As I already wrote: I know it's quite hard to keep up with this class program, especially to those who can't practice every day or have had some problems with plank work. Don't worry about it, keep working on it and send videos of wherever you are. Print out lesson 4 to start with it when you're ready, but don't push for it. If you want to keep working on it within the class form even when the class finishes, there will be a new class starting right then and you're welcome to join for a lower price, I just opened a registration with that option.
For those who are still keeping up, meaning that you're already running full low DW or DW with a plank with a jump or a tunnel after it, here is the lesson 4. For those who are still struggling on a plank or have troubles with low DW - don't even try it, keep sending videos of whereever you are and watch videos of others to get a good picture of what this lesson is about and you can work on it later on.
1. Start moving the jump after which the dog is getting his toy A LITTLE in different directions: left and right, rotating it somewhat too. If it makes the dog fail, set it back to help the dog succeed and then move it again by really VERY little tiny bit. It's better to move it a little every two tries as to move it a lot every two sessions! Keep rewarding by throwing a toy after the contact is done, over the jump. Try to sometimes use a tunnel instead of a jump too. Go through all the possible positions of the jump that still allow the dog to get the jump without collection on a dog-walk. When the dog is fine with that, try also running into nothing. You want to address all possible course situations other than real turns - we'll get there in the next session.
2. Time to start with an A-frame too! Put it somewhat lower (1,5m maybe) and try running the dog over. I recommend less speedy approach first (starting close to the base of an A-frame) as dogs who were trained to RUN over planks tend to run up so fast they then fly over the top so much that it's not unusual they only land on the floor... If you see your dog doesn't have such tendencies, add more&more speed to the approach AND make it steeper and steeper, I usually go to full height in one session.
Don't worry if not all contacts are perfect at first, they will probably need to experiment some at first. They often first go for one stride but then change to two as it's more comfortable striding for them or sometimes medium dogs start with two that are too short to get in but then start to extend more and are nicely in with two. Many long-strided dogs will go for one, Bi is always doing one and used to sometimes be somewhat high, but is now always nicely in, even on not so speedy approaches. Bu will normally do two, but sometimes also does one and interestingly, is always in even when she goes for one. Le does two and is sometimes somewhat high as she once flew over the top so much that she crashed to the floor really badly and is now somewhat too careful at the top - but getting in nicer with time and experience.
The thing that I said for running contacts: that the good thing is that they only get better, even if you don't do anything about it... - It's especially true for A-frame. I simply put it in sequences at the second session and they just get better&better. The only problem we ever had with A-frames was with "limit" dogs who were too far with one/two strides that they could make another one, but too high to be in with that one/two strides. You do need to do some more sessions on just A-frame with those dogs and select for good ones. Experiment a little with what gives you best hits as far as handler position and timing of a thrown ball (in advance vs. after the contact) and use that for a start.
With a good hit, I mean anything clearly in. You do NOT want them to generalize DW style too good as you do NOT want them too deep, it's physically too hard on them and they might prefer to not do it if you ask them to come too deep - remember, the easier behaviour is for them, the easier it is for you to maintain it. You are again looking for hind feet separation and you don't want it any deeper as that:
3. Tricks: let's do some pivoting again, this time so that you position yourself next to the target and only click for coming all the way to your leg, touching it. Then either move away and have them follow you or have them pivot back to the other leg. Once they understand the leg is their new object to target, switch to a flat target and then fade it. We need them to know to come to both legs for the next trick.
The other trick we need till next time, for being able to introduce turns, is going tightly around a pole, cik&cap. Shape the dog to wrap the pole/table leg/whatever tightly and put it on a verbal cue.
This session I worked on “curves” after the DW. I have a tunnel after that is set a little off to the side. I am also sending to a jump standard and running ahead of him, which is pretty new for him. The last one I even pull off to the side and layer a jump, but since I am not saying anything, except GO at the start, I figure he is supposed to go straight and he did. I do like how he is looking ahead and not at me. Eventually, I will say something as he is coming down if I wanted the other side of the tunnel? I need to train that off the DW, right? With a couple jumps to the tunnel and work on discriminating tunnel openings?
