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 🙂 ) |
There is a discussion going on about when to start a puppy/young dog on plank work, etc. And how old should a dog be before doing full dogwalk and then at full height?
What are your thoughts and why? Want to share to the list since it based on teaching your methods.
Thank you so much Silvia. My 8 Month old bc is enjoying running a plank right now.
Jody
Well, I start with the plank when the puppy outgrows the puppy movement and is not in fast-growing phase anymore. When to do full dog-walk depends on how coordinated the dog is, there are no absolute numbers I could give you. I let Bi some more time before I dared to do full dog-walk (only did down ramp for quite long), but with Le or La, my little monkeys, I never had those concerns. La never fell down the dog-walk in 9 years -- but she was blown down by wind twice! 🙂 Guess those are advantages and disadvantages of little dogs:).
Anyway, I never saw any point in having 4 and less months old puppy run the plank as there are other, more important things to focus on first, but then, I’m most certainly not one of those who would x-ray dogs from head to toes before I would let them run. I let my puppies run and play and be puppies from day one, take them to hikes with us etc. and they do way more up&down-hill-running on hills in their real life as they ever will on a dog-walk…
Thank you so much Silivia. Sort of what I thought. Didnt see a problem with just running a plank and raising it inch by inch weekly and take things slow. I am focusing on my pup to just run and have fun, and make sure he never thinks about jumping, which he isnt since he is just running down a low board to a toy.
I started him on the plank at about 7.5 months and have been doing it for 2 weeks. Its now proped up slightly and he is still just running the board, not getting up onto a table, or other obstacle to go down the board. So didnt feel this was hurting or damaging his body at all. Jumping off the back of the couch is FAR worse 🙁 bad puppy.
Thanks again.
Jody
Yeah, I think running on a plank is one of the safest and most controlled things my puppies do in their youth 🙂
I am not sure if this question has yet been asked since i didn’t have time to read through all the posts, although i am sure it is different for every dog.
I have started training my year old BC girl AMP. I choose to wait until she turned a year to start ANY flat plank work. Thinking with the intentions of her having more of her “adult striding”, but now i am thinking maybe not so much 🙁
I have only done about 4 different sessions with her and have recently started a new thing.
I first started out by putting wings on the sides of the plank to encourage her to stay on it because she wanted to run off and around it all the time. I would then position myself in front of the board a good 8 feet holding a toy that she would then run to me while another person held her about 4 feet in front of the board. This worked at first and i slowly started to fade the wings and it got to the point of where she only needed the wings at the end of the plank. When we first started she ran nicely through the board, but they started to make leaps at the end. She would run to about 2 feet from the end of the plank and then go sailing off the board. I am not sure if i should be allowing that or if i should ask for her to run through it better?? I just felt like if i rewarded that even if it would be in the contact zone it would later create jumping higher and higher off an elevated plank.
Since that happened i tried one night of using a food target out in front and me holding her on the board and then she goes to the food target. Well, she still would jump plus isn’t highly food motivated as she is toy motivated so can i use a toy rather then treats? toy keeps her better engaged 🙂 But i am still getting that underlines problem of her taking a leap at the end of the plank. I also read some way earlier comments about using a wider,thinner and shorter board..could this help? right now i am using a 12 foot long 1.5 inch thick and 1 foot wide board…should i be using something else since she is having a a hard staying on without guides to help?
I have SOO many questions and this is a GREAT site love reading all the comments and situations…really helps!
let me know anything you think of from reading this..i am open to all options!
i don’t have a video right now, but can get one if that would help?
Thanks in advance!
Katie
Wings are o.k. if the dog doesn’t have a problem with it and runs full speed and relaxed despite them. Personally, I never use them, I just use a very wide plank. Another thing that can help even more is to use a long carpet and run the dog over it. Don’t make it short, long is good if you have enough room. The idea is to make her stop worrying about running on something and run normally instead. Once you get this, put a thin plank under the carpet and then you can start going up.
Ok thanks Silvia:) I will try that i as how it goes. I would personally like to get away from using the wings anyway so it is less that has to be faded in the long run. I watched videos of people at your seminars and i think that i need to use a wider board which will help a lot! also i am going to try throwing the toy she drives towards that with her head lower!
Thanks for the help..i am sure i will be back for more 🙂
Hi Silvia,
Delta has progressed quite nicely. I think I went slower than I could have but still she mostly looks good. I did have a scare a week or two ago she started leaping, 5-6 times in a row, we stopped and came back later and had the same result, lots of leaps. Started the next day and things went well again.
I was at the stage of jackpotting just low hits. Looking back, I wonder if I was inadvertently rewarding jumps from the very end of the plank. Sometimes she will put two front feet into the yellowand the back feet land close together at the very end of the plank. I think I would have missed calling those jumps.
Yesterday we did 23 attempts the first 2 were jumps. Then 5 that had 1 front foot in yellow and the two back feet also in yellow, but together or split. Last were 16 attempts where the two front feet strode through. Sometimes rear feet in yellow after the front feet and sometimes rear feet land on the ground after the plank.
I have been counting all with tw front feet into the yellow as good. Should I? They are hard to see in real time.
Here is a video with a sample of the different hits in slow motion. What do you think? p.s. she is still easily under height.
