O.k., time for your first homework!
1. find a way to make your dog run as fast as he can, tape him from the side and study his striding in slow motion or even frame by frame: how far apart his hind feet are, how far forward hind feet reach over front feet, how long and high the stride is, how his back look like and where his head is: many people think you want low head for running contacts, but in fact, you want the head look exactly the same as when running full speed in the fields 🙂
2. have a dog run over the plank, tape him from the side and compare it with the video above - you can tape it at an angle you're currently at. If you're just starting, restrain the dog before your plank, carpet or whatever you're using, throw a toy and release. Slowly bring the dog further away from the plank to really have them come to the plank with full speed. You don't need to overdo the distance, especially if you have long plank/carpet, as finding the plank could be problematic or the dog before you add some more height on it. Mark anything that looks like running in the fields from the first video, jackpot when feet are close to the end of a plank/carpet. Don't forget to click it or at least mark it with your voice! I prefer clicking, but you can also first use a voice and start clicking later, when you know your dog's stride better and can predict it better.
As we already discussed in comments before, we're for now throwing a toy in advance, letting the dog chase it, in order to get full speed. So yes, the dog is rewarded every time with a ball - so make sure that you really make the best tries even more special, use excitement in your voice, a play of tug on his favourite toy or food if that's his real preference - in short: make a party about the really good ones and don't worry about not so good ones - just throw that ball again! 🙂
3. to make it easier for the dog to understand what you're clicking for on that plank, we'll be teaching some tricks that are the best to help them understand how to use their feet and that you might be clicking them for using them. The two things you will try this time is cavaletti work - walking the dog over drawers or boxes on the floor - and teaching the dog to step with front feet on an object and clicking for any movements of hind feet: the final goal is a full circle in both directions, but first click even for just a weight shift and then go from there.
Post a video with all 3 assignments, first two also in slow motion please! This is a good check-up for those who are already running their dogs on a raised plank and a good stride-study that will help you see and mark the correct striding better for those just starting.
Also, read through the comments and see the videos in introduction page, you can learn a lot through videos and comments of others. Once you see your dog is running nicely, with an even stride, hind feet separation and hind feet reaching further from front feet (see discussion and video on that we had in comments!), you can put a brick or something under one end of the plank and have them run over slightly elevated plank - I'll tell you when you're ready based on the videos you'll send.
Left front foot just left the ground, hind feet reaching forward - this is what I mean by hind feet reaching over where the front feet were.
And this is what I mean by hind feet separation: hind feet hitting two different spots as far apart as possible (vs. staying parallel, hitting the same spot).
I didn’t have video of the pivoting homework when I posted last time. This is the second session he has done. I need to find something bigger so maybe he will keep both front feet on. We are also working on going the opposite direction.
This is his plank work from a session yesterday and today. I think overall it’s getting better and he is doing more actual running that those big air strides. I’ve been taking you advice of “Just playing ball over the board” So I’ve not been too particular about marking, and trying to train my eye to SEE what’s happening. Which is getting better too and I was able to jackpot some in the second session.
Thanks! Looking forward to the next homework!!
Pivoting is sure going great! But yes, the object is not ideal. The plank work is going well too, you actually got quite some of perfect hits. He still sometimes leaps when he is not sure whether he can fit another stride in (like in 2), but the trend looks to be good, so keep up the good work and after a couple of more successful sessions, add some height, we need some height before starting with the next homework.
Nous sommes toujours à plat car je ne veux pas aller trop vite ( j’ai l’échec de Bigbang en tête !) et que nous n’avons actuellement que 65 à 70% de bon running sur une séance ! La qualité de son mouvement est très lié à la qualité de mon lancé de jouet ! est ce que c’est normal à ce stade ?. Elle saute encore parfois ! Sur les 3m50 environ de la planche elle faite 3 foulées.
Pour pivoter c’est toujours dur dur ! un terrier quand ça coince ! ça coince ! Je lui apprends à accepter de venir se coller sur ma jambe (le mur ça marche pas !) sans sortir ses antérieurs du plot …. le shaping pur elle se démobilise et abandonne !
