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!
Great balance in that bowl, nice style for handstand, too funny peeing trick (while limping 🙂 ), nice back! Great job!
Hi, Silvia.
Here is my lesson 3 video for Da Vinci. Somehow I managed to get so far behind during the break. I have a lot of reading to do. I got so far behind on my editing that I thought it would be best to show our progression since my last post (right before you went on vacation I think). So, the first sessions on the video are not edited for slow motion. I showed those so you could see the steps we took and how it looked. I did slow motion video of the last three days we trained figuring it was most important for you to see where we are. I guess we are somewhere between lesson 2 and 3 here. I didn’t film tricks as I figure you see us do those in Puppy/ Tricks class…plus it was long anyway.
How are we doing?
Kristin
GREAT!!! Time to add height! If you are adding it in so little steps, you can add some every session if they are all as good as those on a video. I would also start to curve that tunnel bit by bit so that eventually, you can start rewarding from your hand, after he does the curved tunnel -- or later on, do some more jumps first to eventually fade the rewarding (NO hurry yet, just doing the preparation work as fading food is harder as fading a toy).
You are actually not far from lesson 4 at all, I would just add height first.
With this next addition of height, he and Callie will be at the same height -- about 12 inches. (gave her a break after the crash and used that to get him caught up to her). Should we start elevating the entire first ramp so it is horizontal and no longer and “up ramp”?
You could… But then you don’t have an up ramp anymore? Or you could add another plank for up ramp? If not, you can keep the mini A-frame set up for now.
I can only add another plank when we will be switching to a single down ramp. (3 planks total). Will that be soon or will we be on a double down ramp for awhile? I need to plan ahead for space too.
Depends how quickly you’ll be adding height 🙂 I think you could do that at about 22 inches or something, depending on either they start to fly over the apex of mini A-frame too much sooner than that or not.
Silvia I have 3 questions
1. when I raise the plank should I start Acqua doing the all DW or Should I beging from some point and then move her back and back?
2. for lesson 4 the jump bar has to be at full heigh?
3. what do you mean when you said the a-frame put it somewhat lower? it is 1.5mt from the flor or 1.5mt lower that the full heigh?
1. as you are using low DW, just put it somewhat higher and run the whole thing, as if nothing happened.
2. no, keep the bar very very low for the whole contact training -- no need to jump the dog, the jump is there just to keep their focus forward
3. 1.5m from the ground -- so just a little lower as normally
Hi Silvia, Classmates
Here is yesterday’s session. The ball was thrown low (really low this time) and upfront, it was hardly moving when I let Keen go.
What do you think?
She is definitely running much better, good hind feet separation. Still somewhat higher head and shorter stride as I would expect, maybe she is not running full speed because the ball is hardly moving? Try to release her when the toy is well in front, but still moving.
She is not running full speed, no. I’ve send the video with the high head position and this one to our fysio and she’s also convinced the high head was due to the high throwing.
I have another question, you might already have answered it somewhere else but I missed it. What do you think about using a “target” instead of relying on the natural running? Maybe it is like with the discussion on the “ending a session on a good note”. Maybe it is just something to fool myself but I wonder if it is bad to use it. I have the feeling it would make me feel more comfortable. Probably to have the feeling to have at least “some control” on the learning process? I miss that now… I’m not sure if you understand what I mean. I can teach Keen a lot of things, a handstand, walking backwards, close a cupbord…, why should not I be able to teach her to touch the contact? That feeling gives me confidence. I still do not have the feeling I can teach her to “run”, that does not give me confidence. Please do not understand me wrong, I’m not saying this method is not working. I SEE it working, with other people… I’m not giving up but just thinking about things that could help me. I realize that using a target has nothing to do with your system but I hope you do not mind me asking about it.
I’ve seen many dogs trained with front foot target as it was very popular one year when I was in US for seminars 🙂 -- and I didn’t like what I saw. Seems like others didn’t either as I didn’t see anybody still using this method last time I was there… I think it’s too hard for the dog to hit the same spot with the same leg when running full speed over DW (especially as those can be of different lengths in Europe). The only good results with target training I saw are by Olga from Poland, but she basically uses my method, only that she dresses up the contact in a mat that is a kind of a target. But she does all the plank steps the same.
