Time for a new lesson! And a "catch-up break" 🙂 I'll be home one more week to review your videos of where you are at and answer questions on how to proceed if meeting difficulties with new assignments and then you'll have two weeks to work on it on your own, catching up if you got stuck behind a little - or giving your dog some plank break if you're as far as you wanted to be with it. 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!
I'll be back to answering on 24th June and will publish new assignments on 4th July.
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, get another toy and as soon as you click the contact, throw a second toy over the jump. Soon, you won't need a static toy at all anymore.
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 jumps 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 toward 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. You can either use a lowered dog-walk or a normal dog-walk with additional plank at the end as you can see in some videos. 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.
Have fun!
Sorry I see I posted my video in the wrong spot just a second ago and I can’t figure out how to delete where it is and move it here., 🙂
Sorry for the duplicity -- here is my video of where we are with running contacts right now. Overall back on track , we fell apart for a while and it took a bit of work to ger her going again. Some good hits and some leaps in this video. What are your thoughts?
Thanks,
Victoria
Well, that sure looks good, but what worries me is that she is starting from stand still (I suppose, based on the length of the stride?), so her stride is very short and things might change dramatically when she has more speed… Can you improvize a little and try to either have another plank on the other side for her to come with more speed or at least find a long a long table, restraining her at the very end of it?
Thanks, I am pleased with her progress -- we fell off the track for a bit, but seem to be coming back. Thanks for your suggestion, I think I can rig up something. I can use the wide plank that I began training with in the very beginning….have it as an up ramp from the other side of the platform and that will provide some better approach momentum and perhaps lengthen the stride. A make shift dogwalk. 🙂
Just to clarify, at this stage if she leaps or just misses stride would you still give the toy? I only toss reward after the jump now. She runs down the plank and out over the jump and then when she lands she gets reward. I have with held a couple of times when she clearly leaped and she came back and corrected. Does this make sense or does it cause confusion for her for later?
Yes, that sounds like a good set up. And yes, that’s the idea behind only tossing a toy after the jump: toss it only when it’s good -- but make sure her successful rate is close to 80% or higher -- otherwise you might loose the speed. Meaning that you don’t need to be too strict with the criteria yet, but yes, definitely don’t reward leaping!
Hi Silvia,
No problem with placed reward.
We’re inconsistent. In some practices see 10 deep hits in a row. Other times when she goes full speed in a new environment it can fall to 50%. The rest is leaping.
Today, I lowered the height of 2 planks with carpet to 4 inches to try for better rear leg separation. Her foot slips on the edge, she leaps 50% after that.
Any ideas?
Thank you,
Carla
Huh, yeah, that’s quite of an edge… I would do some carpet repetitions to make her forget about it and then go directly to somewhat more raised planks to soften that edge, but still, try to fill it with some newspaper or old T-shirt or something, that definitely doesn’t look like a nice edge to step on… Not sure why she gets so leapy and doesn’t separate feet as soon as there are planks under the carpet… Maybe the edge is really a problem? Any chance to get long, wide and thin board? Try the first plan first though and see how it goes.
Hi! Silvia!!
Now that we can train at home where he is more comfortable we are getting more speed and a few two strided downs where he just can’t hang on and then leaps. I had tried to challenge him with a straight tunnel after and that is what had him going so much faster (sorry, I don’t have those on video). So, I have gone back to a curved tunnel after, which gave us 100% success before I tried the straight tunnel. You can see he is working it out. This video has two sessions as you can see by my change in shirts and the second session I think he is slowing down some, but working it out?
Should I just stay here for a while? I am thinking I should -- very slowly -- straighten the tunnel once we get back to higher success?
Thanks for letting me join late!!! 😀
Well… Depends what you’re trying to go for? I think two strides will be difficult for him, especially in new environments, so I would just try to keep 3 strides. If that’s the plan, I would leave the straight tunnel alone, that a very unlike situation to see in a trial (I never saw it in my 17 years of competing…) and even if you do, I don’t think it will make him leap on a new dog-walk and when seeing it for the first time… So no, you don’t need to challenge the dog with things they will never see in competition 🙂 Instead, I would get him used to slight curves, as we were talking before -- that will be much better time investment as that’s definitely something you see A LOT in trials.
Excellent, thank you! I’ll work on slight curves! 😀
We are (of course) still working with carpet. I exchanged the pole-carpet-pole set-up to a carpet-tunnel set-up and that seems to work fine with a stationary foodbox after the tunnel. It is much easier for me to stop focus on the throwing and I think she is less leapy.
