Most people think I gain most with running contacts, but as there are maximum two occasions to do running contacts per course (none in jumpers), that's not really true. You can gain the most on turns. Tight turns make the biggest difference, especially in nowadays 3rd degree/masters courses where it's all about the turns...
Teaching cik&cap is the best investment to
- improve your course times
- make handling and timing easier for you
- improve your dog's obstacle focus, distance skills, sends and independent performance
- take lots of stress off your dog's joints
- make turns more fun for your dog
For more on Cik&Cap, see a training DVD or join Agility Foundation Class.
Normal jump vs. cik
I’ve been wondering where is the line between cik&cap and left&right. I mean, i understand that cik&cap is usead when to do a wing wrap (360 degrees) but do you use cik&cap also when the dog needs to turn 90 degrees or less?
For example this course: http://www.jau.fi/sm2003/rata_d_maxiagi.gif
from obstacle 5 to 6a -- would you use cik&cap or left&right?
I haven’t actually thought about using left&right on jumps before, so i would be concerned about he command “left/right” ‘cos I use it also when turning from tunnel very tightly. I predict my dog would turn tightly to me on “left/right” and not do the jump at all! 😀 But i quess that’s just something to work on 🙂
I’m more interested in 6a-6c, what would you say when dog should go only 6a and then 6c (stay off 6b)? Because when I would say cik/cap, my dog will turn closely to the wing and than miss 6c, but when I would say left/right my dog would probably go at 6b too… I recently saw it at the competition and I haven’t known what would I do with that.
Cap. It tells where to land, what follows next depends on my body language.
Yes, it has nothing to do with the degrees, it’s all about collection:). So no, no cik for 5 (maybe for Bi, for sure not La or Bu), but probably a cap for 6b.
Hi Silvia, I hope this hasn’t already been mentioned!
My 11 month old whippet is my first “from scratch” agility dog. With her long back I expect her to be a naturally wide turner so I’m SO glad I’ve managed to come accross this and she’s had pretty tight wing wraps so far.
I’m just wondering what you’d do for pull-throughs? (
29 seconds in.. just incase you call them something else!).
Would you have some kind of “in” command for that or would you use cik & cap and push them back out?
Thanks, sorry if it’s a silly question!
Cat
It seems to have cut half my comment out.. before the video I asked: “how would you do pull-throughs?”
Cik&cap + name of the dog. Cik&cap tells where to land, name pulls them in.
Fab thank you!!
Silvia, my little girl is mastering cik and cap just fine (we call it twist and spin). I decided last week it was time to start teaching her a rear cross, but with all the work we’ve been doing with cik and cap, she is now mightily confused. I was wondering how you teach a rear cross?
Thanks!
I don’t, I just do it, a dog who knows cik&cap shouldn’t have a problem with it. About what is she confused?
I was trying to teach it from a stand still (from Susan Garrett’s One Jump exercises) where you send over a jump and step behind them laterally. So for example, if she was on my right, she should look right as I cross behind and head right. BUT with all of our cik-cak practice, she is always automatically turniing (Nice and tighly) to the left, while I am crossing behind to the right. But yes, I think you’re right -- I should just stop obsessing over it and just do it while running!
And you don’t have two different verbal commands so that you could send her to the right wrap? That would help. Still, I started running little sequences with Bi way before she knew it on verbal command, but she naturally read my body language and always turned the right way… All my dogs do, with no training, that’s why I was surprised by your question. Try it in sequences, maybe it makes more sense to a dog then.
Hi
I am interested in training cik/cap. Is there a full explanation of steps to teaching this? I wonder if in the early stages of teaching is it important to teach at speed or will speed come later?
Thanks
Barb
I’m preparing a detailed video, will be out soon. And well, I add speed as soon as the behaviour is shaped (or right at the beginning if it’s lured).
A detailed video will really help. Thanks for your help!
Hi Silvia,
I just wanted to tell you that I tried cik & cap using frisbees as you recommended. I was really surprised that Ruby didn’t try to snatch frisbee from my hand every time (only about 40% of the time ;)). He was much happier doing figure 8 this time 🙂
Unfortunately, I was too excited to notice how often he had problems with cik, and today he was really slow with it (but still fast with cak). He would refuse to do it on a hand cue, but he did it if I said “cik” 🙂 I think this will go away once we do more successful repetitions of cik.
Here’s the video from yesterday:
🙂 He is just too funny! Looks like it’s time to add more distance, try to spread out the objects to make it more fun for him, you can also run with him from one to another. And you need to post a video of his heeling once, I love it!
Yes, I think spreading objects out and then running with him for a few steps would work. We’ll try that.
