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 🙂 ) |
I am really struggling with the contacts. My BC doesn’t always run with hind end separation even on the ground. I have had a few people watch and they find it difficult to see the separation. So we have taken to looking for a leap or hop by watching the front end. You can so hear him on the board when he runs, it has a barreling sound, when he does that all 4 feet hit. The problem is he is not consistent at all. I think I do not have enough drive towards object. He doesn’t care much for food and doesn’t care much to go for a stationary object. If I throw a ball he leaps a lot, can’t seem to get past 60% with board on the ground. He also won’t keep the running when I do start to get some consistency when I move with him. I have the yellow part of board backwards so he doesn’t think the yellow is something to jump over and that helps.
We are pretty much retraining because I never finished or pointed the contact out to him in the 1st place. I had tried a touch board (Canova method) but never got to place it on the contact, I think with poor timing and coincidence he learned that he needed to curl back to touch board, by passed it completely when I added my motion and then curled back to touch it?? He will run an entire DW with speed and then hop the end when I put a hoop at the end he was forced to go long and low and hits contact but a soon as the hoop is gone he goes back to leaping or jumping. He has been able to do contacts this way for 4 years because of health issues the training was never completed but I still played with him on equipment. I know that this is my fault and am trying to rectify the situation but I am at a loss. I can’t seem to get him to RUN on the ground consistently. If he has too many wrongs and no reward he quits or slows way down, which then he may get a hit but I don’t want him to think I want slow. Please help, I feel like such a failure.
Huh, sounds like you sure confused him completely by all those methods… I think you never got real running, I got suspicious as soon as you said you were getting 4 feet hits. It’s impossible to fit 4 feet in that small area for a BC running full speed: they cover MUCH more area as that -- see some of my RC videos. You need to go all way back and focus on running (no plank) first, then try carpet, then plywood etc. I would strongly recommend RC class that just started as I think you’re looking for the wrong things and RC class will give you a much better idea on what to work towards.
What kind of health issues did he have?
I’m asking because I never got real RDW with my PRT because I also couldn’t see his hind feet seperation. I did the same as you and showed his running to a few people who also could’t see it. And when he’s chaseing a ball he sure is running full speed, so hind feet seperation should be there.
I think he has some knee or hip problems with his right leg, becasue I’m notecing he is not using it the same as the left, sometimes he’s not using it at all. It became even more aparent when I saw the way my boyfrends rottweiler chases a ball who has realy bad hips.
I took him to the vet but the check up didin’t show anything so I taking him to to x-rays to see what’s up.
So if your dog had problems with his legs that might prevnt him to run like all other healthy dogs are.
Hi Silvia,
Here is Beatrice. She started your RC class in April 2011. We started working on her turns about 2 months ago. Here is where we are right now with our turns. Up untill just a week or so ago the 45 degree exits eluded us and usually resulted in a leap. The 180 degree turns are a little odd right now. If I practice them more than once she gets careful, but if I just do one, she is pretty quick.
I am interested in what you think about our progress.
Very cool to see Beatrice again! And well, I always prefer them somewhat deeper in, just to be sure they’re really in also in a trial situation… But as she seems really consistently in, even if somewhat high, that might not be an issue? Have you done any more trials, how is she now there? Slowing down when you do many turns is not unusual, I simply avoid it by not training turns too much once they’re fine with it. I will still do a turn here and there of course, but will do straight exits most of the time. Is she 100% now with straight exits? And what a great cik&cap!!! 🙂
Hi Silvia,
Yes, she is nearly 100% with her straight exits ( can’t remember a missed straight exit, but I am cautious to say 100%) and her straight exits get much deeper and more confident if I leave off training turns for a few days and then just do a straight session. Well I am very reassured to get your feedback.
She had one more trial since the first one (about 2 months ago) and did very well. One missed dogwalk in a straight ahead exit to the tunnel, but barely missed and such an amazingly fast and happy performance. She has moved up a level and will have her next trial indoors on mats this week. Then our trialling schedule will pick up. I held off on doing much trialling while I was training turns, and I’m glad I did. I was glad you had warned me ahead of time about how everything would deteriorate for awhile. It did.
