Let me tell ya what I want - what I really, really want...is yellow!

Over the last little while, I have been working on a 4otf in practice with Cheetah. It has been fairly successful and has been very successful for several students dogs. The problem really lies with the simple fact that there is only 1 criteria that I care about. I don't care if you stop 2o/2o, 4otf, 1rto, or belly slide through I WANT YELLOW!! After pondering this sad fact of my psyche, combined with the added admission that I am a adrenaline junkie and that only leads to one conclusion....you guessed it. I must figure out how to get a running dw/aframe on cheetah and NOT get it on the teeter. So here we go - running contacts take 4,563 ( actually I guess its only 4 or 5)

Poor Cheetah, she's going "what are we doing with wood today you psycho-path?" Luckily, she is game for whatever as long as there is a cookie involved. At last weekends trial, (see video)

She missed 2 dogwalks and it was rubberized. I really liked it and I needed one that I could lower and use flat on the ground if I was going attempt to train running contacts from the Dogwalk perspective. Up until now, I'd only looked at the aframe and that was not real successful. So with the fact that my current dogwalk was homemade on saw horses and couldn't be lowered and was getting unstable to the point that I held my breath when she got on it ( many months ago when there was no snow on the ground) I decided to take the considerable plunge and buy the dogwalk.

I stored most of it in the shed until we have a spring thaw, but I took one plank down in the basement and for the last week, I have been doing Silvia trkman's method with her. I only have 26 feet across, so it is not really enough room to "run" off of it but it is at least giving her the idea. I am using the clicker and feeding mostly from my hand, although I have put her food bowl down when we were on the last rep and she did go to it- if I said "get it" as she was going across the board. Last summer I had played briefly with a plank on the ground and her food bowl, but it made her stop in a 2o/2o - even though it was 20 feet away. Now, she is doing better with that. I just did 12 reps and recorded them finally, so I will get them up asap.

Four on the Floor...Fix!??!?

As you know, I have been trying out a variety of contact methods in an attempt to come up with a behavior that we both can live with. recently, after I was practicing her 2o/2o behavior at home. I worked her for her dinner, running her over about 10 a-frames and teeters. Later that evening, she came up lame, seeming to favor her left front. So I rested her completely for 48 hours (that was fun) then I brought her to class and just did one run, with no contacts at 16 inches, just to have other people look at her. They thought she looked ok, but I wanted to take it easy with her anyway. That was a wed. class, and I teach on thurs. I usually bring her and work her some after class or use her to demo something, but I didn't want to be tempted to do anything so I didn't even bring her.

Friday we left for a trail, so I didn't do anything with her then. Sat. I ran her and she seemed to move ok, although she jumped her A-frame (so all of that 2o/2o didn't help anyway). I got her massaged afterwards and she said that she was definitely sore, but ok to run tomorrow, and to ice her tonight and give her some rimadyl, and to get a second massage tomorrow. I ran her the next day she seemed fine. She said that she felt some better, but to ice again for a day or two and take it easy with her for a few days. (See Mattiponi Trial)



All of this got me thinking....I already know that if I try to teach her a running a-frame that she looses her mind in the ring. I also know that trying to force a 2o/2o in practice can make her sore, and it still doesn't translate to what I want in the ring. So....am I supposed to not train the a-frame at all?? doesn't seem to be practical.

Then I thought, well I haven't tried 4 on the floor yet, why not?

So I found an old clean run that had an article about training the 4 on the floor (4otf) method, and I read over the steps.

1. I started with a towel on the floor and shaped a down on it.
2. I started calling it "spot"
3. I practiced that for about 4 days then
4. I put it out in front of the bottom of the aframe.
5. I pulled it out about 2 feet from the aframe, because I didn't want her to try to jam her self into position and I didn't want her to leap onto it either. That seemed to be a good compromise.
6. I did some hop -ups with it, saying "spot" and she would usually stop in a 2o/2o, then I would say yes - "spot". She would then go into a down on the towel. I would say yes again to release from that.

Sometimes, she would go down all the way to a down the first time. I just said yes and released. I didn't want to stress her with trying to break the 2o/2o again. I'd done it 3x already.

In class, when I put the towel down, she does a 2o/2o. I started out saying yes and spot again, but somewhere along the way, I just started releasing her to the next obstacle (probably, because I didn't like making it seem like she was doing something wrong).

The next weekend we had our first trial with my new "spot" command. Sat, she did a great run thru, the contact, which I am perfectly happy with ( although I was apparently so happy that I forgot the course. Sunday's was a little jumpy, but it is still a work in progress ( see Cocker Club Trial)



The next trial, was Morgantown, she did really good a-frames there to. I was even able to front cross at the end of the frame. both were really nice run thru the contacts. ( see morgantown trial)



The third trial was Oriole - Aka the kitty litter trial. I did 2 really nice front crosses,and a run straight off, which was a little high. We had 2QQ's that weekend and were 3 for 3 in standard.. that hasn't happened in a while! ( see Oriole Trial)




It should be noted that I also was saying "wait" for the teeter for these last three trials, and they were MUCH better Teeters too!

In class she is still stopping 2o/2o in front of her towel on the word "spot".
It should also be noted that her 2o/2o never had a target or touch word associated with it.

Will this hold up, time will only tell, but I am very pleased with these early results.

Do I need to actually make her stop in the "spot" position in practice or competition? I do not know. Is it a fix....I sure hope so!


Wish me luck and I will keep you posted

Cheetah's contact grid work 12-21-08

Yesterday, I worked Cheetah on the grid from Rachel Sander's box method for running contacts. I had toyed with the method over the summer, but I didn't have the DVD then of course, so I was missing many of the steps. I am trying to be a good girl and go through the process, step by step. I shaped the box already, and worked on just having her jump in and out. I added the cue and I did the test that she recomended were you are out of alignment with the box and in line with the dog. She passed that test easily. I am now working on the jump grid work, and starting to add movement. I have had some days that I thought she was doing better than she did in this video, but I hadn't had the camera out ( bad dog trainer) so I guess I don't have any proof.

If you see anything that I am doing wrong or not doing right, please let me know.

I will be posting more on this soon!