Time for a new lesson! And a "catch-up break" 🙂 With every class, we do a two weeks break for those who got somewhat behind to catch up and for those who are on schedule to give a dog a little break from plank running. I'll be answering your questions till Tuesday 4th October night and then again after 14 days, from 19th October morning again. Please don't post your videos during this time, I won't be reviewing old videos as things can change in 2 weeks.
If you're behind, make sure to complete lesson 1 before you start with lesson 2 and that you complete lesson 2 before starting with lesson 3 - you can't jump steps, there is a reason I'm giving you this assignments in the order that I do!
1. switch to a static toy, position it at the bar of a jump with a bar on the ground. The jump should be straight forward after the plank, about 7m away. The goal is the dog starts to look for a jump, knowing the toy is there. Occasionally, still throw a toy in advance, but mostly, have it there. When the dog already knows where it is, put a jump bar very low and a toy behind it (close after it, but far enough that the dog can land normally). Keep it there long enough that the dog is expecting it there. When you see the dog is pulling well towards the jump, knowing the toy is there, stop leaving the toy there and throw it after you click the contact, so that the dog gets it after the jump.
The goal is to switch from a static toy that is there as a target for the dog to focus him forward to a jump as a target to focus the dog forward and a toy as a reward we throw AFTER we see the contact is good. You need to be pretty quick as you don't want the dog to wait for the toy - so quick that I sometimes throw it before I realize the contact was actually not THAT good - but it gets easier 🙂 I guess this step will finally make everybody worried about rewarding leaps happy as now, you can withhold the toy for unsuccessful tries. HOWEVER, make sure the dog successful rate is high for this step as otherwise, you can loose the speed and get the dog checking back with you if you're throwing a toy or not. The same can be dangerous if you're late throwing a toy.
This is usually an easy step for BCs who will run full speed in anticipation of the toy, but can be a very hard one for some other dogs. For Le, that was the hardest step. She was running beautifully if the ball was still rolling when she saw it, but if I threw it that early that it was already static when she saw it (or when I positioned it there), then she didn't extend well enough. What finally worked was going few steps back with height, exciting her a lot with a toy, throwing it at the jump and sending her quickly to the dog-walk. That made her striding good enough to continue long enough to have her look for the jump and then I quickly switched to a toy, thrown after the contact is done, over the jump. That temporary caused some checking back with me, so I needed to go back to a stationary toy again, but then she finally got the idea to keep running full speed towards the jump/tunnel and trust the toy will appear then 🙂 and that again gave me the beautiful striding I had before trying to get rid of a toy, thrown in advance.
If the transition to a stationary toy is too hard, another way to try to avoid that phase is to pretend you are throwing a toy in advance, but then only throw it after. OR, using a tunnel as a way to focus the dog forward and throw it after the tunnel - works great with tunnel crazy dogs, didn't work with Le. Try and report back if you have problems.
2. keep adding height. If you have an option, it's also time to try the real thing. If you don't ahve a low DW you can use a normal dog-walk with additional plank at the end. Start with down ramp only and then slowly put the dog further&further back until you run the whole dog-walk.
When trying this or any other, new variable, don't vary other variables - make it as easy for the dog to succeed as possible. You can also lower a criteria somewhat. Normally, your criteria about hits by now should already be to be deeply in the contact - but temporary, you can click for good tries on a limit too, IF hind feet are well separated and the dog is not leaping.
3. new trick: have a dog back up on something very low and preferably soft first (folded blanket, low pillow) - then slowly add height, so that they need to pick up their hind legs higher&higher. At the same time, you can teach a "pee trick": click for lifting the leg, searching for an object, before they touch it. Make sure to try to get leg lifts on both sides - they usually prefer to go up with the same leg, so try to sometimes position them somewhat diagonally in front of an object so that their preferred leg is too far from it to start with that one. Also try climbing stairs backwards and cavaletti backwards.
Have fun! I'll be back to answering on 19th October and will publish new assignments on 7th November, so you'll again have 3 weeks to work on this assignment in class form - and 2 additional weeks to either catch up or take a break 🙂
Hi, Silvia. Here is our session today. My battery died before the last two, but I’d still like your feedback as we changed some things today. This was the first time offsetting the tunnel before the DW. Also the first time I’ve tried rewarding from hand. I had the MM after the tunnel and a ball on me. The tunnel after the DW is curved and initially, Da Vinci took the short cut. Is that common? Luckily those weren’t hits.
When throwing the ball for him as his reward after the tunnel, should I be asking for him to come to hand or a turn on the flat before throwing? Or just throw for him as he is exiting the tunnel?