I am sometimes not sure if she is leaping or running (I stand behind her and don’t really see the separated legs so well). On todays session, I was unsure on No 7 and 8. Mostly because she took so long strides.. were they OK you think?
What are your tips for us? Are we on the right way? If yes, how long should I do this work before placing the plank under the carpet? We will do our best to catch up, hope we make it.
I had really difficulty in teaching her to back up. Today was the first time I got one step (but several times). I will continue to work with that.
HAVE A NICE HOLIDAY!
Yeap, that sure looks better! 🙂 Much less air, but yes, very long strides! But long is definitely better as high 🙂 If she keeps running like that, I would do two more sessions like that, then add a plank under it for 3 more sessions (more of course if it affects her running and gives you more leaps) and if it stays good, add A LITTLE height. I really hope it goes well this time around!!!
Oh that makes me happy to hear! I will be veeeery carefull with introducing hidden plank and increasing heigth -I wan’t the success too bad to go fast ahead now. 🙂
We’ve worked three sessions on a higher plank, mostly unsuccessful. Unfortunately I don’t have great videos…the first session is really hard to see his feet with the gates in the back. Then I didn’t even show the 3rd session because my camera was out of focus the whole time….but it was very similar to session two.
How many unsuccessful sessions do you before you lower the plank back down???
I also wonder if I increased the height in too much, the previous box was 8 inches, this table is about 16″. I went out and bought a new box tonight that is 12inches and will do the next session on that maybe.
What do you think about how he is loading onto the table? He looks like maybe he is getting off balance? I noticed that the plank in the first session was very bouncy, so I stabilized it more the 2nd session.
Our previous sessions on the smaller box were going so well, I guess this is to humble me 😉
Thanks!!
this video is a little better, I changed it to larger dimensions.
Well… I wouldn’t call that unsuccessful session in a first place… I think it’s pretty amazing how hard he is trying to be in. His striding is not perfect as his first stride takes him so far on a plank and he is somewhat off balance after jumping on a table and, in a first session, getting to that shaky plank. But he is really trying hard, he is shortening his second stride to get in or at least throws in one paw -- and that one paw, I would definitely reward as it’s definitely not “accidental” -- it’s very much one purpose. Also, why didn’t you jackpot 6 and 8, I also liked 4 and 7, I think those are all good enough to be jackpotted when adding a new variable such as more height. Again, I think this video actually shows that he understands his task well. To make his striding easier, you can use two tables, so that the first stride doesn’t take him that far. But it’s very good he is trying to adjust to any situation, I think he is starting to understand this game.
so back at it and I royally screwed up. Remembering reading something about lessening criteria as you at height, I didn’t know whether that meant to jackpot low hits with non-split back legs, or higher hits with split legs….After doing some more reading tonight I found the answer and realize I picked the wrong choice in our training session tonight.
So in this video there are lots a tugging jackpots for low hits with even back legs. There are two really good ones, 10 and 11, those got the biggest parties I’ve ever thrown. I’m just not sure what to do next, go lower? Or just keep trying since obviously he can do it, like in 10 and 11.
This is a video of a short session we did yesterday trying two tables. I wasn’t sure if I liked what it was doing, so I didn’t do very many of them, and rewarded the split foot tries….I feel like it made him start very high on the plank and his second hit ended up being higher…maybe I need a 3rd table?
Thanks so much for your help!
Hm, yes, neither of the two gives you the right striding… The two tables set up is not good for him, it was good to make the session short 🙂 But I really don’t like the even feet in the other video either… So yes, the best would be to go back to the last height he was successful at to get the nice hits again and then try to think of another set up that would give you better hits… Low dog-walk or a plank on a real dog-walk would be one option… Another option would be to again use this table, but put a plank on additional object on a table (something like 6 inches high), so that he needs to first jump on a table first and then jump on a plank -- that will probably take him further on a plank as the two tables set up and not as deep as one table set up. Hope we can get him back on the right track soon!