We are always flat because I do not want to go too fast (I failed Bigbang in mind!) and we currently have only 65 to 70% good running per session! The quality of his movement is closely related to the quality of my toy launched! is this normal at this stage?. She still jumps sometimes! 3m50 on the plank she made 3 strides.
To rotate it is always tough! a terrier when it gets stuck! it gets stuck! I teach her to agree to come to stick on my leg (the wall it does not work!) without leaving her front feet of the block …. with pure shaping she start to lose and she abandons!
Yes, I think it’s normal, it’s mostly late throws that can be a problem, so just start throwing sooner&sooner. I think you can also add some height, it makes the end more visible for them and expecting the dog to adjust the stride only becomes realistic then, you can’t expect it on flat board…
Hi, Silvia.
Here is what I’ve been seeing with Callie. What do you think? We are going to train again tomorrow…then a break for a couple days. Am I to stay on a flat plank at this point or add some height? If so, how much height?
I’m pretty sure #20 was a bad one to jackpot, but were the others ok?
Kristin
Yeap, time to raise the plank! You can start with something like 6″. I mostly agree with your rewarding, apart from 20, I also wouldn’t jackpot 6 of the second session though, her hind feet are closer together -- probably because of a late throw, but still. As you’re getting 100% of running, you can also get more selective now and stop clicking the highest 15%.
Thanks, Silvia!
Today we worked a raised plank. 3 short sessions during the day. This is still two teeter planks side by side with carpet over (24″ wide)…is that correct?
Just to clarify, you mean to stop clicking the hits in the upper 15% of the contact zone? Am I understanding that right?
Here is our video. What do you think? Now we will take a couple days off and work on tricks.
Ups, no, that’s not what I meant. I meant to stop clicking highest three hits she has in 20 repetitions -- wherever those are -- don’t watch the contact, watch the dog! It’s going well on a raised plank, not so good at the beginning, but then great session to end with. I mostly agree with what you wrote, but yes, it’s time to get more selective, stop jackpotting for tries like 7 and stop clicking for tries like 2. But yes, continue like that, still using two planks and adding height gradually.
Ok. Thank you. Glad I asked 🙂
Oh, and we made our final decision…would like to go for both running dog-walk and A-frame for Callie! 🙂
You mentioned having a stopped dog-walk too for when needed. Will you tell us when the time is right and how to do that? Right now we only focus on running, correct?
Yes, you need to get to the full height dog-walk before starting to mix the two behaviours. You need to teach her a new one with a new verbal cue, so start using it now already as knowing the two different verbal cues is very important if you want two different behaviours on the same obstacle.
I used “walk-it” for her dog-walk and “touch” for the 2on-2off behavior (but was working to get away from having to say “touch”…letting the obstacle imply a stop at the bottom).
Can you give me some suggestions for new words to use on the dog-walk? I just start sending her to run over the raised board now with the new word?
Willl I need a new word for the A-frame as well (I don’t want anything but running on that)? Currently it’s “Frame” and “touch” for the stopping.
I would keep “touch” for a stop as after you introduce RC, obstacle as such won’t imply the stop. For running DW you can use something like “run” and then maybe “go go” while on it -- vs. “touch” when you’ll want her to stop. You’ll need a new name for A-frame too, yes. I say “up, up” for A-frame.
Hi Silvia,
I have now done 2 sessions with Beatrice on her first elevated board. Please look at my arrangements. Is this degree of elevation appropriate? I see Bea getting a bit more bouncy, and hind leg seperation not quite as good for these 2 sessions, but I think that is her just figuring out the new set up. I have marked the repetitons that I did not reward. All other repetitions were rewarded.
Thanks for your time and attention,
Heidi
Hi Silvia,
I see that my annotations regarding rewards did not make it on to the video. Of these 2 sessions 6 repetitions were not rewarded: 3, 5, 6, 10, 20 and 21.
