only!!) your help (videos and long-distance-classes). There may be much of genetical fixation but there is also much of learning about coordination, strengh and confidence. Thank you so far, Silvia!