Should we stay at 3 ft.?
I forgot to say that the tunnel after the DW is curved about 90 degrees.
Yes, they like to short-cut with a curved tunnel, that’s why by the time I have 90 degrees, I usually already fade the food/toy there and reward by either throwing a toy as they’re exiting or with food from the hand -- whatever they prefer. I think I would do a couple of more sessions on this height, varying your position some more as you seem to slow down when he is on down ramp: try running full speed, just as if there would be something hard to handle after DW 🙂 -- and maybe changing the first tunnel for the jump and moving it around some to practice different entries. If he tends to end sessions better as he starts them, though, start with his favourite set up to help him succeed on first tries too and then throw in some challenges when he is hitting nicely.
You two have come a long way! Great job Da Vinci!
Thanks, Ania.
Hello Silvia
here is our work from last week -- we started to use the low dogwalk and this is the second time on this 🙂
Next time I will not reward the tries like 2 and 11.
What do you mean about this?
Cool! I think for her, the easiest is to hit when either coming with full speed and she does it in 4 strides or when starting with no speed and doing 5 strides. Of course, she needs to master all middle options too and be able to adjust, but you can first do some successful sessions on those two options and then start to introduce all other approaches too. Great job so far! Maybe just try to fix the up and middle plank some more too, though, they’re both moving more as you would want.
This is our latest session with Maia. She is doing very well. (I’m keeping my fingers crossed) At the beginning of today’s session, there was a jump to the left and a straight tunnel on the right. I curved the tunnel a bit after the break.
What I’ve noticed is that if I click when she has a great hit, but before she gets into the tunnel, she turns to me. She does not do this when she is going to a jump however. I either have to delay the click until she is in the tunnel (which defeats the purpose) or don’t click at all which is not good either. I don’t know how to solve this. Any ideas? How do you think we are doing?
Great!!! You can even be somewhat behind her now! But yes, definitely better towards the jump as towards the tunnel… Would she be turning back to you also if you say “yes” instead of a click? If that doesn’t work, you can as well use two jumps for now instead and try the tunnel later on, when she knows really well already that the reward only comes after the next obstacle. Meantime you can work on her drive for tunnels some more. Anyway, looks ready for the next height to me!
Hi Silvia,
Firstly huge congrats for World Champs -- awesome stuff 🙂
I’ve had an interesting few weeks with Blaze and Ripple. I couldn’t seem to get Ripple to find the joy in the running contact work. She is very sensitive but also highly motivated so it surprised me that we didn’t find the joy. Long and the short of I have decided to do 2o2o with her which she loves and we will work hard on cip and cap 🙂
Blaze however is loving the training. We had got up to doing the whole dogwalk which went well initially and then she started leaping (the dogwalk was no higher than my last video posted). We went back to running over two planks on the ground which was awesome so I raised the first plank slightly to emulate the middle of a dogwalk (very low). This went well and we raised it a bit more and then took the shorter plank out and put the dogwalk middle and down planks down as low to the ground as I could. The extra length was an issue for a couple of sessions but that ironed out and I’ve now raised it twice.
Here are her last two sessions. 23rd October was brilliant, 24th not so great.
Thanks,
Charlotte
Looks good to me! I would do a couple of more sessions like that and then raise it some again. Interesting that Ripple prefers 2on2off, but yes, obviously she understands that but not RC and that makes her unsure…
Great thanks Silvia. Do you keep raising the height of this set up so they are jumping onto it to start or should I be adding the up ramp back in?
Not sure what it is with Ripple, she is a detail girl and I’ve trained a lot of 2o2o and I’m confident with it and maybe that is what she needs. If I had trained another dog prior to her with running maybe it would have been a different story!
I have ruptured a ligament in my ankle (3 weeks now) but I’m determined not to let this slow down Blaze’s training! Might just mean I can’t run with her for a while!
Charlotte
Hm, yes, it would probably be a safer set up with an up ramp, but it might affect her hits and you might get the leaping back… Maybe try for a couple of sessions and see what you get? Sorry to hear about your ankle, I hope it heals fast!
Hi Silvia,
I did two sessions today which I was pleased with, would love your feedback. We had a couple of silly ones where she fell off the ramps but otherwise higher success rate. Still a range of different styles of hits tho.
Charlotte
Cool! Nice variety of hits is actually good! I think up ramp would prevent the falling though so let’s indeed try that next… And hope she keeps running!
Hi Silvia,
Well after the first session with the up plank on I was really stoked and hopeful we were making progress.
However not so sure now!
