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!
Hi Sylvia,
I recorded this before your suggestion about removing the carpet from the approach end. I proceed with the carpet so I continue to get good hits that I can click and reward then gradually remove the carpet as suggested.
Thanks Rick & Disco
Well, that’s not too bad -- especially if it’s even better with the carpet 🙂 I didn’t like 4 though, I definitely wouldn’t jackpot that!!! I only see one hind foot very very high and a contact like this is definitely easily missed by judges. I also don’t like 9 too much, only one front foot that low on a contact can again go by unseen 🙂 By deep in, I meant tries like 5 and 6 -- this is what you’re going for. Anyway, most leaps are caused by the fact that his first stride takes him so far on that plank that he doesn’t have room for another one. If he has too much trouble sorting that out, you can help him by “prolonging” the plank by putting it on an object like upside down drawer or low table. But try the carpet plan first if the carpet helps him.
Hi Silvia,
Here’s Emily & I’s latest video. I need to get the tricks on video but have not yet, she is backing up onto a pillow, not consistently and I’m not sure she is really targeting the pillow yet as much as getting lucky, but we are progressing. She also has all 4 feet in a bowl now, still a big bowl but she is figuring out the game.
I raised her plank platform up to the full height for the first time today and here is her first session as well as a few examples of what she is giving me on the plank added to the bottom of the dog walk. I am pretty darn happy with what she is doing on the plank. I can see she is trying to figure out how to adjust her striding to the new height and she is still consistently getting in despite doing all sorts of different things as she comes down. I put #6 run in twice because it was obvious to me how hard she was trying to get down low. I know I ultimately want her getting in and low with the more consistent rear leg driving and in her attempts it looks much more front leg driven to me. But I really think she is trying hard to make it happen.
I have some questions about the plank on the dog walk when it comes to better understanding. I noticed on the video that when she is doing the plank at the bottom of the dog walk properly it changes how she first hits the top of the down ramp because the plank makes the whole thing longer. When she does the big leap on the plank, when I look under the plank at the actual dog walk she is doing perfect striding for the dog walk and using the striding she uses on her plank at home, but with the longer spacing she can’t quite do it without putting in a funny small extra stride at the top, hitting her back feet just after the apex. My question is: Do you think it is better to work on her understanding and let her keep doing the plank on the dogwalk and not worry that she will adjust back once I take the plank away because she is learning better understanding, or do you think it is better to change the plank on the dog walk so that she can stride in her normal patterns she has gotten used to? On the plank the only place I get leaps anymore is when I start her right at the top of the down ramp and she is not up to full speed, I don’t do those very often, but occasionally throw them at her to see if she adjusts and she tries to, but they are pretty demotivating and she slows down if I do too many of those so I don’t do many, and always follow them with lots of fun, full run ones with the ball still moving to bring the speed back.
I also took a little video from further away and you can barely see what she’s doing on the plank, but I wanted to see if that’s what you meant with having the toy at the jump. She doesn’t jump yet, so I am just putting the jump without a bar. Do I have the jump far enough away? I can make it further away at the arena, but at home that it the limit of where I can put it because of my small yard.
I gotta say I am loving this class! Thank you so much for doing it:)
Dawn, that was an awesome video! Great job and great questions. I can’t wait for Silvia to return and answer you!!! Well done!
Thank you! I am having so much fun with teaching this, it fits my obsessive personality perfectly:)
Ohh! I am yellous! Looks fabolous!
Thank you! This is a fun adventure.
Hi Dawn:
Look great to me! Are you still throwing the toy at all or is it most always static?
Anne
In this video since I had just raised the height I threw the toy at first since that gives the best striding and confidence. All the ones on the plank at the bottom of a dog walk were static toys at a jump. Now in the sessions since the video since she is now confident at this height I have the toy static most of the time and throw maybe 1 out of 10 because she really loves it when I throw so I use it almost like an extra reward at the end of a session. She’s so young that I like to do things to make sure this just stays really fun.
Yes, that’s a good point, I have to say it again: whenever you add another variable (height, setting, whatever), change the others back to whatever helps your dog be successful the most: if a thrown toy makes the contacts better, throw it again anytime you try something new that could make the performance worse.
Yeap, she is really trying! And well, if you got to final height on your set up already, you don’t need that additional plank in a first place… Just start her on a normal dog-walk, at the point that gives you the best hits at home and then bring her further back to eventually do the whole thing.
To answer your question for those who do need the plank: I like starting full dog-walk that way, especially with retrains, but once I notice what Dawn is describing: that the dog has difficulties to get deep enough on a plank, but would be nicely in without it, I try to remove it as quickly as possible. We had a case like that in that class already and that’s what my advise was. Usually, adding height is no big deal after you have the understanding anyway.
And yes, the jump is far enough, You can already set the toy on the other side to give her some more room, though.
Great job!
I am glad to hear we think alike:) I took the plank away the next full dog walk session just to see and it was obvious she didn’t need it. We fairly quickly got to full dog walk, I have not yet added any speed on the approach, just having her start at very bottom of up ramp.