Thanks again,
Heidi
Why not 3??? I liked 3! She strides to the side somewhat, but she is running nicely! I agree with the other decisions. And I think she is doing GREAT, especially considering how she looked at your first videos!!! That’s amazing progress and things seems to be going in the right direction. Keep this height for another 5 sessions and if the trend is good, go to the next height then.
Hahaha, Bea thought she should be rewarded for #3 as well. I guess you guys are right. I had this notion about rewarding her being actually on the board…but your point is well taken. She is running nicely in 3.
Thanks for the feedback. I’m glad you think she is doing well.
I’m afraid that I’ve now lost her stay behaviour because she loves the ball and her board so much. We will work on the seperately from her running the board work.
Yeah, that’s why I prefer a restrain… -- Stays can be ruined 🙂 But yes, fix that separately and maybe send her around a cone instead having her stay for now when doing plank work?
After my last post i tried to have a tunnel before the plank again. This is after nr. 7 in the first video.
I think that thes session this day was really good 🙂
The next day was also good until the last 5 tries.
And the the next two days has a lot of jumps in the air 🙁
The second video is from today. I haven’t marked the clips. Just to show you the tendence. I clicked the tries when she was not jumping.
What to do?
Hi Silvia.
Haven’t you seen this post?
Gitte 🙂
Yes, I saw it now, I was at the competition the whole day and am now answering in the order of when they are posted. I mostly reply pretty fast, but if I’m away the whole day and there are many new comments, it can sometimes take a little longer -- shouldn’t take more than 2 days, though!
Well, you are definitely getting more perfect ones as before, her hind feet separation is mostly great now and there were many hits to jackpot. But yes, again some flying… It does look like she is trying to get away from that plank, not sure why… Did you sand it well, it’s not slippery? And it never gets rocky and scare her? It’s not THAT bad that you would need to do something about it right now, you can keep working on it, making sure to make a HUGE difference between good ones and bad ones. Another option would be to go back to the carpet for some sessions and then to two angled planks side by side (or one really wide one), covered by carpet. The good news is that it’s better to have some perfect and some terrible tries as all the same and none nearly as good as you would want to! 🙂
I really really wish there was a light-weight portable board that folded up and was easy to unpack and use in the park here…
anyway, this week we were in a bigger yard for a day and ran the plank… Thoughts? I think she does better with more room to run…
And a friend used Dawn’s plans for her adjustable plank and extension contraption and built us one we can use regularly in a month… I couldn’t resist… we had to try it out a few times even though she was getting tired and hot
Am I right in assuming that we are not supposed to be doing the full DW in our agility classes until we have worked our way all the way up to that height?
Yes, no full DWs anymore!
Wow, that’s MUCH better! You need a bigger yard! 🙂 One of my students lives in appartement though and was simply leaving her plank in a park. It disappeared once, so she needed a new one, but she was able to do most of the work in the park. For flat work, you could just roll a carpet and take it anywhere, but yes, the higher the plank gets, the more logistic behind it you need…
YES I HAVE thought about carrying a plank into the park… but then I need someone else to help carry it through the streets and conspire with me ; )
hmmmm who has the moxy to do that? who would understand my obsession?
It was funny… I was first working with a bowl and food (I don’t remember why, maybe habit at this location) and she went and got her toy instead. She’s seeing it more as play? Anyway, we are making headway in the transfer from food to toy department : ) : )
Hi!! look at this site http://northcoastpets.com/agility_equipment.htm
I want that Dog Walk and that see saw 🙂
Oh Ana that is so cool! I wonder if they would consider selling just one DW plank…
Sounds great! And yes, for normal people, plank obsession is hard to understand 🙂
this is slow motion of the same video--YAY I have slow motion now!
Do you think I want even MORE extension to her stride? or is that her running stride?
I think this is good enough to proceed, but yes, she can probably extend even more, so if you have another idea for how to make her run even faster , you definitely want to try it out! 🙂 I think she will add more speed also just by more plank running, I think you wrote you’re already noticing more toy motivation?