Here are her last four sessions over the past two days. Hoping you are more positive than I am about is 🙂
Thanks
Charlotte
Hey Charlotte,
To me, it looks like a bunch of your “no clicks” are really low hits with a front leg (it’s a little hard to tell since the grass obscures the contact a bit and there’s not much color variation). Perhaps the criteria of what you are rewarding is different from what I have been rewarding. I’m taking the low 1 foot hits as a ‘reward’.
I think with the stationary starts in the last sessions you must have been starting her in about the same spot? It seems like if you had started her just a tad closer to the up ramp you may have been able to push a bunch of those no clicks to jackpots? I had really good luck with that -- I was noticing that Punk would pretty much not be hitting the end of the plank because of where he hit previously not because he was leaping. So then i would just figure out if he needed to be moved back or forward and that helped a TON! You may have already tried that!
Also, you throw GREAT! I’m envious.
-grace
Actually, I don’t like those very low one foot hits either. I think they’re very often not seen by judges. Blaze in fact looks leapy in those tries and hitting the very end of it looks somewhat accidental… We actually have one participant who started his dog before this class and by clicking this one low foot got real high leaps to one foot hits -- see early videos of Neil and Billie. But I agree that changing starting point might help. How is Punk’s nail?
Thanks for your input Grace, much appreciated. I didn’t click those accidental front foot hits because of the airiness of the stride. She has struggled with leaping and the air is just the pre cursor to the leaps. If she had less air and hit with a single front foot I would try and click.
I will play around with her starting position and see how we go.
LOL re throwing, I’m actually really bad I have had to work quite hard on my throwing skills!!
Thanks again.
C
Yeap, doesn’t look bad to me at all 🙂 The only problem is when she is trying for 3 strides -- then of course she is too high. And when you started her without speed, she is sometimes too high with 4 strides, so you would need to move her back some to give her somewhat more speed. But actually, what I would try is raising the height (to like three times that high). It will be less tempting to go for 3 strides then. You can also try a stationary toy (pick one big enough that she can see well), that usually makes them less in a hurry, so she might add that 4th stride in. She is not adjusting yet to hit it, but she is also mostly not leaping, so adding height is perfectly o.k. at this point. Let me know how it goes!
Thanks Silvia,
Phew I was beginning to get stressed so I’m glad it doesn’t look bad to you 🙂
So to summarise. I’m clicking and not clicking roughly correctly?
I’m to raise the height of the dog walk, should I do stationary starts or from a wrap? Or experiment?
Will feedback later. I will try and do 2 sessions today.
Charlotte
Yes, clicking is good. After you raise it, try starting with a wrap first and if she is still trying for 3 steps (check the video), go to stationary start and adjust her starting point some if necessary.
Well first session was terrible 🙁 Just working on the video now. Lots of leaping. Stationary ball not good for her, made me realise she is possibly just chasing the ball.
Will post the video soon will edit it now.
Charlotte
here is the disaster session 🙁
can’t help feeling that she is still just chasing the ball, when the ball is stationary her stride is different and she is looking for the ball.
where too from here? feeling a little lost at mo!!!
Charlotte
Yeah, stationary toy gives you wrong movement, but I wouldn’t worry about that, we would obviously need a slower transition -- not necessary with some dogs at all, somewhat more complicated with others, but always possible. What does worry me is that she would indeed have a nice 4 strides pattern on that height… -- if she didn’t choose to leap instead… Not sure why she gets leapy here, she could easily do another normal length stride here and be in -- but she chooses to fly instead… Let’s do some partial DWs for now, starting her at the spot you were starting her for try 12 and see if we can get more hits like that before we challenge her some again.
Hi Silvia,
Well a pretty depressing week running contacts wise 🙁 Blaze has been struggling with the new height big time. We are getting some nice hits but they are few and far between and we are losing her hind leg separation.
So today started off as we have been for past few days and part way through knew I had to change something so just to see what would happen I went back to doing a wrap turn onto the full dogwalk. I hope the results weren’t a total fluke. I only did a few reps as I needed to finish on a high note LOL!!!
I felt she was back to where we were at the beginning when we discussed the short planks here in NZ and she was back to back feet together running when I started her mid plank. I played around with holding her collar and just letting her go and there were no consistent results.
Here is her video from this morning.
Man I have to say I’m so glad you are doing this course, I think I would have quit long ago without your support so thank you so much. I’m determined to get fantastic running contacts with Blaze 🙂
Charlotte
Great! Staring the dog with speed is always what I’m mostly doing, but if I don’t see any efforts from the dog to hit, I sometimes start them with different approaches to get some adjustments. However, since we are still struggling with leaps, running is still our major focus and even if she is sometimes somewhat high, that’s o.k., just keep working like this to keep her running and slowly select for the best hits. We’ll work on adjustments later on.
