Running Contacts That Make You Smile DVD covers the whole training process from getting the full out running, to flat plank work, raising the plank, adding challenges, turns, advanced exits, A-frame and running DW in trials, with a trouble shooting section within each chapter. The DVD features 30 different dogs of 16 different breeds on their journey to running contacts and addresses all the possible problems we encountered in Running Contacts classes.
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Hi Silvia,
could you please please help and have a look at my last session?
It’s like going one step fortward and two steps back… Every time I’m adding other obstacles or directions her zones become worse.
I have started to play the GTCG to get deeper hits and in addition I have trained the RC’s like shown in the video.
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks in advance for your feedback
Melanie
It’s not unusual they shorten a stride when they anticipate angled exit. To avoid that, I don’t repeat the same angled exit over&over, but set many options around and vary where to go every next try, so they learn they can’t anticipate and need to just drive straight. For situations with nothing ahead, I often still throw a toy or help more with my movement, driving them straight. Gtcg is a good idea as well -- you can next set a toy more to the left/right to make her less sensitive to angled exits.
Thanks a million Silvia.
See you at the BACK?
Yes! Looking forward to it! Happy training.
Hi Silvia!
I would really need your help.
L is up on full height on the DW (finally) but she is not doing so well on one of the two DWs we are training on.
Some people think I should lower the one she has problems with but I am thinking of doing GTCG for a while to make her hit lower.
What do you think?
I am posting the latest video on both DWs for you to see:
Thank you so much for your help!
That’s really strange as she looks more confident on Smart DW -- but then still shortens the last stride too much… Could it be the problem is not DW, but what is ahead? Is there a wall close? Does a straight tunnel after help her? Lowering it should help as well yes, so it’s worth to try. On the other DW, she looks way less confident and a bit off balance, so it’s interesting she can still hit nicely with the same number of strides. How long is that DW?
There is no wall close, just a jump 7 meters away, and after that much space before the wall.
I have to check the length of the other dog walk and return to you.
I will try with tunnel after, she really loves tunnels so maybe that does the trick?
I had a session on the other DW today and that was really no good, she started hesitating over the second apex again.
I am really on the verge of just giving up RC and start training 2 on 2 of…
Posting a video of todays session so you can see the disaster.
To me, it looks like the problem is that she is afraid of height… She gets really unsure and off balance on a top plank and that throws her striding off. She is trying her best on a down ramp then and shows nice understanding, but all the weird stuff she is doing on a top plank makes it too hard. At what height did she start doing that on a top plank and can you raise it more gradually from there on?
Yes, you are right!
I should probably go back down to 115/105 cm, thats where she did good over the whole DW I think. See video:
I will not be able to lower one of the DW to this heigth but I guess there is no need to train on that one until we are back at full heigtht.
Thank you so much for your advice! I hope this will work and that we will be able to go all the way up to full height again, with a little more patience.
Yes, she looks much better here! It would be great if you could lower the other one as well as she was even more unsure on that one… Or any other DW you can get access to?
Not to high jack this thread, but I have been wanting to ask you this question for a while and the first video shows a perfect example to ask the question :). My dog does 5 consistent strides, very similar to the first few in Carola’s first video, where second stride is wide open, third stride shorter, always putting her a few feet before second apex. Fourth stride is open but fifth stride is a bit shorter then fourth. Is this a common stride pattern for five strides? She has well above a 90% good hit rate, but we are still going pretty much straight. Starting with slight variations of exits and I am finding I need to use carpet for these as she hits a little high, but is always “in”. Does this make sense? There is no imbalance on top plank. She is small, might be able to do four strides but the few times she’s attempted she clearly missed. Sadly, I did not notice the four stride attempts until reviewing the video so I did not give much encouragement for the effort :). Thanks, and again, hope I am not interrupting this thread.
That’s not uncommon striding yes, especially with dogs who can’t fit fully extended 5 strides in. Le is one of those as well and also does a shortened 3rd stride. If the dog is in between 4 and 5 strides, 5 is safer to go. Le does either 5 or 4+adjustments and I actively discourage 4 by only training on longer DWs -- it’s just too much on the limit for her size (37cm), especially if the exit is not completely straight, so…
Thanks Silvia!
Hi Silvia!!
After all the help you were during training and from all the comments here on your website and then when we were able to get your RCs DVD, thank you!! We trained for about 1 year with different makeshift DWs and way too much difficulty too early on in training. We then built our own actual adjustable DW and with the help of your DVD we started back at ground zero and trained for another year with a whole bunch of ups and downs and learning opportunities before our first trial with the running contacts on my 2on2off retrain (the blonde fuzzy 6 year old retriever mix) and my “fresh” cautious perfectionist (the 4 year old BC). It’s now been a year since we began trialing with running contacts and I will never look back!! I wanted to share our first year of RCs with you and the joy they’ve brought me
they certainly make me smile! My retrain blonde dog has little drive for obstacles as well as getting her to think about adjusting her stride were our difficulties. And my perfectionist of a BC girl has plenty of drive but our challenges were that she is scared of the edge (my mistake in the beginning of our training) and has also been extremely sensitive to any turns or handling after the DW. We’ve come a long way and learned so much about ourselves on this journey! There’s still plenty of room for improvement to look forward to but I’m quite pleased with our first year in the ring. Thanks so much and I hope you enjoy! (A frames are great too but video was getting long already)
Wow -- looks great on all the various approaches and exits now!!! Really a joy to watch! Thanks for posting and happy running!