Hi Silvia:
Anne and Tai here. I would like you to take a look at this morning’s session. Last time I posted, I was using 2 tables to lead up to the plank and having some success. Now I’ve transitioned to a 12 ft long, double wide board leading to the plank -- hoping to give him more striding room and to work with a more realistic setup. I’ve also raised it a little since so he can better distinguish between the horizontal planks and down planks. My goal in this session was to reward all running through, without being too concerned about perfect hits. I sent around a cone so he had good speed at the first plank. He would get perfect hits if he landed with front feet on the down plank as he does on the horizontal plank! But instead, he is consistently landing in the upper third or half of the down plank. That makes his second stride uncomfortable, I think. So, I’m still getting a few true leaps (2, 9) and a lot of running through with rear foot good separation but striding across the contact zone. I think sometimes he is stretching out to avoid hitting the edge of the board. Will more height fix this? I don’t want this to become too much of a pattern (it may already be…).
With such a long strided dog, what do you think I should concentrate on at this stage? It seems like working toward a low dog walk with normal width planks is a good goal while maintaining this speed, confidence and mostly running through. Then I’ll have a better idea of what his real striding will be like and work with that. What do you think?
This is taking a lot of patience! Every now and then, getting that perfect hit keeps me going!
Anne & Tai
I still don’t get what’s the hurry with narrow planks… It won’t help. The only thing that can help is UNDERSTANDING and that’s what you should concentrate on. For now, he doesn’t understand yet the importance of taking the last stride from the very end, he simply wasn’t jackpotted to do so enough times to understand it and so he doesn’t do any adjustments to get there. So we need to have him get there “by accident”, because of the starting point and then SLOWLY challenge him some more and ask him to make an effort. For now, he is not making an effort. Go back to his good set-up to get something to reward, work on two tables and make a big difference out of good hits vs. bad hits. Once you see he gives you a good hit after a bad one and once you see he does some adjustments when necessary, start to challenge him some more by changing the way he gets to the plank by either putting additional object next to the two tables to prolong them or, if you can’t find anything appropriate, you can set the other plank as an up ramp, so you have up ramp to the first table and then a down ramp from the second table. I don’t think the set up you’re using now is any more realistic as that as he is landing front feet at the very beginning of horizontal plank -- on a real dog-walk, they usually land further than that on a horizontal plank as they extend over the apex. But that way or another, before he understands what this game is all about, making a more realistic set-up won’t help any. And yes, the running contacts training is very good training for patience, for understanding of the importance of setting the dog to success and for a dog, a quite complicated thinking trick to solve that requires not only great understanding of clicker, but also great understanding of their legs and the ability to control them at full speed.
Thanks for your feedback. I certainly agree he doesn’t understand to make any kind of adjustment in his striding! Usually, my dogs don’t have so much speed before they have understanding when I teach them a behavior. And I’ve struggled with finding a setup that gives me some consistency in “accidental hits” so that I can jackpot and teach him the difference. But after reviewing my videos from the last week, the 2 table setup was way better than what I did today -- I think I had a bad session with that -- probably because I challenged him too much — and was trying to sort out what would work better.
So…back to the 2 tables; adding the clicker (instead of just “yes”). Here is that session. I restrained, threw the toy, released. Out of 9 reps, there was one leap; 2 bad throws and 6 pretty nice to great hits -- but with less overall speed. I hope that is ok for now.
So, plan is to reproduce this success rate a couple of times and then SLOWLY challenge him…perhaps by starting further back or sending around a cone (more speed). If he experiments with adjusting his stride, we’ll make a big party. If things start to fall apart too much, as with training any behavior I’ll make it easier for a bit; then try the same or slightly easier challenge again. Once I’m sure he is actually adjusting, I can modify the setup to change the way he gets to the plank and go from there. Hopefully, we’ll have a breakthrough before you come back.
Anne & Tai
Hi there Silvia. Well we have had more than a week extra off and i tried a session late today. I still see one or 2 not so nice back feet funnies but i think on the whole it is looking better. I am quite down that we are in the 7th week of course and we or back to week 1 with starting all over! What do you think? thanks so much. I have noticed my slow motion is not very clear can i do anything about that or is it ok for you to see enough?
Yeap, that looks much better! I didn’t mean you need to do the whole process again, I only told you to go down to see how her hind feet are and if o.k., go back to your last height, or, actually, just a little bit lower (a little bit under the level of your upper grass level) -- and see how her hind feet are there. If o.k., just continue from where you were at.
Hi i have loaded the wrong clip so sorry i will get the try find the right one!
Here goes 8th June. so sorry.
Yeap, still some of the funny striding, but not to such an extreme as last time. I think that’s good enough to go back to raised plank and see what you get there.
Thank so much i will try the bank set up but not quite as high Thank you so much, i feel a bit better now.