Hi Silvia,
Here is Blaze’s session from this afternoon. I was too scared to do any more reps in case it fell to pieces. She got a big play in the pool afterwards.
Hits are not low except 5 which I jackpotted. By she only leapt in one out of the 8 reps.
Charlotte
So, stick at this height for a while, keep rewarding running and maybe jackpot the lower hits?
Cheers,
Charlotte
Oh dear this morning’s session not so great. First hit was a jackpot, next two rewardable then lots of leaping 🙁
Cheers,
Charlotte
Ok I have done a comparison of Blaze’s attempts this morning. We had more of the jumping today but it looks like it is a speed and where she hit the up contact issue.
I’ve marked the leading front foot hits with an x on the video too.
Would love your thoughts on how to work through this.
Thanks.
sorry for so many videos. Just feel the need to have my hand held a bit at mo!!!
I did a second session today which was pretty much like the first one -- lots of jumping some ok reps. I had moved the wrap jump pretty close to try and reduce speed onto the up ramp.
3rd session I had the wrap jump part way between the two spots I had trained before and we had a really good session. Not sure what makes the difference tho?
Charlotte
To me it looks like she knows it’s about running, but doesn’t really understand the importance of the end of the board, so everything depends on how long strides she is making and where she hits first time. In the comparison you did, it’s obvious that when she hits the plank too high, she goes for 4 hits and is too high and if she hits the up contact, then she does 5 hits and is in. If you start her too close or she is not running that fast, she is not in with 5 hits. For now, try to help her by adjusting her starting point as much as needed, meaning starting her further when she is too high with 5 hits and moving the starting point for half of the stride when she is not hitting the up contact. You can maybe even mark up contacts with your voice to bring her attention to the importance on how she enters the plank. Of course, she will at one point need to be able to do some adjustments on her own, but for now, getting as many sessions as the last one you posted is the priority.
Hi,
Thanks, so for now manipulate her start point for lower hits and stay at this height?
I’m sure I’ve read this somewhere on counting strides but I thought she was doing 4 strides. Hitting up plank, then four full strides across with the fifth stride as she hits the grass.
Charlotte
Exactly. And yes, based on how I’m counting, she is doing 4 strides or 5 hits. When she goes for 4 hits (3 strides), she misses.
Hi,
Well I had thought we were making progress as Blaze did a couple of super consistent session, fantastic jackpot hits etc. However she seems to be back to her inconsistent work again and trying to do 3 strides and jumping and even some four stride ones are jumping. I got 4 jackpot hits today in 19 tries. Some rewarded, most not. Like you said in last post it depends on her up contact hit it seems plus she doesn’t see the importance of the bottom of the down plank. How can I move on from this stage?
Cheers,
Charlotte
Strange… And she went from one phase to another without you changing anything? Partial DW work (letting her go from different spots so that her striding is different) helps with their understanding that the end is important. You could also try bringing her attention to it more by actually dressing a contact into a piece of cloth/carpet/rubber or something that looks and feels different…
No didn’t change anything. I had played around a bit with different timing of throwing the ball and was able to get it earlier and earlier and then suddenly got the inconsistent Blaze back. I had wondered about carpet over the contact area, I might give that a go. Also just got everyone’s routing chiro visit done today and she had her pelvis out a little so that could be a contributing factor too. I will see how she goes tomorrow and report back.
Thanks,
Charlotte
Hi Silvia,
Here are Blaze’s last few training sessions. I still feel we are going back and forward a bit and maybe a bit stuck. Not really knowing where too from here.
Thanks for your input.
Charlotte
Yeah, it seems to be very hard to help her as her striding is so unpredictable… She is sometimes going for 3 strides and sometimes she is too high with 4… It makes it hard to figure out how to get more consistent hits… -- either adding more speed on the approach or less, raising it or not… I would probably try raising it again some to see what that gives you and then the next step would be fading the toy, so SLOWLY try to introduce earlier&earlier throws.
Hi Silvia,
Thought I would add today’s session for you to see.
Cheers,
Charlotte
Thanks Silvia,
How much would you raise it?
Charlotte
Something like 20cm maybe.
well I raised the dogwalk 20cms at you suggested. I’ve now one two sessions. First rep of the first session was awesome jackpot, four strides. Well it turns out it was pure fluke! She went to leaping off (worse than usual). Tried several to see if she could work it out but no change in her habit. Then did some from the middle of the dogwalk and whilst she was going down the plank it was without separation in her legs (which she has done without speed throughout this process). Today I put carpet on the contact area. Tried a couple from the middle of the dogwalk and got a couple of ok hits but mostly no separation. Then did some with wrap off a jump and back to leaping, once even leapt off the middle plank 🙁
So I ended the session just shaping her at the end of the plank to jump on the bit with the carpet and clicked and threw the ball, just tried to put some value into the bottom of the plank where the carpet is.
