so when you can't train one contact behavior...why not train 2?

I have been trying (again)to train Cheetah to do a nice running contact. I am working through Silvia Trkman's method (for the most part) and it was having sketchy results so far. I have been working on it since November...so about 5 mo. now. About a month ago, I was at a Silvia Trkman seminar and she thought it that it would just take more time since she was a retrain, and I wasn't stopping competition. The next weekend I was at a Bridget McKnight seminar and she was concerned with the lack of q'ing that we have had in the last few months basically just over contacts.

This has been complicated by the fact that we are just 1 QQ away from our MACH2. So needless to say, I am getting a little frustrated at this point. So Bridget suggested that I think about reverting back to a 2o/2o...not something I really wanted to do. But I thought I would see if I could get her to do one while we were at the seminar. So I took Cheetah inside, asked for a couple of hop-ups, and of course she nailed them. I put a target out and asked her to "touch" it. she offered several very nice nose touches. I repeated using the target over the whole aframe, saying "touch" as she came over the top. She stopped nicely and we had a little party.

When it was our turn to work outside on the course, I asked Bridget if she wanted to see her 2o/2o? She said sure...we ran the course ( targets out in place) she nailed them. So this was confirming to Bridget that if she had a 7yo dog that was doing so well on all other aspects of the course, except the contacts, she would probably go back to a 2o/2o. Hmmmm....I see the logic in that but I don't really want to. I agreed to think about it and we would talk later at a trial coming up the next weekend.

I started thinking about it and I just didn't want to throw away all of the running practice that I had been doing. Then I remembered a website I saw a while ago. It talked about training both! BOTH....that's it! I could work on the running in practice, throw in some stops, and use the stops at competitions until I liked the running better at home. That way I could take all the time I wanted to to train the running. Now to find that website. A youtube search eventually got me to the original site and other site of someone doing the same thing.

www.polona.agility-slo.net

and

http://www.fannygott.com


I started playing around with it. I didn't want to give up her "broken 2o/2o" movement by just doing 2o/2o stuff...plus I hate training it. So I decided that if I can teach her left and right and she can respond on the fly, then she CAN learn to respond to touch or run on the the fly too. I started by being very systematic with it, only going one way to stop and the other to go ( based on the same way I was sending her from the tunnel to run already) I also put my target out ahead of time to ask for the stop and her frisbee bowl behind the jump set up for the run.

I ask for walk-it for both, but then quickly followed by the words "run" or "touch". If I am asking for the run - I also encourage her by going go go go in a high pitched voice. BTW she Doesn't need that on the AF or else she gets a little too hyped.

this is a session from a couple of weeks ago, that shows you that she was already starting to get the distinction. I am now going in the the same direction and randomly asking for both, more runnings than stops (because they are more fun!). I think that this will actually translate to her listening better to the cue on course in competition more so than if she always assumed it would be a stop. I also think that her running is getting better ( hit wise) and I don't feel that she is slowing down or acting uncertain about anything. So I see this as a win win situation. I will work harder on the stops than I would normally. I also will be able to mark her for making the wrong choice better. I can definitively say to her that was NOT a touch vs well but she DID hit yellow?!?!






This is the next day - I thought it went better than the first.





I'll have to record another session this week and show you how we are progressing.

The light is getting brighter...

Today I did two more sessions with Cheetah's running dogwalk using the stride regulator just above the first all yellow slat. I taped the second one, and she has been 100% using the SR. Up until now the DW has been at 29", After today's success, I raised it up a link - bringing it to 30.5". Compared to yesterday's video, this session is much better because ( well first of all you can see it!) but also because she stopped jumping from the top and landing in the yellow ( although landing in yellow IS good, JUMPING from the top of the crossplank to get there probably is NOT! She seems to be settling into the striding better and getting a little deeper in the yellow. I think that as the height goes up, and the actual horizontal distance decreases slightly, that she will go a little deeper still. Thank you Rosanne for the tiny SR idea...it is coming in handy!

Here is the video from today's second session.

getting her to see the light.....hopefully!

