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!
 Last call for May classes! You can still join us in Tricks/Puppy class – or Running Contacts Repeaters class!!! |
 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!
Just want share today´s training session. We were able to train outside for the first time in this year and it went so well! 😀
Great!!! Beautiful hits with beautiful separation! Great job!
Hi Silvia!
I trained my girl, Tag, with your method and I love, love, love her DW! Her A frame, however, leaves something to be desired. She really wants to hit only once on the down side, and usually barely hits it on a straight exit, but not if there is a turn. I have tried to train 2 hits on the down side, but have ended up with an awkward mess in trials and training.
Here is the video of our most recent trial and a couple training sessions:
And another video of a recent trial with a higher A frame (her hits are higher overall on the higher height). This video also includes her DW, though, for which I would like to thank you very much!
Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks so much,
Kristin
Did you try to lower the AF and limit her speed on the approach and try to select for more separation? She mostly hits nicely when separation is good, but often, there is no reach and separation, so I would try to get a better, more running style (rather as particular number of hits). With Le, it also helped to add her “go go” cue from DW, to remind her we want separation on AF too.
Beautiful DW!!!
Hey Silvia! Can I ask a question about Kristin’s question?:) Can you remind me why we DON’T want a single hit on the down side of the A frame? I tried looking back through all my stuff from Running Contacts and can’t find that particular section!!!!!
Oh, we have nothing against one hit hits, that’s why I wrote to focus on more running style rather as number of hits. I don’t care how many hits there are, as long as the dog is nicely in and has nice separation and reach. The problem here is not a number of hits, but bad style.
THANKS! Got it!!!!!
Hello!
First off I’d like to thank you for your wonderful RC DVD! It has been extremely informative and helpful and I LOVE watching all those dogs running their contacts 😀
Secondly, I’ve been working with my 2o2o re-train girl since about early-mid January. We’ve actually been training RCs for longer than that but eventually took a training break and restarted from the flatwork stages after I finished building my adjustable dogwalk. My girl is very prone to hitting with front feet and will make quite large adjustments in her striding jut so that she’ll hit the contact with front feet. So I put carpet on the down-ramp and after it so that she will focus on running normal rather than trying to hit with front feet only. Now we are getting normal running and due to finding a good starting set-up/distance we have managed to get to 18 inches on a lowered dogwalk with at least 50% rear feet hits before moving up in height each time. However, for some reason we are stuck at 18 inches and are getting a wider variety of striding and are having a much more difficult time getting consistent rear feet hits. The problem I am having is that my girl seems completely oblivious as to why the value of her rewards change and does not seem to be associating the rewards with where she is hitting (we are still using carpet). At this point she is still completely reliant on her starting set-up and how she boards the planks and seems to think she is getting rewarded for either simply running over the board (not stopping in 2o2o) OR for bringing back the ball. She is not offering any stride adjustments and I believe that’s because she does not realize that she is getting rewarded for where she is hitting and now that we are at 18″ and are getting more stride variety she is getting a lot of misses. She just isn’t catching onto why she gets rewards and JPs on some tries and not on others. Do you have any suggestions for helping her to realize her striding and/or the association between it and her rewards?
Thanks so much! On a bright note, my other younger girl (not a re-train) is flying through the process since we added carpet and we’ve actually begun training less and less since she is perfecting 18 inches but we do not want to move up in height until my re-train is ready.
Thanks again!
Well, at this stage, I don’t really expect them to be adjusting to hit already… At this stage, I just let them figure out what the clicks are for and build a long history of nice hits. Understanding clicker and good hind feet awareness definitely helps. Carpet just on contact sometimes helps to get their attention on a contact as well. Get That Contact game can help too, but they’re usually not ready for “difficult starting spots” just yet. But mostly, I would try to figure out from videos what was her striding before and now and then try to find a starting spot for this height (probably a bit farther) that would give you more hits.
Okay, thanks so much for clearing that up for me. My other girl has started adjusting her stride in order to make nice hits each time so I guess I just assumed my re-train wasn’t figuring it out. Good to know it’s normal at this stage in the training. I’ll analyze some older video to adjust her starting distance and try moving her carpet. Thanks so much!
Yes, some get it very fast -- but most need some more time as that 🙂
Hi Silvia,
I have a 6 month old Aussie shepherd- my 2nd agility dog. We’ve been going crazy doing tricks and body awareness- she knows more tricks now (in their basic form anyway) than my 9 year old boy, and loves to learn.
I was thinking I’d go ahead and buy your RC DVD today (let’s not tell my husband, he doesn’t want me spending any more money) as I’d like to start playing on a flat plank. As I’m in Australia, nobody here does RC- everybody’s a little afraid of it I think, but I think it’ll be much more fun, and my pup will enjoy it more.