Any other thoughts. Feeling a little down about it 🙁
Charlotte
Yeap, you can try some of that, might help her understand the importance of an end part better. You can get the similar affect by teaching turns as it will be explained in the next lesson so you could try to go that way, teaching turns first to get better understanding of touching the end of the board and then go back to straight exits… Another idea would be to try with additional plank at the end, set under less of an angle on the DW… It sometimes stops the leaping as it “masks” the end… Or, yet another idea would be to focus on fading the toy first, so that you will then have a stronger motivation for her to try harder and she might also think more that way. If going that way, I would put two U-shaped tunnels with two planks end by end in one line between the two entries and a carpet on the other line between the other two entries and just run her in circles, clicking&jackpotting hits and just running her ahead for everything else. Once she drives to tunnels after the planks/carpet well, you could then use the same set up on a DW and run back and fourth without letting her have a ball for anything but nice running. It might make her think more.
We’ve had a break for pretty much 3 weeks with only one or two sessions, since I have been traveling. We’re really not doing well at the height we’re at right now. Both sessions started ok, with good contact hits. The rest of the sessions was terrible, with mostly missed contacts. He is still trying to do the dogwalk in three strides most of the time, but is not extending enough for this height and is therefore too high. I also think he needs better hind feet separation. At the end of session two, I tried to start him from an angle so that he would come with less speed and then add a stride. It worked all right.
So, where do I go from here? If I lower the dogwalk he is more likely to keep three strides and will probably not learn much new even though he might get nicer hits. If I go even higher he might add that fourth stride? Or should I start him from an angle so that he comes with less speed? Any other suggestions?
Hm, yes, where did the hind feet separation go? Is it the new height or? Could maybe also be unstable down plank… Can you fix that better? And yes, I think I would do both, raise it some more and do angled approaches for now, maybe even starting him somewhere on a DW and only try straight again when he is good at that: this session gave you more misses as you would want to, always try to change something when you get so many bad ones in a row. If raising and fixing it and different approaches won’t help, go back to the last successful height and first get the hind feet separation back.
Went to full height (and added support to the down ramp) today and tried different things out. At first, it didn’t seem to make a difference (of course, he added strides, but he was still high). I then decided to add poles at the end of the dogwalk so that I’d be able to throw the toy. It’s been hard throwing the toy because if I haven’t thrown perfectly straight (and I rarely do) he would jump off to the side. With the poles, he was able to keep running forward even with a slightly crooked throw. Secondly, I warmed up with some value building for the contact. I think it helped some. I guess he got tired in the end, maybe I should have ended sooner. At least it feels like something to work more on. What to you think?
Yeap, definitely better. That gives you enough good hits to continue like that. You can try some straight approaches in next session too, I think you might get some nice 4 strides hits on this height that way.
Holy cow Fanny,
All of a sudden he’s doing such a high height! Some really nice ones in there. I like to watch your videos since you have had some of the same issues as me. Good work!
-grace
Already better! He was good on the straight approach when he hit the up contact a bit lower. Then he went for four nice strides instead of three. I really think I need to spend more time working on up contacts, they seem to both be a problem for him (he likes to stride over them) and also be important for the down contact…
Yes, maybe train the up contact first and meantime do angled approaches. He seems to be adjusting his stride some on the apex now, so that’s good news, but I would still like to see more reach forward and hind feet separation of that last stride… But yes, the trend is good, so keep working like that and see if you can get better hind feet separation too. By the way, how is your other dog doing, did you get rid of the overreach problem with her?
It’s getting even better now! Still want more reach and hind feet separation, but I think he is better than before.
I haven’t done much running with Squid lately, but I never felt like I really got anywhere with her problem. Right now I’m going to focus on getting a running a-frame with her.
Yeap, now that looks almost there already! 🙂 Great job!!!
Anything I can do to get better reach and separation? That’s really all that’s missing now.
Interestingly, his reach and separation is the best on the tries when he almost falls off and when he is going for 3 strides. Not sure why he doesn’t stay fully extended in other tries, when he is deeper… Maybe he is avoiding stepping on the edge? -- I prefer DWs that have ramps cut diagonally at the end so that the edge is not so pronounced… The toy or a jump too close after could be another reason, but yours doesn’t seem too close… -- how far is your jump/toy? You can try a tunnel if that will give you better separation and reach. A thrown toy often helps too, but I think it didn’t make a difference for Epic.