It seems that some people are better at throwing than others. Some really struggle with their throws. Do you ever suggest, even at the flat plank stage, to place the toy if the dog runs as fast to a static toy? It seems to me that it is best with a moving toy because it is unpredictable and they need to learn the behavior even when things are unpredictable as that would be how it is at a trial, but some folks seem to struggle so much with their throws.
Sure, static toy is perfectly o.k. IF the dog runs full speed to it. -- The only problem is that most dogs don’t…
Hi Silvia:
Since our last video I raised the height up to 22 inches (increase of 5 inches) on the mini DW set-up. By the second session I had Bender run out to a wrap a jump standard 20 feet from the up ramp. We have had a good percentage of hits with a range of foot patterns -- 2 rear, 2 front, 1 rear, 1 front etc. Most of the misses happened when Bender took only one stride on the down ramp. I spent 2 weeks at this height to try and get the striding so there were more hits in the middle of the contact zone. I have no problem with sending Bender to the jump after the DW. And for most of the misses I have withheld the toy.
This is today’s session (#9). I like the jackpot hits with 2 rear feet -- my favourite being #6. I am still rewarding the high hits and the one late front foot. Unfortunately on the non-rewards I threw the ball today. I find it difficult to tell whether Bender will be in the contact when it is so close. Normally the misses are easier because he is only offering one stride!
Is it alright to increase the height by 3 inches? I am hoping to get up to 28 inches sometime soon so I can transfer to my friend’s full dogwalk (it lowers to 28″). Are we ready to start Lesson 4 or should we wait until we get more height?
thanks,
Shona and Bender
Hm, the only thing I don’t like is that he pulls hind feet unnaturally far… Just as Spy from Alice on that one session after she had that crash… All the misses (1, 7, 8, 11) or high hits are due to that: seeing where his front feet were, I would definitely be guessing hind feet are in. But he seems to do an extra effort to pull them further as normally and land on the floor. I saw another dog do that, with her I think she though her job is to land on the floor with hind feet (maybe because of late clicks?) and she was mostly still in with front foot as she is medium sized dog, but it was not consistent as it was hard and unnatural to do so in some cases. I know those kind of misses (or almost-misses) are hard to see, but I would definitely try to not reward tries like 1, 7, 8, 11 and would reward tries like 3, but not jackpot it and instead only jackpot tries like 4, 5 and 6. It looks to me like he thinks that’s what we want, hind feet as far forward as possible.
I think it doesn’t hurt if you go up somewhat and you could also start to work on lesson 4, but do pay extra attention to that unnatural hind feet forward reach and try to get rid of it…
Hi Silvia:
Thanks for your comments and observations on Bender’s striding. I have so much to learn. I am continually amazed at how “techincal” the running behaviour can be! I had noticed that the types of hits I was getting had changed during this set-up (i.e. just getting a rear foot in at the bottom or one front foot) but I thought that Bender was experimenting with trying to get that second stride in somehow. So I still rewarded them. Certainly in other sessions his misses were just the one stride hit on the down ramp with the rear feet only hitting once but higher than the contact zone and then off….I have always jackpotted the 2 rear feet -- in the middle of the contact zone. And now I see I need to be much stricter with my criteria. Hopefully, now with a better understanding and better allocation of rewards I can get rid of that longer reach with his hind feet….
Before I read your comments I had built the set-up 3 more inches to 25 inches tall. Here is Bender’s first session at the new height. On the video I have marked what I called during the session and I have added changes now that I hope I better understand what to look for. And a few times the ball slipped out of my hand on non-rewards. 🙁 Please let me know if we are heading in the right direction.
Shona and Bender
Yes, it’s a funny problem to have, I didn’t pay attention to that before having this student with that same strange striding at the end and then seeing Spy from Alicia do it and now Bender. It’s hard to spot those as it can look as a nice running… And yet the dog is missing the contact completely… -- by putting an extra effort into it! As I said, if he ran normally, all those contacts would be beautiful.