Hi Silvia:
Shona and Bender reporting in. After our last video we did 4 more sessions on the the flat plank. I then raised the plank about 7 cm. This is our 5th session on the raised plank. I decided to continue to use the 8 foot board as an approach ramp. My best results were restraining Bender about 8 -- 10 feet back from the board. I rewarded all the running and jackpotted #1, 2, 5, 6, 7 and 8 as low hits. I really liked #5 the best!
I have a few questions. Should I be concerned with the overstriding in #3 and #4? Are we ready to increase the height? And if so, how much do you recommend each time? I saw your comments to Ana concerning using a mini-aframe set up. I plan to do that for the next few height increases and hopefully there will not be too much leaping over the apex! But I also have access to a lowered dogwalk (half height) and hope to switch over to that when we are ready.
thanks,
Shona
Sure, mini-aframe set up is o.k. for now! And yes, it’s time to raise the plank again, you can raise it for 5 to 7 inches at the time. At this point, as you are getting running only, you can stop rewarding the highest hits (as 3 and 4).
In anticipation of raising the plank, I “built” the next level up -- about 3″ higher on my mini-aframe set up and started playing on it. Today in the rain was our second session. I was so excited with the results I had to immediately send it in! Apart from #1, I jackpotted everything else as low hits! Now that I see your comments I will raise it a couple of more inches to get up to the 5- 7 inches higher than the first height.
Shona
Very cool! Ready for the next height 🙂
Changing the colour of the last mat definitely affects Taari. Today I elevated a teeter board by about 5 cm and put the mats on it. We were in an agility ring so we had lots of room. I started out all grey mats and then switched the last one to yellow. With the all grey mats I jackpotted 5/5. With the yellow at the end I jackpotted 2/11. #2 is a bit questionable to me. Definitely not great foot placement at the end of the board.
My mats are all different colours so I could try flipping them all over so I have green, red, yellow and blue sections. I could also change which one is yellow (2nd from last, 3rd from last etc.)
I wasn’t throwing very well for Nessa so I didn’t get very many tries where she was on the board or stayed on the board. Perhaps the different environment and the raised board also didn’t help. We have rain in the forecast for the next week :(.
Oh, that’s funny, she sure doesn’t like yellow! 🙂 And yes, you can either flip them all over or put the yellow as a first one and then slowly move it further down -- as eventually that’s how a plank will look like, she does need to get used to the idea of the end of a plank looking differently (and still not jumping over it!) 🙂 That’s a very funny problem, never saw it before!
And yes, I wouldn’t jackpot 2.
We haven’t gotten a chance to do much this week due to the weather and an illness.
I tried a few things with the mats. I flipped them all over so that they were multicoloured (yellow, red, green and blue). She ran across them well. Then I tried putting just a yellow one 3rd from the last, 2nd from the last and finally last with all the others grey. She did better and didn’t seem to be avoiding the yellow. Then I tried her on the teeter board (12 inch 12 foot long board with contact zones at both ends). At first I got a mixture of jumping/air to miss the end of the board and where she didn’t miss. When she didn’t miss her back feet were closer together though than when the mats are on it. Then she started missing all the time so I went back to the mats on board. I got better hind feet separation. I need to learn to judge this better live as I was rewarding the closer hind feet separation. I was happy that she wasn’t avoiding the end of the board though.
Do I need to keep the same height and work through these colour and/or surface type issues with Taari before making changes? Nessa was fine with the narrower teeter board. The mats are 18 inches wide. I am going to cut up some mats and make them 12 inches wide (blue and yellow -- the most common contact colours in my area).
Does the amount of hind feet separation change as the board is raised?
Let me know if you want me to post video for you to see.