Hi Silvia, I almost gave up. But then I read your answer to one clasmate that she could train stoped and then train rc again. I think I will do the same. Train stoped as well just to be sure that I will be able to have an alternative if this does not work. My film show you actual status. If I start her in the middle of the dw it goes ok, but when running the complete dw she is often leapy. She is also dropping one paw sometimes as you can see. it is not much progress
But… Those from the tunnel were great!!! One is perfect and also those with one front foot in the middle are nice -it’s actually important they know to do it with front foot too and can drop one foot down when necessary! Can you post another session with tries from the tunnel to see if she is always as good as in this video? If so, your problem is solved 🙂 But yes, no problem teaching 2on2off at the same time, maybe on differently looking object and with another verbal -- it’s very easy to then get it on DW then.
Hi Silvia!
This is the result with the entire DW and changed the set-up.
In the first movie at the end there is a tunnel, whereas in the second movie is a jump.
What troubles me is that it increases the hits with the fore legs .. I still rewarding because it has decreased exponentially jumps .. how do you think I should work?
Looks great! Front feet are o.k. too, don’t worry about it. Jackpot any feet nicely in. Looks like you can raise the DW some! If that goes well, try different approaches to DW too.
Hi Silvia 🙂
For a little while now I’ve had a problem with Liryk and gentle turns, she seems to keep peeling off the side of the d/w if I’m not up there with her. I’ve put her right back to just being on the down ramp, standing behind her and sending, and rewarding anything that is deeper/straighter than the time before. BUT she just doesn’t get it 😛 She seems to “sight” the jump and isn’t really “thinking?” about the end of the contact.
Should I go right back and take away the jump? and just put a static toy out?
I’m managing to “fake her out” when out at clubs by running straight and then turning her on the flat, but I’m sure I’m not always going to be able to get up there and would like her to know how to complete the down ramp without coming off the side 🙂
Thanks!!
Megan and Liryk
What if you put many obstacles around at the end: one straight ahead, one to the side etc.: and then sometimes go straight, sometimes to the side -- maybe that would help. To avoid the problem, I normally move the jump to the side very gradually (and go back to previous angle if they start to peel off) -- but I guess you already did that?
Yes 🙂 when she would start to peel off I’d go back to where she was originally successful, but she seemed to even slightly peel off there too and then I’d end up with the jump almost straight again before she’d run straight on the plank.
I havent’ done alot of mulitple jumps so that sounds like a good next step THANKS!!
Would you have those jumps set quite a distance from the end of the d/w? And should I just start her on the down ramp? Last time I had more than one jump at the end she tried choosing herself which bar to take, but maybe they were a little close?
Thankyou!!
Megan and Liryk
Yes, put the jumps far enough that you have more time to cue the right one and then you can try either the whole DW or down ramp only first if that’s easier. Also, don’t train soft turns that promote peeling off too often: I often use somewhat off set jumps to get them used to the idea that it doesn’t need to be completely straight ahead, but most of the time keep them relatively straight. Did you do any more trials then? How is she doing?
I’m just over the moon with her 😀 She was in her second trial last weekend and got all her d/w’s 😀 Even a tricky one, where the judge slightly off set two bars at the end, (the first one after the d/w was only about 4.5m) when I first looked at the video I thought she slipped or something on the downramp, but when I slowed it down I think she is altering her striding to get her contact AND keep the bar up. What do you think? I was really happy with her! I think it freaked the judge out a little, you can hear her say how she thinks it’s scary on the video 😛 Her confidence has come along in leaps and bounds and she is extending sooooooooooo much more on the longer d/w.
Thanks for the extra ideas!! I’m sure we’ll work it out soon 🙂
Megan and Liryk
Great, happy to hear she is doing so well! And remember, RC only get better with time 🙂 Looks like she is shortening her last stride to be able to get that jump yes.
Lyrik IS amazing, Megan!!! So much fun to watch your progression and success!!!
Amy and Little Spur
Wow thanks Amy! I love her to bits she just tries so hard! I’m SUPER lucky to have her, it just blows my mind!
Silvia I forgot to ask… will you continue these running contact classes next year? We’ve got a new addition that has just joined the family 😀 His name is Edge and I’ve been well and truely bitten by the running contact bug and would love to do it with him when he’s older 🙂
Megan and Liryk
There is no way back after RC, that’s for sure! 🙂 Welcome to Edge! Tell us more about him! And yes, the plan is to open new RC class every 4.5 months or so -- with next one starting in January. But you could join puppy class!