Look at try number 4 and watch it frame by frame: doesn’t it look unnaturally hard what he is doing? Hind feet come abnormally far after front feet. Look at the end of the video I posted, where I marked with yellow patches where Bi’s feet touch the DW: I think that’s about normal distance for long-strided dog. Meaning that if she has one front foot in a contact, she will also have one hind foot in -- and now look where Bender’s hind feet touch the ground after that front foot high in the contact… They’re almost 20 inches too late! Of course, reach forward is good -- but not to that extreme… You trained him too well 🙂 From that reason, I definitely wouldn’t jackpot tries like 4. Knowing his problem, I actually prefer tries like 8 over 4… Of course, he is too high in 8, but that’s a normal reach forward. 9 is not so problematic, I think his striding is pretty normal there (he shortens the second one to fit in one front leg -- so that was a good effort) -- it’s 4 and similar tries that worry me.
It seems that Bender is only doing that extreme reaching when close to the end. Do you think it’s possible he got hurt on the edge once and is avoiding contact by extending when his front feet hit at a certain spot?
Just a thought…
Yeap, he only does it at the end… Could be because of stepping on the edge yes… Or could be it’s a trained behaviour… Shona, if you review the videos, can you find when this started to happen? With Spy, it was very obvious she started to do it after her crash.
Hi Silvia:
I have reviewed Bi’s video and Bender’s #4 try as you recommended. I can definitely see how unnatural it looks in slow motion! Of course I can’t see anything in real time… 🙁 I just don’t know why it started. Gary’s thought of him hitting the edge is quite plausible but I can’t find any specific example where that happened.
This is yesterday’s session at 25 inches -- our third. Same as before sending Bender out to wrap a jump wing and then sending to jump 22 feet past the DW. I thought it went quite well:
Comments/Questions:
1. Do I continue to reward the high hits/ near misses like #3 and #9 to try and get Bender to hit higher with 2 rear feet.
2. I think that #8 was the only example of the unnatural stride.
3. What do you think of #11 where he just gets one front and one rear foot in? Is this what his natural stride should be?
Yesterday we also tried a “real” dogwalk (12 feet up ramp, 12 feet top plank and 12 feet down ramp) when we were at Gary’s for a class. The DW was set at 25 inches. Bender did really well figuring out his striding on the different equipment and environment. Although our percentage of misses was higher than at home he had some really nice hits.
Shona and Bender
O.k., that’s much better. My favourite try is definitely 12, I would extra jackpot that one. I don’t like 8 and 11. I think jackpotting tries like 11 led to this extreme reach you got -- I think 11 is not much different from 8, so I would be very un-excited when rewarding those two. Knowing his problem, I would prefer 3 and 9 over 8 AND 11 yes! 12 shows his natural reach. The natural reach forward is almost the same as hind feet separation and with Bender, that’s somewhat more as half of the contact. On try 11, his reach forward is almost as long as the contact. That’s too much. It’s unnatural and it can result in misses, just as we saw in the last video.
Very good that you can sometimes train on a real DW too!
Hi Silvia,
Although it has been weeks, Beatrice and I have had very little practice. There was an illness in the family. The video I post here is just to get me back on track. We’ve made a little progress, before she always jumped if I started her on the up ramp of the lowered dogwalk. Now she has some good striding from that starting position. I haven’t moved on to placing a jump out and static toy because we really had to drop out and I needed to see where we were. I will try to get more consistent runs before I move to that. With the trick training, we are working on the “pee trick” but I didn’t get that on video. With the backing up stairs, she was always leading with her left rear, which is why some of the video you see is me encouraging her to use her right rear. I’m glad to be back on track with training.
Glad you had a good hiking vacation as well. Love your doggie hiking boots.
Heidi
Exactly, try to get as many really good ones (like 15 and 17: I hope you jackpotted those!!!) first and then start adding more difficulties. I hope you can train more often now, so that you can catch up. The tricks are going great, she sure prefers to go up with left leg first, but can do it really nicely with right leg too when she doesn’t have an option, that’s great!
Hi Silvia,
Thanks, I do think I jackpotted those good ones, but I have to admit….it was a day between practice and video processing, so I’m not sure. 🙂 I guess I should take notes, there just seems to be so much to do. Do you take notes when you train?
Heidi
Hm, no, I’m terrible with notes and everything that requires any kind of an organisation… 🙂 But I can always tell from my videos what I jackpotted 🙂 -- I think all my neighbours know what I jackpotted too 🙂
Hahaha…well, I guess I need to look in between my runs when I’m video editing. I was trying to keep notes while training and it was a pain. Hey, here is an idea, how about you video what you do when you jackpot? Really. Because maybe some of us think of a jackpot as saying “good dog” twice and giving 3 treats instead of one. You know what I mean? It would be fun to see your ‘big’ reward. My friend Dawn, who has Emily in this class says she can’t get many repetitions in because she plays so much between her tries. I’m afraid that I’m not as good at partying as she is.
