For more on running contacts, it's best to join running contacts class or get a Running Contacts DVD. This page is meant for those who just have a quick question or want to show their finished product - you are very welcome to do so, it still brings a smile to my face when I see a beautiful running contact, it's something addictive about it. It is on times frustrating as well... - but it all makes the end result even sweeter. So... Happy training, everybody!
 Silvia Trkman is known for bringing every dog, from her first dog on, to the very top of the sport. Her dogs are known for great speed, tight turns, running contacts and long and injury-free careers. Silvia is in agility since 1992 and is– 3x World Champion (with two different dogs)
– 5x European Open winner, with 4 different dogs (Lo, La, Bu, Le)!!!
– National Championships podium and World Team member with every dog she’s ever had – National Champion for 22-times (with 5 different dogs of 3 different breeds) – World Team member for 19-times (mostly with at least two dogs at the time – sometimes four 🙂 ) |
Hi Silvia
I have been reading and watching some of your running contact videos and since I have been training 2o2o for 13 years I have a few questions. I don’t intend to re-train my dogs who currently to 2o2o as their contacts are perfectly fine and I am happy with them. I know I will be getting a puppy next year and to me running contacts is the way forward, but as I have never done them before and no-one where I live in England trains them so I have no-one to guide me in the right direction, I would really appreciate your advise :o)
From reading all of your information I still would like to know:
• I have never used a clicker, I know you recommend them when training the running contact but is it essential do you think, is my verbal praise (as well as LOTS of tugging) not enough? Just would like your thoughts…
• All the articles I have read people have mentioned loosing contacts, as you did with La I think it was, how can these be corrected once a dog starts to jump?
• Also I know you say they need very little maintenance, but surely if you stop rewarding then the dog will begin to think “am I doing this right” and try other ways to please you i.e. jump?
• Once you have got the dog running down the contact (not jumping) how do you begin to work on foot placement as you talk about?
I know it will be a while before I put into practice but I am just wanting to get all of the facts. I am also starting training classes in obedience and agility and would like to be a good enough trainer to know about the running contact even though I don’t do it -- Yet!
Much appreciate your advise :o)
Merry Christmas!
Hi,
The reason clicker is so useful for running contacts is that timing when teaching running contacts is very difficult because of the speed involved -- even more without the clicker. Also, I noticed that clicker trained/shaped dogs are much quicker at understanding what you want on that plank, while dogs who are not used to thinking-required-training will take much longer to understand their job.
Once I get them run normally on the plank, I start jackpotting (rewarding with extra special rewards and lots of excitement in my voice) the lowest hits, that’s how they learn the best is to take the last stride from the very end of the plank.
The beauty of running contacts is that the dog won’t just start to jump as running as such is self-reinforcing. If they do, it could be because they fell off the dog-walk, lost confidence and their striding is now off or because there is a physical problem (La was missing contacts when her shoulder was hurting), but never without the reason -- the only problem is that it’s sometimes hard to diagnose the reason -- took me several months in La’s case… It’s otherwise very easy to maintain running contacts, the dog gets an information that the contact is o.k. by being allowed to continue -- you don’t reward every not-knocked jump either, right, and they don’t start to knock them, thinking they should try this in order to please you, right? Same with contacts.
Hope that helps a little.
Thanks Silvia, that makes a lot of sense, never thought of it like that before. Thanks
I just started to trial with my 2yr old and am wondering how to handle the misses I know will occasionally come. So far he’s jumped twice out of the 10 or so dogwalks and all aframes have been perfect. I didn’t do anything either time he jumped, just kept on with the course. He is starting to get more confident in a trial and running more so they are looking better each time.
Some of the venues over here allow you to train in the ring so I could redo the obstacle once if I wanted. Do you feel that redoing the dogwalk if he jumps would be a wise decision? Or is it best to not draw attention to his mistake while he is still so new to trialing? Thank you!!!
