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 🙂 ) |
No one has harassed you yet about turns so I’m hoping I can bother you now! Vito does his DW contact with his hind feet and you had mentioned the need to focus on front feet to get tight turns. Well I apparently taught him to focus on the ground as Vito learned to stretch to land just where the plank met the floor to turn very tight. I didn’t really realize what I was rewarding and then started to freak out that he would miss the contact by doing turns this way. He maintained this “old criteria” whether the plank was lowered or at full height.
So then I retaught him to collect a bit more on the plank so that he would get a front foot in the yellow. We haven’t yet done it at full height and am just doing the down plank, but I was happy with it. Mainly we’ve worked on moving the jump further and further back and have done just a few 180 degree turns.
But now he has started just hitting with one front foot so I am wondering if the way he is striding will be maintainable when we start doing the full dw and at full height.
Was our “old” way of striding and reaching for the ground bad? Is his new way of doing ok and we just need more practice to get rid of the awkward one paw hits? Can you help me stop obsessing?!!!
PS: Lance the corgi is doing great, we’re at 80% full height and I know we’ll never have to work on tight turns with him 🙂
Yes, the old way was bad, that was Bu’s original idea on how to turn tight too, but then I insisted on front leg(s) and it looks good now. She often does it with one front leg only, but I don’t mind, it’s o.k., stop obsessing 🙂 Happy to hear about Lance too!
With the help of our instructor here in Maine USA last summer I was training my then 14 mo old ESS for running contacts. However, we had a couple problems…Bella just wasn’t getting the idea of “running” and also had a very “playful” jump on the end of the plank. No matter what we did…wider plank, lowering height, running with her, etc the jumping just wouldn’t go away. So I stopped the RC work and went to a “4 on the floor”…that trained quickly but could tell she really wasn’t enthusiastic about having to drop after the DW. It got us thru 3 trials earlier this winter…but I really think she’d love the RC. So I worked with her on just “running” in the fields & trails in the woods….and wow, does she love to run! Don’t think speed will be a problem with her anymore!!
So after a couple months off all Contacts, I started her running on just a strip of carpet I put on the garage floor….no leaping and she was running. So I added in one of the DW planks. Although she doesn’t have that “playful jump”she had when we worked with RCs last year, about half the time in our first session with the plank she does have like a “long strided leap” a lot of the time …her hind legs are separated and seems to be more in extension so this why I say it’s not a jump. I really didn’t pay attentioin to the contact zone as this was only the first time back on the plank.
Here is a video of this first session with the DW plank…What do you think? Will the long strided leaps go away with repetition & jackpotting the non-leap passes? Or should I try starting her back further? Or maybe would it be better to use a small board and shape her to go to the end of the board and then build up with that shaping to get her back to the full DW plank?
My favourite from all the tries is at 0:08, she runs BEAUTIFULLY there! Definitely something to jackpot! And yes, I know, she is not on the plank, but hey, it’s not her problem if you don’t have an appropriate plank, she sure is doing great on that try. Your plank is not good for a start, you need a wider plank so that she can run full speed and as nicely as she does on that try also on the plank. Get a plank somewhere between your plank and your carpet in width and use that one until the plank is so much off the ground already that it will make sense to her to stay on even if you use this one. This one is o.k. for more advanced steps, but the start will be MUCH easier with a wider board.
The general truth is that if the dog is leaping on a flat plank then either he doesn’t run fast enough OR the plank is not good. There is not much more in that first step as running full speed without even really noticing the board 🙂 Once you have that, it’s time to put it a little higher. Have fun!
We will start working with a different (wider) plank…Thank you very much Silvia 🙂
We’ve switched the DW plank out for a wider plank (18″W x 8’L x 1″Thick). Did some shaping work with the ends of the plank, then just running and progressed with plank elevation to 6″ & 8″ today. Definitely seems to be going much better…trying to jackpot the deepest hits but after watching the videos I see we’re still having a few high hits…which usually result in Bella’s long stride taking her all the way off the plank. I am a little restricted with room working inside the barn…another few weeks and we can hopefully get outside. What do you think now, are we going in the right direction?
Thank you in advance, Nancy & Bella
Great!!! But yes, now you do need a longer plank again 🙂 Maybe switch back to your previous plank and put it at that angle (meaning somewhat higher as this one, as the other one is longer)?
Got it!! Thanks Silvia…really appreciate your help!
This is our most recent session. Intially we were getting some jumps and some very high hits. We added a jump bump at the beginning and then had some better hits but even though I don’t feel she was jumping we got very little rear leg separation. What do you think?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=user/agiityaddict?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/jJ_ihc3om-I
Thanks so much!
Wendy
She moves very strangely… She is changing lengths and heights of strides all the time. Do you have a slow motion video of her running full speed with no plank involved?