I’ll send you a compilation of our contact performances from our next few trials.
Thanks again!
Heidi
Great, happy to hear her straight exits are going so well! Try to always do some sessions on just straight exits before a trial! -- Mats can be harder as the ground speed is somewhat lower, so try to run extra hard for that DW! 🙂 Good luck!
Yay, Heidi! SO much fun watching you and Beatrice. I am a HUGE fan and so very glad you checked in! She looks great!!! Congrats!!! Yes, I agree that things sure do just get better and better. My Little Spur is getting deeper hits all the time now with no training, it seems. 😀
Great job with such a beautiful dog!!!
Cheers! Amy
thanks, Amy! Right now I am only doing a couple of straight exit Dogwalks per session and only a couple of sessions a week to try to get back to the deep hits and confident runs she was doing before we got to turn training. Then my next two projects are to go back to the “tour of dogwalks” and to start verbals for turning away. I heard someone (maybe in CR magazine?) Say that she had at least 6 different reliable verbals for various exits off the RC. This really has me worried. But I guess I will just work on one little piece at a time, because worrying doesn’t get dogs trained.
sorry I did not mean to post 2 of the same video
My turn to report in! 😀 I know you can’t see the contact in this video, but I promise it was nice and deep both DW’s!! What I am very happy to report is that this is sort of into nothing, for him. Yes, there is a wingless jump ahead, but this is the sort of “nothing” that has been hard for Spur. He tends to open up more. And in this session he adjusted as needed. 😀 The first one he comes with more speed and does a 2, 2, 3 hit pattern and on the second one he does his typical 2, 3, 3 hit. Both times he was nicely in! He has been managing to get deeper and deeper all by himself I am very happy to say! We are really not training it at all these days, just running it in classes.
I also put in a couple of his a-frames, which also seem to be just fine so have left those alone.
Yeap, that’s the major beauty of RC: they just get better&better on their own 🙂 And unlike 2on2off, you can’t ruin them! Very cool, Spur is sure running!
Hey Silvia,
My dog Tarra was at 3.5′ feet getting perfect hits. She had a little scare when the board shifted underneath her because my other dog got on the board. She’s very motion sensitive so this definitely spooked her. Now she’s not as confident on the board and I think that is causing her jumping. :/
I worked with her on just being allowed to walk up the board and getting a food reward, and having her run down, and she’s still jumping.
I feel like this is more a confidence issue, but I’m really not sure, do you have any advice?
I attached a video to show Tarra’s jumping and it is shown at 0.25x speed.
Thank You SO much, any help is really appreciated! 😉
She is not jumping, but she is not in full extension either, mostly because she can’t be if you start her right at the beginning of a down ramp? You need better starting speed, so move her further back. I would lower it down significantly to help with her confidence and start running the whole thing.
Thank You, I will try that! 😉
Hey Silvia!
We tried what you said, and so far I’m happy with her progress!
We’re at 44″ and I’ve been working alot with her on confidence. She’s still a little slower going up the DW but her increase in speed on the down ramp is what I want right now, since she has a much better starting speed now. Thanks for such a great idea!
Here’s a vid of today’s DWs. The first few aren’t perfect, but the last 2 are good! Please let me know what you think of them! 🙂
Thanks again!
Looks great! Great job!
Hi Silvia, I’m training RCs with my ‘puppy’ after having trained successful RCs with my semi-retired dog. But we’re stuck in a rut. There was a bit of struggle initially on a flat plank, just because he was a bouncy puppy. But once he started running to the end more we eventually moved up, and all those steps went great, and we kept moving up. But now that we’re at full height he’s almost constantly jumping, and it’s not just a matter of missing the contact, he’s jumping as soon as halfway down the plank. (HA! to anyone that said small dogs have natural contacts) I don’t really know what to do with him! Any suggestion you may have would be superb. Thanks!