The beauty of running contacts is that they become better and better even if you don’t do anything about it 🙂 Bu was missing some contacts when she started trialing as she was not so confident on strange dog-walks -- but I just ignored it to not affect her confidence even more and contacts just got better and better. If the dog doesn’t have a confidence problem, you can redo it yes, but as I said: it will get better even if you don’t. -- How cool is that, huh! 🙂
Silvia --
I have added the up plank to my tables and evened out the table heights so that they are both about 26″ tall. She is coming from a tunnel send in all of these and I have the target about 15-20 feet out. I think that she is looking much better than she did yesterday when there was a 2″ step up that was about where she wanted to put her first stride in on the tables, this caused some jumping over that area. Today she smoothed out considerably. What do you think? Should I start to add turns in at this point?
here is what yesterday’s before the fix happened, in case you want to see that at all.
Thanks Silvia! I know that it’s all about confidence, I just wasn’t sure if it would be beneficial to redo since I have the chance sometimes! Vito is just starting to get more confident in trials so I guess I will ignore the jumps if they occur. I have been really happy with his results with your method though! Merry Christmas!
Nice to hear! I usually only hear from people when there are problems 🙂
Aw! You can hear from ME! Spur has done a couple of trials/matches and we have had the NICEST comments about his runnings!! They have been absolutely perfect every time. Not super fast as he still needs time to gain confidence, but he has not missed one at a match or trial since you started helping us!!! 😀
Hi there Silvia
Wow love the DVD’s i got from you and i am doing quite a bit with my puppy and she is doing very well with cik and cap. Her heel work is also coming along on both sides wonderfully. I am also teaching her running contacts.
Please can i ask as i know i have read that your cik and cap are not the same for your left and right turns, which i understand, but how did you teach it? i did before i tried your new cik and cap get the dog to spin in front of me and gave that a command but is this the same as cik and cap or as i beleave different exercises and therefore different commands? Maybe you have covered this somewhere and i can read the aritcle. Thanks so much.
Alicia
Sounds great, you need to post some videos!
I teach left&right as you describe, as a trick of spinning to one or another direction (you can see it in Tricks section of Cik&Cap video). Cik&cap, on the other hand is ALWAYS wrapping around the object, so yes, you definitely do need different commands for the two behaviours.
Happy training!
Thank you so much i will go watch more of the DVD and continue with my training, till next time, thank you.
Hi Silvia
I’ve just started doing a full dogwalk at a low height (50cm) and have discovered that my young dog (9 1/2mth) is attempting the down plank with one stride. She still hits the yellow, though it’s high up and she’s still technically running, but I’m not sure if it’s safe or desirable???
Yeah, Bi had such ideas too, but I don’t like it too much, it was o.k. on our dog-walk, but on new dog-walks, one stride usually took her very high, sometimes too high, so I stopped rewarding one-stride dog-walks, even if the contact was nice. I let her fly on A-frame, but prefer two strides on dog-walk.
Thanks Silvia, so sorry about to hear about Lo. I really appreciate you taking the time to reply, when I’m sure you have other things on your mind.
Thanks. I do try to keep me occupied…
Hi Silvia,
I’m an agility newbie from the US and I’ve been experimenting with your running contacts. I have Sage, a 4yr golden retriever. She’s a very careful dog and I believe running contacts would help boost her confidence (and mine).
We’ve had 14 training sessions. They started with Sage leaping off the board. She’s now begining to run (I think 😉 but still seems to be carefully placing her stride to miss the end of the board. I’m using an 8ft board and Sage is a very long strided dog. She only strides once on the board, somewhere in the middle. This means she often misses the last almost half of the board. When I slow the videos down it looks like her back feet are still separated and she’s running. However I can clearly tell that sometimes she’s extending her stride and purposely missing the end of the board. I would be much happier if she took two strides and hit both ends of the board.
Here’s the most recent video of a short training session. This isn’t the best angle, if you would like to see another video I’d be happy to post one.
