For more on running contacts, it's best to join running contacts class or get a Running Contacts DVD. This page is meant for those who just have a quick question or want to show their finished product - you are very welcome to do so, it still brings a smile to my face when I see a beautiful running contact, it's something addictive about it. It is on times frustrating as well... - but it all makes the end result even sweeter. So... Happy training, everybody!
Last call for January online classes! Join us in Running Contacts or Puppy/Tricks Class! Xtreme Foundations starting soon too! |
 Silvia Trkman is known for bringing every dog, from her first dog on, to the very top of the sport. Her dogs are known for great speed, tight turns, running contacts and long and injury-free careers. Silvia is in agility since 1992 and is– 3x World Champion (with two different dogs)
– 5x European Open winner, with 4 different dogs (Lo, La, Bu, Le)!!!
– National Championships podium and World Team member with every dog she’s ever had – National Champion for 22-times (with 5 different dogs of 3 different breeds) – World Team member for 19-times (mostly with at least two dogs at the time – sometimes four 🙂 ) |
I have a medium sized Sheltie, 16″ at the shoulder who was also trained using Silvia’s method. We have been trialing for almost 6 months now and have NEVER had a missed contact! ::Knock on wood:: Here’s a collection of our very first contacts in competition.
Thank you Silvia 🙂
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Hallo!
Back from world championship qualifications, we had one great agility run, one not very good agility run with one fault because of handler touching(?), one great jumping run (but it was a disqualification =) ) and another good jumping (but 2 faults) 🙂 . So 8th place right now. Here is the video of the not very good agility run:
I´ll put the great one in, when it´s uploaded 🙂
here another run, i think the a-frame contact is not really good, but i like the dogwalk 🙂
A-frame is fine, I don’t mind high hits on A-frame. Nice run! But gosh, what a terrible carpet!!! I really don’t understand why they make you run on this, the WC carpet is so good that it’s more like grass as this carpet on a video, I think it’s really sad you have so important competition on such a surface…
Yeah i also don´t really mind 😀
yes it´s really terrible, charlie has much problems because … mh … he´s always running full speed 😀 so it costs us much time i think :S
Hallo!
I just wanted to talk a little bit about … how i hate it that people on competitions consist on having runnning contacts with their dogs too -_- !!! Pfff releasing his dog early is not a real running contact …
But, Charlie and I qualified for wc end qualification :D, I´m very happy, he had great contacts 😀
Congratulations! And yes, there is a huge difference between early release and real RC!:)
Here is a video of our weekend. We had some good contacts. We are not finished reworking them. We are still practicing hard on them and working on them. I was proud of her this weekend.
These videos are some highlights of our runs. We won our Standard class and Jumpers class. Still working hard on contacts and handling!! Having fun.
Hello:
We’re not having such a good time with running contacts. We did not have a good time with 2o2o either--great in class and training, jumping and barking at trials--and I know that Jimmy still enjoys running more than 2o2o and I won’t go back, but after three years he is running faster than ever and it is the most natural thing for him to jump. I’m attaching a picture of his normal jumping style--he flies, it’s how he moves, and the more confidence he has the higher he leaves the plank. He does well in class and training, but at a trial, where his adrenaline level is high and he runs even faster, it’s run-run-off on the down plank. He doesn’t have a lot of separation between his back legs when he’s running fast anyway, and people who watch us say that he runs through only when he’s a bit slower, and when he’s truly flying he leaves early. (Jimmy will be 5 on May 1, and he learned every other agility obstacle very quickly, so I know it’s something he’s not understanding or can’t do comfortably or naturally.)
We’ve started over with plank work many times now, and it never translates properly to trials. Our best results are when we have to flip back to a tunnel or do a tight turn, and I am right there “drawing the line” through the contact. A judge suggested always doing it that way, and we had great results for awhile--but if I am behind him or lateral and he’s running really fast he will jump.
I’m sure this is a problem with retraining--maybe if we’d started the plank work at the beginning it would be fine. We often get Qs because he can sometimes get a toe in, but that’s not the Trkman method, and I’m very frustrated. I have never wanted to start leaving the ring if he gets it wrong--that’s why we stopped with 2o2o. He’s a wonderful agility dog and I’m going to start experimenting with a little “easy” command or something to get him to think about his stride. If he does three strides he’s usually going to make it--but really fast, two flying strides, and he’s off early. When he does hit with separation in the feet in class or at home, which is always slower than at a trial unless there’s some reason we don’t get good momentum onto the dogwalk, he hits between the top two slats, which is high already; so add the speed, and he hits higher and he’s off. (I’m going to try to load two photos in additional comments of the spot he consistently hits with separation when he’s in the yard or at school.)
HOWEVER, the same bounciness and stride that causes us problems on the dogwalk seems to work quite well on the A-frame--he has a nice running A-frame that only occasionally does he miss…
I would certainly do the Trkman method with any new dog, and I know that there are many dogs who have retrained successfully. But when I watch the videos I don’t “recognize” my dog’s stride in the successful ones; Jimmy just doesn’t run that way, never has. Boo hoo.