O.k., sure, I can do that, but only next week, this week I have camps here and I’m busy enough having seminars during the day and replying to comments during the night 🙂 I think it’s the excitement in my voice that they read so well. When teaching tricks, I’ll be clicking and treating for small things and click AND get very happy and excited about big steps forward, rewarding them with whatever they like best -- depends on each dog. I’m pretty sure they learn so fast thanks to not only having to guess based on reward or no reward response, I think they understand no reward, reward, big reward and extra big reward. Dogs are very smart, so why not use it? 🙂
Hi Silvia,
do you remember a while back you wrote a little essay about the frustrations of training the running contacts? How when everything is going really well, then it seems not to be? I might be at that place. This morning Bea and I had a session with almost no successful repetitions. I kept at it longer than I should have, because I just kept thinking it would get better. I don’t have that session of video, because I just thought I’d fit in some quick practice before work…but then there was simply no success. I think maybe I should not have taken her to doing a full dog walk, but she had been doing so well starting on the upramp.
So I’m gonna send you our last couple of days practice. Maybe I should have gone in a different direction? Please let me know what you think.
Thanks again
Heidi
Cool, that actually looks very good to me, her hind feet separation is back and she is running nice and confidently over the whole DW -- no leaping at all this time, but high when you start her right in front DW. If you start her on DW, then she does 5 strides. When starting on the ground, she goes for 4 and is sometimes somewhat high, but I think if you start her further back so that she has more speed going up, 4 strides will take her nicely in. So I would skip the step of starting her close to the DW and go back to starting her with the tunnel before DW. Let me know how that goes, if she keeps running as she is running now, I’m sure she will be in.
Hi Silvia,
Thanks for your feedback. I am excited that you think our progress is good. Since I posted these videos I have had 2 more sessions. They were before I read the above advice, so I have not gotten out the tunnel. Rather, on Thursday I attempted to get back to a high success rate. On Friday I thought I’d look at what happened when I tried to introduce a static toy out in front. So the video here is both sessions #1-18 the first session and #19-20 the second.
What do you think I should do now? Shall I get out the tunnel and start doing the whole dog walk? Shall I work on sending to a static toy? Both, but in seperate sessions? This is very exciting!
I enjoyed your thoughts on the idea of stopping training when things are going well. I’ve been mulling them over and discussing them with friends. Make a lot of sense to me.
Once again, thank you for your thoughts on these sessions.
Heidi
I would first go to try the whole DW out of tunnel as fading the toy will be easier then when she comes with more speed. I would then simply try pretending to throw a toy, but then throw it after the jump/tunnel after DW. But full DW first, with a toy thrown whenever she likes it best 🙂
Hi Silvia,
here is a video from our session today, this was the second time at this height (70cm), I started to throw the toy when Acqua hits the contact. My timming is bad some times, and sometimes I hited the jump 🙁
how are we doing?
Thanks
She still needs to sort out her striding some on that height, but it’s good enough for a 2nd session 🙂 If it’s better for her if you throw a toy in advance, you can do so for first two or three sessions on a new height to get her nicely in and then play with other variables. It’s always better to not change too many things at the same time as then you don’t know which one made things worse IF they go worse. And getting high successful rate should always be your first goal, before challenging the dog some more again.
thanks Silvia, Do we run from the same start point for that couple of sessions too? this session were dificult to fine a good start point.
sure We will do your running contacts II class 🙂
I think that once you run whole DW, starting point doesn’t matter so much anymore as it’s so long that there is plenty of time to get the adjustments in. But yes, if you find one that is good for her -- keep it 🙂
Mmmm, interesting… So Acqua missed too much because is her second lesson at that height?
Well, I always prefer to keep the % of misses/high hits low…
Just an update on Delta. Her injury was a torn cruciate ligament (complete tear) she has a had TTA (Tibial Tuberosity Advancement) surgery and will be out of commission for quite a while -- 6 months to a year depending on who you ask. I will sign up again when she has fully recovered.
Thanks for the help!