Now an age question, she is 11 months old, should I mostly stick with plank work and start working on soft turns, etc or do you think it’s ok for her body to be adding speed and working full dog walks regularly?
video of first full dog walks & her backing up stairs trick progress…
Very cool dog-walks! 🙂 Very cute backing up stairs! I forgot you often don’t have stairs in US houses! 🙂 -- That was a good solution to the problem!
yes, I was thinking I would have to go in town and find some stairs to practice on, then remembered we had these in storage from when our kitty was too old to jump on the bed anymore, they worked great.
That’s very young, I normally don’t do full dog-walk with BCs at that age yet. But since she doesn’t seem to have a problem staying on it, I guess it’s o.k. to do it here and there. I would want to do too many, but if you do some once a week, it would be o.k. I would also start to move her further back as that might change her striding, but of curse make sure the approach is perfectly safe. But yes, your major focus now should be soft turns (we are starting with those in next lesson anyway) and other little details.
Ok, I’ll keep them down to just a few full dog walks once a week and keep working on her plank set up mostly. I think growing up in the mountains helps make our dogs very sure footed but I certainly don’t want to push it when I don’t need to since we still have lots of time before she can compete anyway:) I am sure the Foundations class will keep us busy too!
Hi there, i have tried a new set up not quite as high as i tried after Spy crashed, on a different bank in our yard. She has only had 2 sessions one friday and one sat. She is a bit all over the place and still some funny back legs but i do see some nice hits so if you dont see this Silvia before you go then any one else please help. I my have to go on instinct and that is to stick with the set up, try find her good starting spot and give her a few days of good hits and then only concider maybe trying more of lesson 2, yes sorry we are so far behind but she did not do any work for 2 weeks after her crash and now just started again slowly ! One other thing should i only be rewarding good back feet hits or are the front legs good too? Thank you.
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LOVED the 1:03 try!!! She really reaches in hard to get deep in. I hope you extra jackpotted that one! I really like that set up as it gives you more variety of hits as the mini A-frame. Why did you switch to mini A-frame?
Great video, I’m amazed at how fast she got this game and how hard she tries to meet the criteria on whatever set up and height. I think you two will catch up in no time.
Ok, so Siliva is away.. but I have to share this with you classmates, since I am so happy!
I am sooo very behind with my little jumping/leaping dog. We are back to carpet but now after several sessions on it, I think we have good running! And no(!) jumping/leaping. It makes me so happy. Happy, happy! I almost don’t want to proceed with the training, since I enjoy the success so much. 🙂
Today I varied the starting point to find the ideal one for good low hits, so that I can use that point at next session when I put the plank under the carpet. Keep your fingers crossed for us that it will work this time!
Ohh, and does anyone think that I am clicking too late? I left the sound on for you to check it. I find it difficult to click exactly when her back feet touches the ground (since I have to have time to react and press the clicker too). No 2 and 4 was late but what do you think of the rest? How do you click? Since she is so jumpy I don’t want to click when she is leaving the ground..
I think finding that ideal take off spot has been our key to success, because once I find it I can build a lot of confidence for us both with successes and then know how to add challenge when we are ready for it. I also found in our case the ideal take off spot varied each time I changed the height so my first focus when I change the height is finding it again.
That looks like good running to me, Congratulations! I think you click timing is much better than mine is:) I’m lucky if I get it in before she’s off the board.
Thanks for the tip with finding starting point for each heigth! Yeah, I’m so happy for the running now. 🙂
Clicking at the right time is really difficult I think.
Hi there class mates. Well we where going along just fine until Spy crashed and now we are battling to get back her great striding. today i did a session and i was not happy i saw too many funny back feet so i have had to try think out the box to get her back on track so this is what i have done and i have put the flat of the dog walk and the down plank on the floor one after the other so i have a really long flat plank now. i have done this to give her a completly different feel under foot and hopfully get rid of the funny back legs. i have to agree that what you said you have been doing Dawn, i was doing by getting the good starting spot and having great sucsess before changing anything else. so i have being trying to get her back to that but now seem to get great front feet in but not as before the great back feet as you girl is doing. Do you think i should just try keep going but get back to the back feet in nice or am i getting this wrong and that front feet are good too please help we are all alone! thank you
well I am NO expert by any means since this is my first adventure in RC but I have gotten Emily to where she is by concentrating on Jackpots for the ideal hits, I am MUCH more excited and play much longer when she gives those good hits. I also follow Silvia’s advice of not rewarding the %20 highest hits, I think that was added in lesson 2, I still let her grab the toy and tell her good girl but I don’t play with the ball. As Caroline said I think Silvia covered the subject of front feet hits so I would go back thru and read the comments, but I think she said ok to reward them as long as they were not those really high or low ones that would be easy for a judge to miss and to reward if it seemed like the dog was making an effort to bring them in and to jackpot for rear legs with good separation. I don’t recall her ever saying only to reward rear legs.
My personal dog trainer advice that has nothing to do with running contacts since this is new to me, is if your dog had a crash and you are rebuilding confidence you want to error on the side of giving rewards, it’s easier to get picky once you have a confident happy dog, so if it were me until I heard from Silvia I would reward those good nice front feet and jackpot any rear feet hits.