Yes, it is a bit weird. I think she is trying to hard to adjust her stride to hit yeloow since I have stopped rewarding jumps. Here is our latest session. I am not seeing any improvement and not sure how to progress. I so wanted a working spot in your WC long distance class but somehow missed it!
When does the next session start?
Thanks
Wendy
I didn’t watch it all, but it does look somewhat less weird 🙂 However, I would probably run her a little bit over just a long carpet to “reset” her and then start from zero, without “hitting the yellow” obsession, focusing on how she is running instead and jackpotting when she is by accident low on that plank. Is that a normal down ramp length?
Next RC class starts mid-August.
Dear Silvia,
here is a video of my six months old border collie, who is learning your running contacts.
httpv//
Could you please have a look at it and let me know, if you would have rewarded all tries? My favourite is the one called “JACKPOTT” and the last one with “Streber!” After my opinion only the first one is a small jump, but in all other videos her back legs are seperated -- in some tries better than in others, or what do you think?
Thank you very much in advance. Regards Simone
oh the video didn´t seem to be write -- here another try:
Regards, Simone
You should probabliy tape it from the side, it is impossible to see hindfeet seperation from the front. But he does seem to be running nice and fast…
I can’t see well from front angle, but it looks pretty good. Time for a longer plank!!!
No question this time, just happy to report that Ruby ran his first real dog walk (full-length, but only 1m in height) and hit the contact. His striding was… interesting 🙂 I think he was surprised by the speed because we didn’t backchain it and he wasn’t too happy to repeat it afterwards.
You can see it here at 0:52
Anyway, I’m happy, we’ll try it again once he’s more comfortable with this dog walk (and after we’ve done some backchaining of course 😉 ).
Cool, looks good! His striding looks perfectly good to me, if you can keep those two strides on down-plank, he will always be in.
Really Great Job!!! 🙂 Greetings from Czech
Thanks 🙂 We have since graduated to the full height dogwalk. You can see it here: rel="nofollow ugc">
Hmm… software ate my text again. Anyway IvanaR, I wanted to say thanks and that we now started to run the full height dogwalk (the video above).
Awesome! This just proves that any breed can have true running contacts no-matter the size of stride. I’ve seen some of your begining post on this website and I want to say congratulations for sticking with it. You’re an inspiration. 😀
See Andreja -- if a whippet can do it, any breed can do it 🙂 And yes, any breed can do it. I always laugh when people say it’s just for BCs as they naturally like to crawl. My BCs definitely crawl naturally in their normal life, but they definitely DO NOT crawl over contacts!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 Show me a crawling 1.2s dog-walk! 🙂
I still think it’s amazing that ANY dog can do a running dog walk 🙂 But there you go, it just shows what incredible learners they are…
Hm, I’m starting to doubt that it is for my dog, since it just doesnt
seem to work for Pepper.
Or maybe it’s just not for every handler 🙂 I try and try and nothing 🙁
Lp, Tanja
I know you like success stories and often only get the problems. Been trialing with little Spur lately and he has nailed every single contact!! Not many turns, yet, and still not super fast, but he is looking more and more confident! As always, thank you SO much for all your help! He looks well on his way I think! He should only get faster as he gets more experience on different dog walks!
Hello Silvia, is there some maximum height of dog for this method? Is it possible to have good results with 60cm height dog (collie smooth)? Thank you very much for your reply.
Nope, no maximum height 🙂 It’s doesn’t depend on height at all, but on length of the stride -- Bi for example is 51cm and can do a dog-walk in three strides… -- I prefer 4 though 🙂 But no, I didn’t notice that shorter striding dogs would be easier to train running contacts as long striding dogs at all. And I have a VERY long strided one 🙂
Thanks Silvia, I like how running Andreja and Rubby very much 😀 They are my Big ideal 😉
This is Acua first dogwalk/seasaw after your seminar. We did not train seasaw at all we just did your tricks ideas, and look how she is searching for the “push down” she look pretty happy I think. And out of 4 dogwalks she only missed one, the one with a turn… so that’s our next project 😉 and obviously getting confident with those scary BIG doubles and triples LOL
That’s a really great progress! The contacts look good, but now you need to start RUNNING. 🙂
Hi Silvia,
OK a basic question that I never thought of before I actually started with teaching this. When you first start to use the plank on the ground, are you using your eventual command for the dogwalk, or something else like “run”?
I say ajde-ajde -- my “run fast!” cue 🙂
Hi Silvia!!
I absolutely LOVE your training and you’re a HUGE inspiration to me! I love your running contacts method and I am currently using it for my ACD mix, Tarra. At first, I moved way too fast and she had low success rates, so I lowered the plank and I’m getting AMAZING results! I attached out latest Running Contact Session! rel="nofollow ugc">
What do you think? Thanks so much!!! 🙂
Nice! 🙂