What I like about this session is that while he is not super fast, he is pretty fast for not being at home. This is at someone else’s yard. And for the first time I am noticing a slight stride adjustment along the top, right before the second apex so he can fit in three strides along the top. That makes sure he gets three strides on the down and an even deeper hit!!! If he did only two strides along the top and leapt that second apex I think he would only fit in two strides down and, as you know, that isn’t enough for him. This session had some of his deepest hits ever!!! 😀
Looks good! He is really trying to be in! Great job! And yes, tunnel openings need to be addressed away from contact training. We’re only including jumps/tunnels to train for different possible exits. And yes, you can work on running at the distance from him, layering the jumps if necessary, at the same time.
Hi Silvia
I have come up against 2 problems. firstly my once regular hitting contact with split leg hs turned into a regular jumping over contact zone dog. the problem happened when i started to throw a second toy even with a toy as target. he looked at me and started to miss his stride pattern. i tried throwing early, late etc just made him worse. also because i sent him immediately back to attempt it again he seems to be getting this as the reward and it is becoming a conditioned behavour to jump even though i have stopped throwing or even carrying a toy now for over a week. yesterday i stopped him and put him away or put him in a down before asking him to repeat. this took 4 attempts before he started to split leg again, but if i verbally encouraged speed or ran he reverted to jumping. the second problem is he is now missing the UP contact which will get me faults. he is a very high drive dog with a big stride so easy to miss the UP any ideas how to train this out? cheers jo
Yes, definitely go back to the static toy. Misses, you can mark with something like “ups” and then either put him in down or what I do with Bi is to call her back on a DW and only do a down ramp -- it’s not so much fun as running back to do the whole DW as she needs to stop there and it shows her that the running stops if she doesn’t meet the criteria. When he settles again, instead of going for a thrown toy, keep setting the static toy further and further apart (after 1-2-3 jumps) and then just take it away and start rewarding from your hand, but always only after a couple of jumps first.
Up contacts are a problem with long-striding dogs yes, that’s why I think they’re really not fair… Can you find a starting point that would give you a nice hit of an up contact? If so, I would for now always start that way and mark it verbally, with an excited “yes”. It helped Bi a lot, she has got much better with up contacts. She will still miss here and there, but not very often anymore.
Hi Silvia,
Here are our latest videos… We are kind of in two places at once, one set of progress on the full dog walk which we only do a few times a week and I am working on getting her striding figured out with the new addition of speed heading to the DW approach. Everything stayed together until now, she was pretty consistently doing 6 strides across, well now that she has more realistic speed on the approach she has dropped a stride and is mostly doing 5, only the down ramp is where she is single striding which makes for not ideal striding to hit the contact. The funny thing is she seems to be opposite of what many dogs do, her first ones are best, then they go off when she has more confidence and drives more. I can see her trying different things to make it deeper down the ramp, but as much as she stretches it’s not ideal because how she hits so high with her back feet at the top of the down ramp, she just can’t stretch that far. My instinct is not to worry too much about it and give her some more time just running it at speed and see if she finds a more efficient way to time her strides.
Here’s that video… (She is mostly driving to a static toy beyond a jump as that gives her the best confidence to drive across & down.)
Then here’s a video with some pivoting, I still need more practice and will work more on the flat- since in the first attempt it’s me pivoting & luring more than her pivoting, and getting a stronger leg touch since she tends to stop out wide -- since I tend to reward early before she touches:) and then some plank work at home where we are working on the slight turns to a jump with the toy thrown after. She’s doing pretty good with that I think.
You can see her latest dog walks on our foundation video, they are a little better, she is still trying to figure it out, but working to figure out how to get down further on the plank…
Yes, I agree with what you already wrote… Looks like she needs more time to figure out the DW striding and as long as the trend is good, I wouldn’t worry about it. Do experiment with different settings some to see if you can find one that is good for her for real DW practise. If she is better at the beginning of a session, make a session really short and then give her a long break before doing another one. Meantime, you can keep challenging her at the plank to home for more&more understanding.
For pivoting, always ask for a completely straight position, don’t reward until she is completely parallel and reward with a head out, so that she stays parallel even when getting her reward.