Interesting, she seems to have a preference to do it with front feet, were you selecting for that? It’s true that her hind feet are then often closer together as they are when she is putting them on the ground already. Try jackpotting when they’re further apart, but then, she should be fine even with the style she has now, it looks somewhat as Bu. With Bu, I didn’t yet pay attention to separation of hind feet and she rarely separates them as well as Bi or Le and often looks exactly like Delta and yet, she is always in, so I guess -- don’t fix what isn’t broken 🙂
Thanks, I may have selected for front feet accidentally by jackpotting when 3-4 feet went in the yellow, thinking that she was running through better on those attempts. She doesn’t do it the same way each time. But does tend to do the same thing several times in a row.
She is at the same angle as a full dogwalk now. She still jumps a bit 5%-10%. I have a dogwalk, should I start using it now so she has a full run or stick with the plank which has the same starting point each time?
Begin turns or not yet?
Or maybe not change anything until her jump precentages come back down below 5%? Thanks for your help.
Gary
Yes, I would for sure start using a normal dog-walk now. Put her in her normal starting position first and then move her further and further back until she does full dog-walk. For some time, I would then do only straight exits on a dog-walk, but at the same time, you can start with turns on the plank, so that it’s not too confusing, and once both is good, put both on a normal dog-walk. Front feet are very good start for turns, but as I said before, many dogs who started off with front feet switched to hind feet eventually (for straight exits), they find it more comfortable.
Ok Thanks so much!
Gary
Hey Silvia i posted a video of AMP’s dogwalk plank.
I have moved to a 7 foot board that is about 2 feet wide and 1/2 inch thick. I am right now just asking her to run across it with no foot work criteria. Rewarded everything in the posted video.
I am having someone restrain AMP about 2 feet in front of the board, while i am at the opposite end standing parallel at the end of it and then i release her and throw a toy about 7 feet out in front as she is running across the board. From watching the video i feel that her first and fourth hits are the best.
If you could let me know what you think that would be great!
Thanks
Katie
I don’t like the third try, her hind legs are not separated. For now, forget about the placement and focus on a form. Also, try starting her further back. And, is she slipping a little? Sanding the plank would be a good idea.
Hi Silvia,
I have a 35″ dogwalk that I’ve used to practice my Boston terrier, Stormy’s running contacts. They are pretty solid, very rarely will she miss her contact or not stride through it like I would like, but I’m worried that once I make my dogwalk full height (I built it, its not adjustable) that she will be missing her contacts? Or do you think she will take her knowledge and apply it to the 55″ dogwalk?
Also, how do you feel about stride regulators?
Hard to say, probably it won’t be a problem, but I would for sure try to put it up to final height in two steps instead of in one. I never worked with stride regulators, I don’t think running dog-walk can be trained that way -- but it might work for A-frame.
Here is a better video from Yous contacts. I think that they are look okay like this 🙂
Very good! 🙂
Thank you very much! Is the speed okay or would you say that he could be a bit faster? 😀
It’s o.k. 🙂
Thanks for the response Silvia to AMP’s earlier video!
I as well didn’t like that one either. I have started to just focus on her running across and not taking a leap at the end. Mainly focus on the toy ahead.
one question though…
If she does preform one like the 3rd in the previous video should i not tug with her? or how should i let her know it wasn’t correct?
In this video i started her further back and it seemed to help more 🙂 I didn’t have time to sand the plank, but will be getting that done.
let me know if you see anything in this video that should be changed..i think her last three were what i should be looking for..right?
Thanks
For first two, I would just take the toy, no tugging, the other are o.k., but looking at her movement, I would say you throw a toy too close to the end. How far do you throw a toy?
Hi Silvia,
I have an almost 1 year old BC that has a gorgeous running dogwalk (at least I think she does), thanks to your method. I am really thrilled with how well she is doing on that front.
I do have a question about the a-frame, though. I just started the AF a couple weeks ago and she was doing really well on it as well (had missed maybe 1 total), but in this training session she missed about 3/4 of the AFs and I am now concerned about how she is running it. On a side note, she was not completely confident with the AF, in part because there was a chute just off the AF, which she worries about. Here is the video…
My concern is that she is only doing one hit on the down side, but it seems to be what is most comfortable for her. If I ask her to turn, she will hit twice on the down side. If we’re going straight and she adds a stride, she is at the VERY bottom of the contact, and it does not look comfortable for her.
Today at my facility, she had awesome AFs again, and didn’t miss any. Most were 1 hit, but there were a few 2 hits as well.
So do you think I should just leave it and let her work everything out on her own or should I lower the AF and rework it?
Thanks in advance,
Kristin and Tag
Nice, very nice dog-walk!!! Is that a correct angle of an A-frame? It looks steeper as FCI A-frame and I thought in US, A-frames are the same angle or lower, not higher as FCI? I think she would be fine on FCI height. If she needs to do this height, I would for now leave as it is and give her some more time and then see the trend: leave it if it’s getting better, try to get two strides if it gets worse. Normally, I let them decide on number of strides, Bi also mostly does one, only with difficult approaches or exits she does two. It’s perfectly o.k. if the dog has naturally such a long stride.
I didn’t think about the A-frame height, but it does look higher than normal. I’ll have to keep a closer eye on it in the future.
I’ll keep at it and see how she progresses.
Thanks so much for the help.
Kristin and Tag