Huh, that’s not enough info to be able to help… Maybe you weren’t training with full speed right from the start? Or maybe you didn’t challenge his understanding enough and he was just hitting out of luck, not because of the understanding?
Oh, it’s definitely not a speed issue. He’s very enthusiastic about contact equipment, it’s just faster for him to jump at full height.
It’s not. Accelerating downhill is faster as flying -- if you don’t have wings, you can’t accelerate in the air 🙂 -- you’re just decelerating in the air 🙂 I still think you didn’t get the understanding as small dogs can often hit out of luck, not understanding, or you didn’t train with full speed and he added speed now and things fell apart. You might want to join the RC class to find out the possible holes in the training.
It is a shame we can’t work running contacts in the winter, too much snow outside and no proper setup at the indoor training hall.. But I spent all day today emptying our backyard from snow (it was up to my knee :)) and put up channel weaves so we have something to work on :D.
Anyway, I had an old question about Terras RC, or rather a general question about RC: Should the dog be able to get the contact no mather the distance he starts from? Terras contact looked really nice in the summer as long as he started from quite the distance away from the plank but if he started any closer he would bounce. Is that a problem?
I’m waiting anxiously for the snow to melt (and it’s only january :)) so I could go back to training, I have no idea if he remembers any of it, hopefully he does 😀
on a different note: Holly crab! Susan Garrett just offered her running contacts course, for 5 000 dollars :O. Of couse you also have to fly over to Canada for 2 workshops and it is only open for her recallers group, that’s just crazy! She promises brilliant RC in 3 weeks..
Just curious: how long did it take to train you last dogs running contacts?
Bi was the fastest to get RC -- after several sessions of just leaping, she switched to all running and I could get to the full height in 3 weeks -- but I didn’t, since I’m not in a hurry. I don’t care if things take me more as 5 min, 12 days or 3 weeks -- I LOVE spending time with my dogs -- that’s why I have them! Your info sounded too crazy to be true, but obviously, it is true afterall… Pretty crazy.
Anyway, at the beginning, I help them hit by using their favourite spot to get many nice hits. I then slowly start to challenge them by moving them off their preferred spot and see if I can get some adjustments -- but that’s only after I work on some height already and expect some understanding already. Wishing you a short winter!
She’s a good dog trainer but her marketing skills resemble those of a used car salesman. She’s turning a lot of people away with her greed. Pity. Lots of places to get some excellent running contact advice (like here for example) for a fraction of the cost.
On a different note, at what age do you usually start your RC training Silvia?
I love the process so much that I can’t help but start at about 6 months already, but make sure to not do too much, just two sessions per week for example as I don’t want to do too many repetitions of anything at this age. -- Not that I would think running over a carpet is harmful for puppies 🙂 but I always prefer to do everything in moderation.
Hi Silvia,
My Jack Russell has progressed onto a full height dogwalk and has been there for 2 weeks now, however has lost speed. We do not have access to a lowered dogwalk, so we can only train otherwise on a plank. If he runs the plank on full dogwalk height he goes full speed, but as soon as we go back to the whole dogwalk he slows to a canter. If I place him at the top of the down plank on the full height dogwalk he still canters. Please help!
So he runs the whole DW fast if you have additional plank at the end and he runs the whole thing slowly if you don’t have it there???
Hello again 🙂
Thank you for your suggestions and it does indeed appear that 1 of my girls was simply regulating her stride at the point where she would jump onto the plank and was therefor hitting perfectly each time but did not realize the criteria. I am now using another plank or table for her to start on and we will work from there.
Now, please correct me if I’m wrong, but is it correct that pretty much the only criteria I should be focusing on is that my girls should be running full speed on the ramp without any jumping, leaping, or skipping at the end? And that I should not be concerned with hitting in the contact zone because eventually there should come a point that the plank makes a noticable enough angle with the ground that the dog will choose to add an extra stride which should land them more consistently into the contact zone? And if that is correct so far, then at the point where they are adding the extra stride so that they are landing in the contact zone I should simply start “jackpotting” the deeper hits?