In fact I went to the local dog training club today, and I was told that if I want to do agility there, when they teach contacts, my dog MUST do the whole dog walk, then do 3 nose-touches to the ground at the end. To me it seems crazy that there’s no choice! I wouldn’t want to confuse her either by teaching their weird 3-nose-bob only to pass the assessment when really I want her running. Anyway, expect to see some videos from us soon (and also hopefully joining your long distance class -- is the next one in May??)
Very weird they don’t let people choose yes.. But if you have enough room to work on it at home, you can just go for it anyway 🙂 -- I’m sure your Aussie will love it! And yes, next RC class starts in May.
Yes! Very weird! I don’t have enough room at home really, so we’re thinking of getting the planks and tying them to the roof of the car and driving them to an oval/field nearby. A lot of work really but there’s not a lot of choice. I thought I could leave the planks at my work (a school) because Lumen comes with me sometimes… but I don’t know how much they’d like a few 3.5meter planks lying around… 😉 It’ll be more of a problem when I need to start raising it higher and higher and then getting onto full-sized, but we’ll tackle it when we get to that! Now just to find the time to watch through the DVD!! Looking forward to joining the class!
Yeah, it’s harder when you can’t work on it at home, but well, when there is a will, there is a way 🙂 -- My first three dogs were all trained when I still lived in a flat…
Thought I’d show you where Sammy is with his running contacts training -been working on the first steps. Have your DVD -- love it!! Only watched it once but plan to watch it many more times. And plan to join RC class in May.
Alicia with Spy made us some RC Socks and they are really great for being able to see feet placement!!
I’m planning to remove the carpet and start running him over the dogwalk plank in our next session…
Cool, running really nicely! Definitely getting there!
🙂 Thank You!
Sammy is now running really nicely on a single DW plank but we are not getting nice RF touches. Do I continue looking for the right starting point to get good RF or do I need to look at putting the 2nd plank in or even all 3 lengths of my DW (all flat of course). I have had some adjustable stands made for my DW and these are just about ready for use -- they will be able to go from just about flat to full height.
Ps: This RC thing is quite addictive and we are having SO much fun training this!!! 🙂
Looks good! 1ff1rf hits are actually great as well! But yes, you can simply go to all 3 pieces next and if that goes well, start raising it.
Thank you, Slivia. Your responses are always so speedy and helpful. Can’t wait to try out all 3 pieces in the morning! 🙂
Hi Silvia, could You give me an advice? This si second session with astro in 80cm A-Frame hight, most of The time even if I restrain His speed he si flying over The Apex and doing just one hit at The down ramp, what should I do? How do You see him?
Thanks
Since he is mostly hitting and with nice separation, I would just continue like this, but maybe switch to a static toy, that might work better at this stage.
Hi Silvia,
I have a quick question: do you use different cues for A-frame and dogwalk? 🙂
Yes.
Thanks! 🙂
Hi Silvia
Thought I’d show you how Sammy is doing with a full length flat dogwalk. I’m very chuffed that we seem to have found a good setup to get good hits. SO looking forward to May when the next RC class starts 🙂
Cool! A couple of more sessions and if a good trend continues, you can raise it some. Give big JPs if you get more separation, I think he could have even more separation.
Thank you! Will look out for better separation.
🙂
Hi Silvia, Today was our first session with a raised DogWalk -- 5cm high! 🙂
I think the separation has improved? And we are getting some nice hits?
Would you agree? With my captions I put in what actually happened and 🙂 if that’s what I saw or what I saw and either :- or 🙁 depending on how close I was. I re-watched the beginning of your DVD and am very excited as I think we are nicely on track but also can’t believe it so hope you don’t mind me posting again!? Just want to be sure I’m headed in the right direction. I don’t think May RC class can come quick enough! 🙂
Looks great! Definitely on the right track 🙂 You can raise it by 15cm or so at the time 🙂
Thank you! Thank you!! Am SO excited! 🙂 🙂
Hi Silvia,
We are stuck!! My planks were not properly secured (smack me!!) and so he started leaping soon after this 1st session. We went right back to get good running again. Which we now have and are back on the 5cm high full DW. But I can’t seem to get any consistency with hits. I think he is running nicely but the hitting is very erratic from 1 session to the next. We’ll have a really good session one day and then suddenly have a session with almost all misses. Today’s session is probably what we are getting most of the time, with the occasional day of really good hits and then another day of almost no hits.
I’m really not sure what to do??
So he is hitting consistently when it’s on the ground, but not when you raise it to 5cm??? That’s very weird… Anyway, the 1st thing to try is definitely finding another starting spot. How is he doing with speedy approaches?
It is weird as it changed after the set back with unsecured planks! So this set up was giving me great hits both on the flat and @ 5cm height. Alicia has been saying I should try speedier approach but I have only done a few attempts that weren’t very successful. I even tried with a tunnel before the approach but that didn’t work. I’ll give it a really good go in the next couple of days varying my start set up and trying more with speedy approach.
Thank you so much for your input!