Hi Silvia,
I finally got someone to video Jake and me in the park! We’ve been training in the park for about 4 weeks now. We have been using a jump or tyre slightly offset to one side and moving a bit each session. This latest session we videoed was not up to the good in-park consistency Jake has been giving me the last 2 weeks, but I guess it’s better for you to see the mistakes. The set-up I have in this session is tyre at one end and jump at other. Each run has a self-explanatory caption. He was really happy and running faster than usual this session, which may possibly be the reason for his hits being higher up the colour than usual? When he misses, on the next run I often a) sprint or b) throw the reward sooner; either usually gets a good hit next run, then I revert to the previous where I throw later or run a bit slower and he usually gets that one too. Is that a reasonable strategy?
If sprinting with him helps, definitely do that. It will probably give you more consistent speed and if also gives you better hits, you definitely want to do that, you need as many good hits as possible. More speed will probably also give you more hind feet separation, so that’s another good thing. You’ll be sprinting next to him on DWs mostly anyway. For cases when you won’t do that, practise by throwing a toy early for now. Only throw it after the contact when you’re sprinting, to keep his successful rate high and promote speed.
Hi Silvia 🙂
Here are our tricks, though I’m not quite sure if it’s right?
Megan and Liryk
Great! That’s exactly what we need for the next trick! You can also practise staying in a position while you are circling away (and having her follow -- so called “glue to the leg” trick). Loved cik&cap too, I love how she moves, she looks very flexible.
Thankyou so much for the compliments!! I LOVE her dearly, and feel soooo lucky to have a dog like her 🙂
Megan and Liryk
I just have to brag!! Spur and I just did a three day trial and he got his DRW perfectly every single time. We got more comments on how nice his dog walk is!!! He is very slowly getting faster and faster all the time!! And his hits are deeper and deeper!!! I think that session going into nothing where he had a miss, then No reward, then success and jackpot, was a great learning session!! He has been SO good since then!!
Very cool!
My computer is in for service, so I can’t make a movie, but I watched the videos on my TV so I could see Spur’s striding and guess what? He CAN do the down in two strides!!! His usual striding most sessions is 2-3-3, but on two of the runs at the trial he does 3-3-2 (the approach was closer than what we do in training) and one was 2-3-2 (full speed from a jump straight on to a jump straight after). What I am seeing is that he has figured out he can almost stride through/on the second apex instead of fly over it, which starts his two strides on the down farther down and therefore deep in. 🙂
Very good that he can do it with different striding variations!!!
Hi Silvia!
First of all, thanks for a great class, I’ve learned so much already and a lot of things that I will do differently with my next dog. And I have upgraded to the august class to get the chance to learn some more. I have now started up the running contact training with my foxterrier Tasso after his injury and rehabilitation. I did the first sessions two weeks ago, testing some different things to get a hold of were to start from.
He seamed to do pretty good starting from a sit stay about 6-7 m from the DW. But with more speed, coming from a straight 6 m tunnel or a couple of jumps on a straight line he struggled a lot with striding and get high hits. So I have started from what was working.
This video is from two different sessions last week, where he starts from a sit stay about 6 m from the DW. In the second session I tried to vary the placement of the jump after the DW. That made the hits a bit high (but still in) at first but it got better at the end (I did a really bad throw in one of those tries causing him to crash the jump, poor dog).
I rewarded all tries even if some where in the upper 1/3 of the contact I think, but did jackpot the really low hits. It’s pretty easy to see in the video witch ones, think they are in botton 1/3 or near. In the 6th try he did some strange adjustement, but I still rewarded that one to. Right or wrong? Are there any other tries that shouldn’t be rewarded at all? Are there anything else I should be concearned about?
I noticed on the video that he always has some upward movement in the last stride, but he has that kind of movement when running on the flat too so guess I shouldn’t worry about that?