Yes, I think I would rather address the colour and surface problems right now. Maybe start taking the mats away, one by one, from the top towards the bottom? And no, the feet separation doesn’t change with height. I mean, it does get better if you click for it on purpose, but it’s because of selecting for it, not because of added height. So yes, pay attention to it.
silvia -- i am sending our session from yesterday. this is pretty typical of what i have gotten the last 2 weeks, mostly doing 20 -- 30 reps per session (most days). 0 -- 2 leapy runs, some high hits, always out of a tunnel about 15′ from the end of a plank at 4″. thank you, terri/wicked
Getting better. You sometimes throw too late, you need to throw soon enough for her to have something to focus on. You would get deeper hits if she landed deeper on a plank for a first time -- you could get that by creating a mini-aframe shape, using two planks -- maybe something to try if you have two planks available?
thank you -- i often see that my throws make a big difference, even in free play. yes, i do have 2 planks -- i am looking at the setup shona (above me, this page) has -- is that what you are suggesting i use? would i still start thru a tunnel? i think i will need time to get ahead a bit to throw. terri
Yes and yes 🙂
here is our first attempt at the mini a-frame at 4″. nothing cut. the first run i forgot to move the stantions from the person ahead of me, wondered if that caused the big leap, or just the new set up. wicked is coming out of a tunnel, 15′ away, as we did before. thanks!
Perfect! You’re getting some really perfect hits now. Some are still high, but that’s o.k., don’t reward those and let her figure out the difference. That first leap was caused by stantions I think, they can surprise the dog and affect the striding, it’s normal. Keep up the good work, raising the plank somewhat every 5 sessions or so if you’re getting such good % as in the video.
silvia -- we have had only one full session since this good one (rain, MUD), and it was a lot of high hits and leaping. even tho it was the exact same set up. it was clear wicked does not have a clue about the desired hits. i’m sending you a video of a little exercise i tried (for lack of running space this week) hoping to teach her to hit the end of the board. would like to have your input on if this may be a good idea or not. then yesterday it was dry enough to have a short session. we did the mini frame again and we had better success. i have read that i should expect some set backs, so wonder if i should work thru at that set up. just couldn’t continue with no rewarding -- wicked is a bit soft, and she was actually getting tired after all our tries! thank you much, terri
I think at this stage, it’s normal they don’t know about the desired hits. That’s why we try to help them happen to have something to jackpot and then slowly select for low ones. When a bad session happens, try lowering the criteria a little or simply stop working and try again later. You can also do some of what you’re showing in the video, it doesn’t hurt, but it also can’t change much when the dog is coming in with lots of speed, they just need some practice. But again, as you only started plank work when the class started, I think it’s normal she doesn’t understand what the desired hits are -- we’re only now starting to select for those, we still have a long way to go!
Hi Silvia, Here is Delta’s latest session. I did some work on our original plank but I was getting leaping on to it even at 6″ (15cm) ht. Then there was not enough length for her to start striding properly.
Rather than get longer planks I decide to try the dogwalk set low. I saw you comments to Soshana, and I braced the planks to be less bouncy.
Here is todays session#1. A lot of good running I think.
Session 2 (20 min’s later) has a lot of front feet hits. At full speed those look like really wide splits so I tend to Jackpot them. That might not be the best for her right now. She got a Jackpot for 1,2,3,4,7,8,10
She is definitely thinking about her front feet more as hind feet… By now, I think she knows that’s what gets jackpotted 🙂 It’s nothing wrong with front feet hits, of course, I would just like her to understand hind feet are an option too and to come in with hind feet when front feet are too high instead of giving up and leaping off. That’s why, if you’re lowering the dog-walk, really focus on hind feet, not the hits as such, and click for hind feet separation. Hind feet separation is still better before and after a contact as on a contact when they happen to be there. Another option is to give up on her hind feet and let her learn how to get in with front feet every time… La does it that way and somehow manages to always be in with that front foot, but in order to succeed every time, she can’t have the same speed over DW as other RC dogs, trained after her.
Thanks, I would like her to have the rear foot option if possible. Here is the last session. 12 attempts. Which numbers should be jackpotted for her at this stage? #1 looks great to me. #2 is higher but rear feet. #3 front feet but one rear on plank one rear on ground etc.
Of the 12 which should I jackpot at this stage? I would say 1,3,5,6,8,10.
Yes, I think that was a good choice of jackpotting. I would reward all other tries too, though.
Yes, all are rewarded now. The ball is thrown as she approaches the dogwalk. Jackpots are marked verbally and get tugging and extra throws of the ball. Thanks!