While researching running contacts I found Daisy Peel and Solar’s running contacts blog. In early stages Solar’s striding seemed very similar to Sage’s. Daisy required Solar change his running pattern from one stride to two. Is this something I should do, or will it come later on its own? Basically, to me (who once again knows nothing, lol) Sage doesn’t look like she’s running on the board the way she’s supposed to but I don’t think she’s jumping either. I’ve been jackpotting the lower hits but she’s dead set on one stride unless I start her really close forcing her to hit at the beginning, or slow her down neither seem like good options. What would you do? What would you be rewarding?
Lastly and most importantly, I want to thank you for this amazing website! I barely know anything about you but I can already tell you’re a wonderful person, handler, trainer, and instructor. Thank you for genuinely caring about the future of this sport. You’re so unselfish to help all us, some complete strangers. THANK YOU!
P.S Sorry this is so long. I’m not very good at summing things up. I hope I haven’t driven you crazy.
To me, it looks like Sage is doing perfectly fine, but the plank is not ideal. The thing is that if you wanted two strides on such a short plank (short compared to the length of her stride), she would need to shorten her stride and you don’t want that. So for now, I would leave it as it is, it’s perfectly o.k. for this stage (she is running nicely and foot placement is not your major focus for now), but try to find a longer plank and start raising it.
Have fun and keep us updated!
Thanks :D. I’m so excited to start raising the plank! I’m planning on buying a plank the size of the down plank on the dogwalk in the next couple of days. How thick do you suggest? Also, do you think I need to do anything to the surface of the board? Thanks! I can’t wait to continue training. It’s so much fun, even in the dead of winter :).
Cute picture! And yes, that length will be better. I prefer thinner boards, but then you of course need to support it on two places, otherwise it gets too bouncy. You also need to sand it yes, to assure good grip -- one layer of paint, some fine sand over it when it’s still wet, wait until it dries and then put another layer of paint.
Hi there, Daisy Peel here.
You mentioned that I ‘required’ Solar to change his foot pattern/striding, but in reality I never ‘required’ that -- it was something he probably figured that he needed to do as his speed and confidence increased. Although I might count strides while watching a video of him doing a dogwalk in slow motion, I never count them in the moment (who could?!), and I don’t require that he take any certain number of strides, just that he run through the yellow 🙂
Daisy
That makes sense. I’m sorry for the mistake, I’ve just been worrying about foot placement and truly running. It’s difficult for me to tell when Sage is jumping since she rarely leaves the board with her back feet together but often seems like she’s extending her stride to miss the end. How can I tell when she’s natually extending to the full length of her stride compared to jumping? How did you define a jump and set your criteria with Solar? This is why it was so encouraging when Silvia said the video looked good. I’d been obsessing over it for weeks!
Silvia & Daisy, thank you both so much! I still can’t believe I’m talking to Silvia Trkman and Daisy Peel (isn’t the internet wonderful). Daisy, thank you for your video diary! It’s so helpful to see the whole process, especially the beginning steps. You and Solar have amazing contacts! Thanks for letting us in on the training process 🙂 Again, sorry I interpreted incorrectly.
Sincerly,
Hannah
Each session there is improvement, I think!! He gains confidence every the time!!! This time no slight head turn to look for the ball toss!!! Sorry the quality is so poor. It’s a new camera and was adjusted to low resolution, which I will change for next time.
I am most pleased with this session since this isn’t our home dog walk.
Firstly, I’m very sorry to hear about Lo. Such a sad time when we have to say goodbye to our dear canine friends.:(
Secondly, as our garden is very unsuitable (Not enough space to run properly) and finding a plank long and wide enough has proven practically impossible, I was thinking of not doing RCs for dog walk but I don’t want 2on2off for the A-frame for obvious reasons and Wren is a dog with a very BIG stride. Any ideas for the best way to deal with the A-frame with a dog like Wren where RCs can’t be trained for dogwalk?
You can train for running A-frame only, it takes significantly less time, but you need to have an access to A-frame that can be lowered to the ground and then brought up slowly.
Ok thanks….I’ll have to speak to my instructor about it…not sure if her A-frame can be lowered though:(
Sooo…today was the premiere! I went on the dogwalk with You and he did so great! What do you think??