Edge is a border collie, only 11wks at the moment. But he’s so full of SPUNK 😀 He’s had a long flight over from New Zealand, and has settled in like he’s always been here 🙂
I’ve added a photo for you to see 🙂
Puppy class sounds like a GREAT idea Silvia! When does the next class start?
And you’re soooooooo right running contacts are the BEST fun!
Congratulations on the new addition! He is adorable!!!
and great job with Liryk on the RC! It is so beautiful to watch it all come together. It’s poetry in motion 😉
He is adorable!!! -- And sure looks like lots of fun! Next puppy class only starts in February, but you can still join the October class and catch up (we’re having a break second half of November, so it should be doable).
Okay that sounds cool Silvia! where do I sign up?
Megan, Liryk and Edge 😀
Here 🙂
Hi Silvia 🙂
Liryk was in a trial last night, with a 90 degree turn off the end of the d/w…… and I handled it pretty darn BAD 🙁 She didn’t manage to hit the contact and also missed the jump. Then to top it off I think I was still contemplating the d/w on the rest of the course and really wasn’t connected with her resulting in her first miss of the Aframe contact.
How do you think I should have handled this “challenge” I was trying to turn her on the flat but it just went from bad to worse, and my fear is that I’ve knocked her confidence 🙁 I REALLY wasn’t expecting these sorts of challenges in Novice, so didn’t really know what the best approach was in handling it.
Thanks Megan and Liryk 🙂
I wouldn’t worry about a miss or two, it does happen and will probably happen again here and there, so the best is you don’t even watch the contact, but just focus on the course. I think you were too quick with FC on DW, you needed to wait longer if you wanted to handle it as a straight line. If you meet another challenge that you think she is not ready for, you can just think of your own course and go straight 🙂 But I don’t think this will really hurt her future performance. Do work towards those 90 degree turns in training though, those can be the hardest and we actually see it a lot in Novice level here -- as they’re not really hard for those with 2on2off… -- it’s maybe even easier as going straight for them!
Thanks Silvia!!
Feeling ALOT better now 🙂
I think I became obsessed over that d/w exit to much!! Will definitely not worry about looking at the contact and just focusing on the course, and enjoying ourselves 😀
THANKYOU!!!
Megan and Liryk
Sounds like a good plan, I know it hard to not see how the contact was, but it’s really much better for the rest of the run AND for the contact as such, staring at the dog on a down ramp will often make them collect some and therefore miss.
Hi Sylvia
I want a running AF only and a stopped DW so when it came time to add some more height to my double plank set up, I switched to the AF set low and continued to reward as before raising the height gradually as they were successful. Now 3 weeks into the AF, I am running both dogs over a 38 inch (96 cm) high AF. They start with either a tunnel or going around a cone, run the AF and finish into a tunnel and then get either a thrown toy or the manners minder for successful hits. They both run eagerly. I have varied my position at the start, sometimes running with, being ahead or behind and also have varied where they start. All has gone well but I have a few concerns about what I am starting to see.
Juice is consistently having good hits deep in yellow with good hind feet separation, no leaping now, YAY. My concern with her is that she flies over the apex with a giant leap landing in yellow and I can’t visualize where this will end up as I raise the AF. Do I need to worry about her “reckless abandon”?
Snitch had been incredibly consistent with hits deep in yellow and now is still consistent but will occasionally (maybe 1 out of 10) have a different stride on the up ramp, with one front paw hitting an extra time which then makes him hit a little high on the down ramp. Some days worse than others. I’m not sure why he is doing that, it happens when starting from a tunnel or when circling a cone to start.
Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Snitch
Juice
Your observations are right, flying over an apex so much is not desirable, so it’s good you posted. As soon as I start to get some flying, I raise the A-frame significantly, meaning almost to full height. So try that next, but be careful first few tries and try to bring them to A-frame with (significantly!) less speed as they might fly over the whole thing otherwise. With running AF only, I only teach running on almost flat planks/A-frame and when I have the running, sort out the striding on almost full height next. On this height you’re at, they’re actually learning wrong striding, so do raise it next and post it so that I can see what to do next. If raising it gradually is necessary (when more height gives you leaps), you need to take the apex away, using a set up like Anne is using (table in the middle).
Very glad I posted too. This morning I raised in two steps to about 135 cm. The flyovers are essentially gone at that height and they both still stride to the bottom without leaping so I’m happy with that. I will be gone to a trial this weekend and will post video Monday so you can see. Thanks so much.
Great!!! Good luck at the trial!