Thanks so much i cant agree with you more and it is what i was thinking so thanks so much i feel happier now and will build her back up and the confidence for sure too, i will try a few session and then maybe post a video. happy training. Can i ask did you start class flat on the ground with Emily or where you already working with some height? I will as i said to Caroline also go back and read again as it will refresh it all to me. thank you kindly
When class started she was on a board elevated about 5 inches or so.
Cool, I only see this now after answering your question on progression from a carpet to a plank. Her carpet running sure looks GREAT now!!! I think it should be easy to get the same on mats and then go from there. Great job!
So until anyone wiser answers, here I go (with the worst dog in this class so don’t take my words too serious 🙂 )
I try to remember all the comments I have read from Silvia about front vs back feet. I think that she mostly prefers back feets but front feets are OK in some cases. But, I DON’T WANT TO SPEAK FOR HER, just mean that there are many comments about the topic. From lesson 2 mostly if I recall correctly. It could help you to read those perhaps? So sad with the accident, hope she gets back to her normal striding soon.
Hi there have faith you are doing a great job, getting the 1st bit right is the key so dont give up you are starting to get there. I have read and watched all the videos and comments but i sure will go back as you say we try remember but i need to refresh on the comments and now is a good time when we are not having so many added. dont feel alone i am now back to basics to try get it right. happy training.
Thanks for the nice words! I will try to remember them when I train..
As soon as I put the plank under the carpet she jumps (extremely high and long!). I am trying different things to make her run normally. I am now using the plank before the carpet and at least then she runs normally on the carpet (and I can click the end of it). If it goes well I will put the plank more and more under the carpet until it is completely beneath it.
That’s a really good idea! I would never have thought of that. One other thing I remember Silvia meantioning somewhere on this website was when one of her dogs was really struggling on the flat plank (maybe Bi??) she started just playing ball with her not making a big deal out of anything except the good ones. She pretended the plank wasn’t there and eventully Bi (or whoever it was) forgot about it and started running normally. Your probably already doing this but I just thought I’d mention it. It makes sense to me. If you want the dog to forget about the plank forget about it youself.
Well, let’s see if it works!
I agree that just forgetting about the whole plank-thing would be best. Hmm. I can’t throw-a-ball game (she jumps when running after the ball, also on grass, if the throw isn’t perfect (far and just above the ground..)), but I can for sure make sure there is a more relaxed atmosphere and joy about the whole thing. 🙂
I think I’ve read somewhere that if Bi was her first RC dog, she wouldn’t have thougt it would be possible. I feel that any dog I will have in the future will be easier to teach RC than Tjejen..
I have decided that if she jumps two times in a row, I will do just carpet for some runs before trying with plank again. I don’t want her to jump too much.
I think it is GREAT that we support each other during the absence of Silvias help. I appreciate it a lot.
Does anyone remember what Silvia’s advice was on removing the carpet? I saw that someone mentioned removing the approach portion first-- but when should we be doing that? And after removing the approach part, what’s the plan?
I looked through comments but couldn’t find it! We’re not quite ready to remove it, I think, but maybe will be soon.
Thanks, everyone!
Rhea
Didn’t she say to put it on top of the flat plank before removing it all together?
Hi All, I have the carpet on my wide plank. I have a very low table to give extra distance for my dog to find the right striding. I am slowly removing the carpet from the approach. I asked Sylvia about the leaping behavior when I removed the carpet and she suggested to go back and try this approach. She mentioned some of the dogs recognized the yellow contact area and where leaping off to avoid hitting this area. I have been doing this for two weeks and some days are good and some not. When ever I hit a bad day I cover up a little more of the plank and go back to where I was successful and proceed slowly. Pushing the criteria has always been an issue for me . I have to remind myself to go at the dog’s pace despite my enthusiasm and sometimes lack of patience. I hope this helps!
Rick
Ah, OK! So, her basic advice is to remove the thing in one fell swoop…but if there is recognition of the yellow contact area, to put it back, exposing that yellow only bit by bit.
Makes sense!
thanks!!!!
Exactly. Removing the carpet is usually easy -- if it’s not, do it gradually, no rush there, there are other things you can focus on first. The further along you are in the process, the better understanding of the game you already have and the easier removing the carpet will be.
Hi Eveyone, I have been working away at the plank finally with some huge success. I have the down ramp placed on a 22″ table and getting really nice hits. Today will be our 4th successful session on that height. Does anyone remember how high Silvia said we can prop up the plank before it becomes not SAFE? My bc is a 22″ tall male. I can’t remember what to do next. put the plank on my full dog walk or a low dog walk. Thanks. loving this running dog walk NOW, Finally!
Sounds great! And yes, sure, if you have an access to a low dog-walk, you can just use that instead of making that table any higher than that. Full dog-walk with an additional plank is great too, especially for retrains or when we want to promote more extension over the apex. But with a 22″ male BC, you probably don’t need that 🙂 so I would try low dog-walk, starting him at the end of horizontal plank first and then moving him further back to then do the whole thing.