As for heeling, we didn’t keep up the duration. We only do it for a few steps now and reward, turn and reward, do a few steps… Just as a warm up / cool down. So I need to add some duration to this or it will be a very short video 🙂
Objects are now spread out to almost twice the distance that we had on the video above, and he is running figure 8 around them nicely. I love it! For now I still need to run with him close to the obstacle for this to work.
Well, you will see for yourself in class. Thank you for your help, Silvia! 🙂
I don’t know that much about cik and cap, but I noticed you always rewarded the cap and not the cik. Except for the veru beginning of the movie, I don’t think I saw you throwing the frisbee after a cik. I guess I would cheat too. 😉
Of course the video is only a snapshot of your training, so excuse me if I’m wrong! 🙂
Good observation!
We did some single ciks and caps in the beginning of every session (there were two with a break in between), which are not included in video, and those were always rewarded.
But as you mentioned, I wasn’t careful enough when doing figure 8 and mostly did cik+cap, but not much cap+cik, which meant that cap was rewarded much more often.
As for cheating, he also tried to cheat with cap, so I think this was partly testing the limits of what will earn him a frisbee. 🙂
Yes, the cheating was rather a joke, but after my observation and your explanation just now, I find it rather logic he has problems with cik. I believe that if you change your figure 8 to first cap then cik, and train it mostly like that for a while, his cik should improve rapidly! Once he does it as fast as cap, you can bring some variation into it again. You might even practically drop the cap for now, perhaps only at the end of the session. Or well, that’s what I would do. 😉
Good luck and happy training!
Hi -- my observation is that when you hand-cue with a Frisbee in hand his focus is on the Frisbee and not on the cue. I think that is maybe why he responds better to a verbal cue.
And a question: it seems like his leash gets caught in the plastic bins when he takes off after the Frisbee. It depends on how sensitive the dog is -- for my dogs that situation might have communicated a mixed message: go fast;No -- you can’t go you are on leash- but of course it may not matter to your dog. He looks happy and motivated by the Frisbees.
Noa.
Hi Noa,
he is definitely not interested in my hand cue as much as in frisbee 🙂 In fact,I was afraid that he won’t be able to work at all with a frisbee in his face, but he pulled it off. This is such a motivating toy for him that a little bit of snag doesn’t matter -- I know, because I train dog disc on long line a lot. He just gets faster when I unclip the line, that’s all.
We spen’t yesterdays session doing cik&cap in the living room, and he didn’t have much problem with that. Today we did it in the park again. He refused to do cik on a hand cue only the first time, but when he saw that he is getting a squeaky toy every time, problems disappeared. Then I took out frisbee to try out combinations cap+cik and cik+cap. I put objects a bit further apart than last time and he was faster, and no problems or hesitation with either turn.
A few more sessions like this and he will forget that there ever was a problem 🙂 I hope 😉
Hi,
I’ve had problems getting my dogs to turn tight (my trainer has always said that the dog should be able to decide whether to turn tight or long depending on handling and a ‘steady’ cue) but although they are a bit better they still turn wide and loose alot of time. So, although I’m terrible at remembering which cue to use :-), I’m going to retrain cik and cap.
I’m not sure if I would be best to start training now and just not use the cue in courses or at shows until they understand it 100% or to wait until the end of the season so I’m at less shows.
Also how long would it take from first starting to train cik and cap to being able to use it while running a course?
Thank you for this website and all the advice that you have online, your dogs are fantastic!
Sam
Cik&cap training is just additional training for turns, not really retraining, so you can start teaching it now and still compete normally, just don’t use the new cues until they’re perfect in training. I would say it takes about 2 months -- maybe more if a dog already knows agility and is more on a crazy side, it takes some more to make them listen and collect when on a real course. If you find two cues too difficult, one is o.k. too, you can help with body language.
Thank you very much for your reply.
I will start training tomorrow and hopefully soon my dogs will have beautiful tight turns, there have been so many times this weekend where having cik & cap would have been useful that I wonder why I’ve put off training it for so long 🙂
I also have a question here… I am very bad remembering right&left so I only use one word “chik.. LOL” and help with my body position. I am not quite sure but we had a seminar recently and we won this run, might be her turns? I do know she can do better 😉
httpv://www.youtube.com/user/smartmovesCR#p/a/u/1/82ta54mzaPY
I admire what you do with your dogs … I have a question, agility, when we have these types of courses :
____
X
____ ____ cas 1
2 1
__
X
___2_ ____ cas 2
1
Differentiate your orders to return the dog (avoiding jumping X) what words do you use? Thanking you!
Hm, sorry, but I don’t really understand your drawing…