Did some more sessions this weekend (that I havn’t got on tape) where I sended him around a pole instead of starting from a sit stay to start to experimenting with more speed. He shows more and more confidence and consistency and the hits where almost all in the bottom half. Still a lot work to be done I guess before he can do a nice dogwalk coming from top speed or turn nicely without jumping, but I’m not in a hurry (or at least I try not to be 🙂
Glad to see Tasso back! Great job! I would reward all those tries yes, definitely the one when he is adjusting too, it’s a good sign as it shows he understands his job. I don’t see any leapy movement or anything else to be concerned about, so I would just keep working like this and slowly add more&more challenges. I’m surprised coming with lots of speed is a problem as he seems to have the best hits when he flies nicely over the apex and then does another normal length stride (he sometimes shortens it some and then he is somewhat higher). Maybe tape one try with full speed access to see what the problem is. Otherwise, definitely help him be successful and change the approach gradually. You can also send in his A-frame to see how he is doing there.
Yes, you’re definatly right, he always gets perfect hits when he flyes over the apex. The problem is that when coming from full speed he takes 2 full strides on the up ramp and then only takes 1.5 stride in the middle section, front-rear-front. Then he either go for 1.5 on downramp and get a high hit just above or in the upper part of the contact or compress his strides and go for 2,5. With 2.5 stride he gets a nice hit but it seams hard for him to do that and I doubt that it will work in the long run. I don’t know why he doesn’t choose to go for 2 strides with front paws hitting the contact. I have rewarded both front and rear hits so it’s a bit strange. Maybe it’s hard to do that for dogs with very straight shoulders like foxterriers? Just a wild guess 🙂
I tried to put a sandbag on the apex for e few reps last week just to see what he would do, and that made him put in 2 full strides and fly over the apex with a nice hit (last front and first rear in the zone). So maybe if I change the approach gradually as you suggested he will figure it out.
I will tape a few tries with full speed tomorrow and some A.frames too.
Ah, o.k. Yes, adding speed gradually should help. And yes, I think front feet are hard even for normal shoulders and probably even harder for straight shoulders… Bi was doing mostly front feet in a training process, but once we got to full height and full speed, using full DW (I trained everything on a plank as I didn’t have a regular access to DW), she pretty quickly switched to hind feet and almost never does front feet (sometimes one front foot + one hind foot, pretty much never two front feet).
Congrats for qualifying for the World Championships!! You and you’re dogs are truly amazing!
Ok, here’s a video of Tasso running the DW at full speed, coming from a spped circle with tunnels and jumps (first 3 reps). I think he hits the contact in all tries, especially the third, but I would prefer lower hits. Or what do you think? It was better than last week though. But I don’t like the placement of frontfeet before and after the second apex, it doesn’t seem confortable or nice to the shoulders. Or do I just being overprotective?
Second there’s two reps with average speed, wheer I send him around a pole placed about 7 m from DW. Think it looks pretty good.
Did some A-frames to. This was his second session on A-frame ever. Looks like he doesn’t know exactly how to handle it. Quite differens patterns in all tries I think, and some strange foot placement (especially the three front paw hits in a row in the last rep) And he’s jumping most of the time with hind feet close together. Should I look for the same hind feet separation as with the DW? Do you think he just needs some more sessions to figure it out or do you have any other suggestions?
Definitely great that he is in also when coming with full speed and that he knows different striding patterns, but yes, it looks nicer to his body when he is coming from a wrap, so I would mostly be doing those. On an A-frame, he didn’t figure out the striding yet, flying over the apex usually messes their striding, so try not too speedy approaches with A-frame too (a pole 4m away for example) and don’t throw a toy too soon as that promotes flying even more. For a dog of his size, I would definitely prefer additional full stride on a down ramp vs. flying to the contact. You can try putting a pole or jump on each side and do some A-frame-jump-A-frame running, marking&rewarding the smoothest runs and just keep going for flying. You want hind feet separation on A-frame too, yes.
Thanks, I’ll try that.
This is a video with lesson 4 tricks, well one of them…
Great pivoting! But try to position yourself next to the target (as you do when circling). If you stand behind it, her front feet are too much in front and her hind end is swinging out. But she sure is really fast and coordinated!
Hi,
Just wanted to let you know Vite’s recovering from surgery. Would love to rejoin when she’s back to normal.
Carla
Oh, so sorry to hear that… What happened??? Keeping my fingers crossed for fast recovery!