Oh, I am sorry Gary. I so very much enjoyed watching Delta. Very cool dog! I am sure she will do fine in recovery! Good luck!!
Oh, so sorry to hear that… I was wondering why you are not back yet… Do you know when and how did that happen? I sure hope she recovers fast!!! Sometimes those extremely fit dogs like to surprise the vets…
I wasn’t there when it happened but just playing, not an agility injury. We will be signing up for Running Contacts 3 (or 4, or 5) in the future!
Hello,
httpv://www.dailymotion.com/video/k1G8SgL95SDMH42g5Ex
Actuellement dans le jardin nous avons quasiment 100% de bon running avec les variables : position de lancer du jouet par derrière, de coté, à droite, à gauche, jouet lancé avant de lâcher le chien, jouet statique. J’ai un peu augmenté la hauteur. Je vais essayer de rajouter un tunnel après la planche
Au club la passerelle est un peu plus basse, je vais voir pour pouvoir la monter un peu. Je commence à faire partir Fluff de plus loin et les résultats ne sont pas très bons pour l’instant. Je ne peux travailler au club que 3 fois par semaine. Penses tu que je dois l’éloigner peu à peu pour ne pas provoquer trop de faute ? J’ai trouvé un deuxième jouet qui l’intéresse et qui est plus facile à lancer droit et plus loin !
Currently in the garden we have almost 100% good running with the variables: throw the toy from behind, on the side, on the right on the left, throw the toy before releasing the dog, toy static. I have slightly increased height. I’ll try to add a tunnel after the plank
At my club the DW is a little low, I go to be able to rise a little. I’m starting to let Fluff run from further and the results are not very good at the moment. I can work at the club 3 times a week. Do you think I should move her away slowly as not to cause too much mistakes? I found a second toy that interests her and which is easier to throw !
Yeap, definitely only start her from close enough that she is still successful and then VERY slowly start her further back!!! As soon as you have two leaps in a row, start her closer again.
Hi Silvia, would you mind if someone uses an electronic mat in this course and would you give some tips for this set up too? I`m thinking about because I often click when Fine jumps over the contact and that is definitely not what she needs. I think hoops are somewhat different to your idea of RC but the mats are for the handler only, aren`t they? I don`t know exactly but I think that Kristin with DA VINCI uses this mats already (?) and that looked practicable for me too.
Birgit,
I used two electric hit-it plates with Spur and once I did his progress was MUCH faster as I am a terrible clicker. I was very aware of not focusing too much on the beeps as some runs were definitely good and rewardable without the beep. I also did a lot of plank running without the electric plates. I know there was someone using them before this class started who focused SO much on the yellow and the beeping that she wasn’t rewarding anything else and Silvia told her to “throw away that thing”. I’ll be interested in what she says, because I for one felt they really helped me and Spur. 😀
Amy
Two hit-it plates (or even better: an electronic mat) to help you mark the behaviour in time are perfectly o.k. I told that person to throw away that plate as she was using it as a target, teaching the dog to touch it with front feet and then putting it on a contact, rewarding slow and not-running tries as long as the dog was stepping on a plate. This is of course very far from what my method believes 🙂 When not used as a target and when not that size-limited as one hit-it board, it’s however perfectly compatible with my method.
Kristin is not using the mats, the beep you hear in her videos is produced by her, pressing the bottom on a remote control of a feeding machine she is using instead of a toy. But looks like she is very good with her timing if it looks like the beep is produced by the mat 🙂 You can of course use the mats to click for you as it definitely has much better timing as a human being can have 🙂 -- BUT you still need to watch and see how she is striding to know how to reward. It will also beep her for accidental touches or ugly touches and won’t beep her for nice almost- touches 🙂 So you still need to see things, but yes, you don’t need to worry about timing then.
Thank you for answering. I can see when/how she hits, but I`m sometimes not able to stop clicking even when she misses the contact. I don`t want to click but I do. It wasn`t a problem with the plank, because Fine hits the contact -- I would say -- every time, but now (lowered DW) she needs more help to find out what I want from her. So I will try to work with an electronic mat. Hit It Boards are too small to cover the whole contact zone, therefore we will use an electronic mat and then reward the hits variably.
Try to send the video, maybe I can see why she is having problems with DW… And it’s a problem no matter where you start her? And if it’s still good if you go to the plank?