I let the pups run over the A-frame today. As I looked at the video, I quickly realized that I don’t understand what to reward now. There are two behaviors now, crossing the apex and striding to the bottom. I cut my training short until I understand what to reward. HELP!
Snitch, I ran several times. He had several hits that I like as in #2,3,5,8. #6,7 are slow but not scary. If I take a lot of speed out of him by me walking, giving a short approach, no toy then he will walk or trot across the apex but I don’t like the walk, I want the enthusiasm. What do I reward and how do I help him get the speed, safe performance and correct striding.
Juice is just scary so I stopped at 4 reps. I’m sorry but I am a bit confused now. Thanks for your help.
Snitch
Juice
Juice
To keep it safe, I would try with less speed next time and food rewards, but with you running, not walking. Simply focus on the hits and reward the hits no matter how they got there, but first take the speed away so that they don’t get hurt. Even trotting is o.k. for now as we are just trying to un-train the flying and make them see there is more comfortable way to do it. Then slowly come from further and further to introduce more speed on the approach, but keep rewarding with food or a toy from your hand, not throwing it for now. Let us know how it goes!
Appreciate your videos Sandra, and Silvia your comments for her dogs… really helpful for me to see more videos of running aframes…
We’re going home to rain now, and raising the table to the next height, I think, keeping ground poles there, fade them later… if I can get some good running at this next height, I’ll try to post tonight, before I leave for show tomorrow!
One other thing Silvia, that I haven’t asked in awhile: I have *not* been doing any full height aframes in competition with Thrill. I did not want to rehearse an incorrect performance, till I was able to get alot closer to my desired performance. Should I still keep on in this fashion: e.g., avoiding full height aframes in competition?
Thanks!
Yes, that’s definitely the best thing to do for now… Hopefully he can do full height soon though!
Ok, good, glad you agree… I posted tonight’s session on my page 3 of Lesson 3, very interesting, I thought… looking forward to your thoughts! LOL!
Hi Silvia.
Congratulations to your great runs at World Championships. Nice to meet you there.
Back home again we have worked on more speed foreward. The last two days we have had success 🙂 I have found a spot in the middle of the dogwalk were we get som good hits from.
After 10 repertitions from that spot i send her over the full dogwalk.
We are still running to a straight tunnel, but have changed to only throughing toy if she hits the contact.
Good. Try to keep a track of the trend to see if it’s getting better. You sure got some really nice hits, but her airy tendencies are worrying me some, so pay attention to it! Make sure to make a big deal out of good ones and keep experimenting with starting points some more, finding a spot that gives you good hits AND then challenging her some by putting her 10-20-30cm (in both directions) away from that spot.
Was nice seeing you too! 🙂
Yesterday we had a very bad training session with lots of flying over the contact 🙁
Therefore i decidet only to train a part of the dogwalk today.
Even tries from the good spot was bad yesterday. Today i set her a little step after the good spot. The first tries was not so good. But then she had some really good hits. I think this has been the best hits ever in her running contacts carreer 🙂
Those tries in the second half of a video are sure great! Try to reproduce them again and then keep that spot for a while if it still works. No challenges for now, we need a good history of jackpottable hits first.
From our last video i have noted 6 bad, 4 ok, 5 jackpot.
From yesterday 5 bad, 7 ok, 5 jackpot.
And today 6 bad, 5 ok and 14 jackpot 🙂
Two of the jackpots today was running a full lenght DW. (we only had 3 tries on full length today).
The tries i note as ok, was tries in, but high, actually it was hits i have jackpottetd before. The jackpots from the last three days is very deep and not airy.
We will do repetitions like this the next days too. I have thought about changing the tunnel after the dogwalk into a jump.
Today i got a video of the A frame. I think it is time to get the real hight.
And here is our training from yesterday 🙂
6 bad tries 1 ok and 19 Jacpots 🙂 🙂 🙂
The last 3 tries are full lenght dogwalk, to test her 🙂
Still running to a straight tunnel.
Cool! I still don’t see any real stride adjustments to get in, but things are definitely going in the right direction now, so keep working like that, mostly using her favourite spot to start her, but then also starting to challenge her some more, I think she is ready for some challenges!
Yesterday i changed from a straight tunnel after the DW to a jump. I started her mostly from her favourite spot and got some good hits and she has good drive to the jump.
Today i started out on the good spot, and the worked backwards with starting point, and in the end started her with a wrap.
Hm, yeah, I would still like her in even more often and deeper when running full DW… It looks like her natural striding takes her just above or a little bit in… But her striding will still change with height, so maybe, raising it first and dealing with it later would actually be a good idea. Maybe you can try raising it next and see if that affects her performance and how and then decide to either stay there or go back down.