As of so far I’ve worked up to 8″-10″ with 1 of my girls, but now that I’ve taken away the stride regulator (jumping onto the plank) we’ve lost that consistency of deep hits but she has still been very consistent about running the entire plank at full speed. While re-reading through your steps (again) I think I realized that I shouldn’t be concerned with where she is hitting as of yet so long as she is running full speed? At what height do you think most BC sized dogs start to add that extra stride or do you think I should already be seeing it at 8″-10″?
Thanks!
Oh, no, it’s not like this at all. I don’t know where your idea about an extra stride comes from, it’s far from definition of RC. You want full extension, not collection at the end! They need to learn to adjust in advance in order to hit and you of course need to select for hits only as soon as you get 100% running. How about January RC class to get a better picture of what to look for?
Okay, thanks so much 🙂 Wow, and I thought I was finally onto something. I’m glad I haven’t tried to train my girls with those thoughts before checking with you to see if they were correct first. And it took a little bit but I finally figured out where I got that idea from. The below quotes are from page 4 of a Running Contact article of yours:
“In initial phases of training, my only focus is that a dog runs full speed, with constant stride length, no prolonging of a stride at the end or making it higher or whatever. Later on, when you have more of an angle, dogs seem to choose to take a last stride from the middle of the contact on their own, I think it’s most comfortable to them”.…. “At this stage [flat plank on ground], it’s not fair to expect from a dog to see the difference between a plank and its end and the ground (that’s exactly the idea behind it all!), so I would click anything that is not jumping. Only later, when you have 100% of running and the plank is creating an angle with the ground, I start to pay attention to paw positioning too and jackpot the lowest and not reward the highest. Before an end of a plank creates an angle with the ground, it’s unrealistic to expect a dog to be able to know where the end is and what to do with it”.….
I understand now (I think), that what I took as meaning they’d develop an extra stride actually meant that they’d adjust their stride.
And thank you for suggesting the January RC class. I would LOVE to take it with one or both of my girls or at the least audit it, but unfortunately for financial reasons it would be unwise of me to do so until maybe your fall session. However, if I haven’t figured these contacts out by fall then I will sign up for that session, assuming I can manage it financially by then (this is not to say that your sessions are too expensive or anything along those lines, I’m just on a very tight budget otherwise I’d have already gotten a Manners Minder and 2 of your training videos as well). I do think that auditing or attending one of your sessions is a great idea since I am a very visual and hands-on sort of person and I’d expect that the personal feedback would be extremely informative and helpful 🙂
Thanks
Yes, you definitely want 100% of running first -- and then start jackpotting hits. But they need to be in full extension, with full hind feet separation and all. I changed the method quite a bit since I wrote that though, I also don’t use static food at all anymore, just a thrown toy… Happy training!
I am sure SG would not chose me and Spur for her “team”, as he would not get it in three weeks, even with HER help, no way. She will be chosing just the “perfect” five to do this, from what I hear. Spur was sure far from a dog SG would chose for her team, I promise that. He was so worried about everything, but I took it nice and slow and made it fun for him. Thank goodness we had the patience to have so much fun training it and now Spur loves all of agility. It took us a very long time, but I enjoyed every single minute and look at Spur now! He has won several classes lately and his competition is made up of several National Champions, three World Team contenders and many Invitational dogs. Training his RDW is the MOST fun thing we have ever done and I love every minute of it! How sad to want to learn something so fast and miss all that fun training your dog.
The time I spent with Spur training his running contacts is worth far more than $5000. It’s priceless.
Yes, I think what makes not-perfect agility dogs so great is that working through problems together creates a great bond and make us a great team! It certainly takes somewhat longer as 3 weeks 🙂 , but as this dog will compete for 10+ years, I can certainly take more as 3 weeks 🙂