Any suggestions appreciated. I have beautiful trial photos of Jimmy flat-out over the joint between the parallel plank and the downramp, and it looks like he’s flying there too--but unfortunately, he’s also about to miss the contact, sigh…
Best regards, and we are Silvia devotees and always will be,
Adrienne McLean and APD ATCH NATCH Judy and ADCH-Bronze LAA-Bronze ATCH Jimmy the Wonder Dogs
“so add the speed, and he hits higher and he’s off” -- I think the reasoning behind this statement is against the whole idea of RC. Bu is “different speeds” dog too and my statement for her would be the opposite of what you’re saying: she is sometimes hitting high when not running full out, but add the speed and she hits LOWER. Adding speed makes strides longer and her deeper, so I think the roots of your problem are elsewhere. If you have problems getting full speed in training, could it be he was never trained to run his contacts full speed? It’s the most important part of teaching RC; that’s why I always emphasis the importance of getting full speed on a flat plank already. By doing so, you will never meet the problem you describe. The only problem with real RC is with dogs who run slower on new equipment and then they might end too high to hit the contact, never the other way around, it doesn’t make sense.
You’ve never run down a flight of stairs as fast as you can and jumped the last few to be faster? Or seen a dog running as fast as he can who tries to be even faster by launching the last few feet--no matter how fast that same dog runs on a flat or slightly raised surface, with no jumping? And is everyone who is training with a plank in the hall or a plank up to a platform and then running back down running as fast as they would at a trial? That’s why I’m saying it’s my fault that my dog doesn’t understand something--he understands speed, but not the connection to the bottom of the plank, and he’s doing his best to be fast but it’s quite natural for him to jump, especially when he’s REALLY revved up--maybe it’s my adrenaline that’s different at a trial and he reads that, but lately he has also stepped his speed up a notch and gotten more confident on a course (we both have) and he clearly LIKES to jump--and I don’t think he realizes he’s being “wrong.” And so I don’t know what to do next. (A teacher here used to observe wolves in the wild as her job, and she would watch them run up and down hills and she said none of them ran all the way down the hill, they always jumped too :-))…
It’s a paradox in some ways--the dog with the best running contacts in this area, an extremely fast aussie/BC mix, never was trained in them at all, she offered the behavior on her first time over the dogwalk and she’s ten years old now and still does it. So it feels natural for her to do it. It seems to feel very natural to my dog to fly, is all I’m saying, and it must feel good to him to do it… I, on the other hand, am clearly failing in my attempt to transmit the information that speed is good but getting to the ground in the fastest way possible is not. So it’s absolutely a fault of my training, but he’s an obliging dog on everything else… Mea culpa, mea culpa.
Yes, but I was not trained not to jump:). I didn’t say running full speed is all you need to have good running contacts. I said it’s the first step in the process because I got the feeling it was the one you skipped. But no, it’s not the last one, that’s for sure!!!:)
I am pretty sure that our problems are related not to training (and of course not the method itself) but to REtraining--he hated 2o2o so much that maybe that yellow spot is something his brain learned quickly and instinctively to avoid at a trial LOL! We are going to work this summer from scratch, back to the plank etc., and my teacher is going to have some special sessions for students with a full lowered dogwalk (ours is two-thirds size, 8′ plank rather than 12′, same angle though) so that we can really build speed with the full ramp and maybe I can convince Jimmy that running is better than jumping ALWAYS :-).
I wish I could sit Jimmy down over a beer and say “Dude, I know you truly believe that jumping off the dogwalk is helping me out because you think it’s the fastest way off, but it’s really not--air time is slower--and besides, the rule is you HAVE to put your feet there, so could you just make a nice stride through? Pleeeeze?? Try it, you’ll like it--haven’t you noticed how happy I am when you DO run through it?? No? I’m a bad clicker? Yes, I probably am--I’m old and slow. Treats aren’t good enough? Just tell me what you want and it’s yours!!!”
I also dream about my next dog, in the future, who will never ever ever have to stop!! Yippee!!!!!
Thanks again,
Adrienne and Judy and Jimmy
Here’s one of the two photos of Jimmy’s “strike spot” at home…
And here’s another of Jimmy’s spot…
Hi!
I always wanted to do RC with my puppy but she has a very “jumpy” style to run so I was afraid to miss the aim and started doing target work.
A few weeks ago I asked Silvia at a seminar and she told me that my dog does not run full speed.
I started with RC about two weeks ago. First we did only “speed work” and now we startet do put the planked higher and higher. So far it looks really good and I am very exited about the result… 😉
Thanks for your help, Silvia!
Judith and Suri
Happy to hear Suri is doing so well!!! I was sure she will do great, all the tricks training makes everything easy:).
And yes, I just don’t believe in bouncy/jumpy breeds/dogs:). Never seen a dog bouncing when chasing a rabbit!
I agree- but have you really ever seen a little princess chasing a rabbit?! 😉
But all jokes aside: You were completely right with your idea that Suri jumps beause of having not enough speed. Now she is much more faster and has a hit-rate of about 99%. ( plank is about 50cm high at the moment).
I think next real challenge will be turns and angels….
You’re right, bad example, my dogs don’t chase rabbits either…:) But they’re very often in a hurry and when so, they don’t bounce, they RUN.
That`s what Suris RCs look at the moment.
Hi everyone!
I would like to ask you about the distance from which I send my dog on a plank. Should the distance always be the same? And is it better to send a dog always from the beggining of the plank (video -- 0:14…) or rather from afar (video -- 0:06-0:14)? Does it matter?
Thank you very much! Happy training 🙂
(I’ve found this video on this website -- Jays running contacts)
No, you don’t want to have a dog starting at the same distance all the time. Once you start working towards lower hits, different distances will allow a dog to learn to adjust their striding as necessary to meet the criteria.
Thank you Silvia for all your help with my girl Lynn!!!
Congratulations!!! Looks perfect now, thanks for posting!