Hi Silvia:
We had a great session this morning using the 2 table setup. I’m excited because it was a good “dog training” session. I knew how to set him up for success and was able to challenge him a bit too. My mechanics and timing were good (throwing the darn ball straight! and clicking). After being challenged by starting further back and making a mistake, I think he did adjust himself to get a couple of really nice low hits.
So, while I’m a little sad we aren’t further along, I feel really great that my mechanics and ability to see what to click have come along to the point where I can build Tai’s understanding. Whew…this feels really good! I’m leaving town for a few days…enjoy your trip!
Anne & Tai
That sure looks much better! 🙂 And yes, as we struggled so long to get constantly good hits, it’s normal understanding is still not there. For now, I would actually do several sessions from his best spot to get as many hits as 12 and 13 as possible -- and then start challenging him VERY slowly. You can check back for Heather’s videos: see how many perfect hits that dog had before first faced with a hard set-up for him: and how hard he was trying there. But he had 6 weeks of pretty much perfect hits behind him! I’m afraid it does get much faster than that… The more you are in a hurry, the more likely it is you will need to go back at one point.
There is no secret running contacts are harder to train as 2on2off. They require great eye, great timing and can’t be trained in slow motion first. It’s hard to get the understanding and even when you have it, that’s not the end of the story as knowing where you need to get sometimes still doesn’t take you there, thanks to speed and, in Europe, also different lengths of the dog-walks -- it doesn’t only take the understanding, but also experience. The good news is that RC are VERY easy to maintain and usually just get better&better even if you don’t do much about it 🙂
Hi Silvia:
Bender and I ran into some challenges this past week so I thought I should update and get some feedback before you leave!
In our last video (June 1) I had thought that Bender had understood what he was doing since he was running very fast on a send around a jump wing to the mini dogwalk setup (14 inches high) and produced some nice consistent low hits. Alas, that seemed abit premature because in the next 2 sessions he could not figure it out and he offered leaping for the first time! After reading all your comments to some of my classmates I am assuming that Bender just needs more experience to handle the speed of a send to a dogwalk set up and more understanding of what is getting rewarded. To reward Bender, I changed the starting point back to restraining him at the beginning of the upramp or restraining at the top plank. My “old” Bender returned and we had nice low hits!
1. So I started Lesson 3 work and placed a toy at the jump standard. I didn’t seem to have any problem sending Bender to the jump with his “Go” command but he got a bit CRAZY in anticipation of knowing his toy was ALL the way out there. … This makes it much harder for him to concentrate on his running! I didn’t even have to throw the second toy. I am not sure how to proceed with this? Should I try sending him just to the jump without the static toy? He will anticipate a thrown toy because that has always been his reward for “Go”? So I don’t know how to proceed.
2. Since I was getting some nice low hits at 14 inches, I increased the height to 17 inches on my dw set-up. We have only had 2 sessions. I have tried my 3 different starting points. As expected, starting with a send to a jump wing and running the full dw set-up is way too much speed and leaping results. Starting at the bottom of the upramp is not much better at this point. And no surprise low hits are resulting from restraining him at the beginning of the top ramp (10 feet long). His speed is not close to what he can run but his rear legs are still separated. Should I continue to challenge him with the more difficult starting points and more speed at this height or should I decrease the height until I get good results with the send to the jump wing and the speed I want????
I hope this all makes some sense.
Shona and Bender
Sure, if he will run full speed to a jump in anticipation of a toy, you can start throwing it after you see the hit was good, no need for a stationary toy. It would be easier with a video, but my guess is that when he comes with full speed, he flies the apex so much he can’t fit in another stride and when doing just the down ramp, he does two and is nicely in. I would do some down ramp only then and slowly bring him back. Once you get nice hits starting from the beginning of an up ramp, add more&more distance. I would do all this on this height as I’m guessing his final striding will need to be as Bi is showing in her 4-strides version of a dog-walk, meaning that he needs to put hind feet on a down plank first and this is much easier to get on low height as it is on more height, when the apex is more pronounced. So take some more time on that height -- once you get the understanding and correct striding, adding height is not a problem at all, so don’t rush it too much.
Thanks so much Silvia. Sorry about not getting any video posted. I went back and looked at yesterday’s video and on his misses on the send around the jump wing, Bender did land with front feet first and his rear feet were already half way down the board! So yes I will add more distance gradually until he can figure out the striding to get the hits.
I will also try sending to the jump standard without the static toy.
Have a nice holiday!
Shona and Bender