After another frustrating session with her earlier today, I just couldn't see how I was going to show her what I wanted her to do across the whole DW. I even tried to show her a foot target, which she avoided like the plague! That made me think, maybe I should try a stride regulator. I put a little piece of pvc pipe just above the yellow. she like to avoid things, so she avoided it very nicely. This video is really dark...that's what happens when you have a break through late in the day in Jan. I will again tomorrow in the day light!

frustrating sessions :(

On the 6th and the 7th, I had a couple of DW sessions with Cheetah and she is not seeming to completely understand what I want her do to once we move back to the end of the cross plank. I thought maybe if I just let her go over the whole thing some her striding would settle down, but she was very inconsistent doing it perfectly sometimes, but leaving high or out right jumping off much of the time. She even pulled out the old 2o/2o once????? She slowed down through the yellow a few times. How do you handle that one. On the one hand yes you did hid yellow...on the other hand, it was not really the speed we are looking for.

On the 7th, I decided NOT to have her run the whole thing, but instead really focus on continuing the back-chaining process. This was producing mixed results, until she decided that she should really just get on the table and run the board by her self...

baby steps...

I did two training sessions with Cheetah over the last two days. I continued to backchain her across the crossplank of the dogwalk. I put the table at the very beginning of the plank and had her load on from there. She started off a little rough at the beginning yesterday but she ended it well. Today, I repeated this set up and she started off really good, more confidence and some really good striding. Unfortunately, she had a high hit that I marked, and her next attempt to fix it was a big jump. Her next and last rep was better than the jump, but was about the same as the 8th rep. So all in all, we were about 7 out of 10.



I suppose I will stay here for a couple of more sessions, which I won't be able to do until I get back from the MADNESS trail this weekend. We shall see how she does on the contacts this weekend. She had two really good dogwalks in class on Wed. I was at least able to handle her like she really had a running dog walk.

Transistioning to the real Dog Walk....

Tuesday evening I took apart the picnic table ensemble and put together the whole DW. I was noticing (as did Rosanne) that she was basically bouncing the table because of it's shorter length. This is a concern since we know she is not going to have a 1 hit cross plank once it is a 12'. So I added some more motion to the table set up, in one session, which went pretty good. Then I set up the whole dog walk. It's set at about 28". I did one session that evening after the private lesson I gave to Julie and Splash. I didn't tape that session, but it was very odd.

I tried to run her over the whole thing, just to see where we were. She trotted down the down plank! ARRRGGH!!! I tried it one more time, and she actually started to stop for a 2o/2o.....WHAT?????? So, I just finished the session with several back chaining reps just to get her driving back to the target. I ended it there...sigh!


Yesterday we did two sessions, which we did tape. They went much better than the day before and the second session went much better than the first.




I took Cheetah to class tonight and we had a dogwalk in the the sequence. The course had a 270 from the left off of the dog walk. I handled it the first time as a push, which meant that I had to bust it up to the front of the DW to get the FC in so I could have her on my left to push over the jump. It was perfect! The next time I kept her on my right, but the time I saved by sending her I was able to get to the end and blind off of the DW. It was also pretty good. I may have collected her up a bit, but not too much.

Over all I am very pleased with our progression and will continue to backchain some more today, and tomorrow before we head off to MADNESS trial. The good thing about this trial, is that it is Team only, so even if she faults the DW, it will not be the end of the world. I purposely did NOT enter Friday's GP and Steeplechase classes so I would not be tempted to handle her contacts too much...THAT was hard for me not to do. I am such and addict! I will keep you posted!

All I want for christmas is running contacts!

The snow melted off of the "Dogwalk" and we had two sessions. As I stated earlier, I fixed the 2" height difference and that really seemed to help her striding. I taped the second session ( almost to dark to tape) but she was a very good girl, and while one was a little high, she was 13 for 13. She had also hit all of them in the first session today...I swear!

This is first time I had tried using the clicker with this, I usually use it alot, but I didn't want her to think too much about what she was doing and found it was easier for me to just mark verbally. Now, I think I can add some precision to it with the clicker w/o causing too much thinking....I hope!

Here is the latest training session.

I added the up plank to the table set up from the end of the last post. I tried her on it one time that I didn't tape about a week ago. For the most part she did ok with this, she had a couple of really good hits. I think her striding was thrown off because she was trying to avoid hitting the spot where the 24" table met the 26" picnic table and that was probably close to were she would naturally put her first stride. Her solution was to take one short stride and then clear the picnic table and land on the down plank. I think she thought that was too hard, so she did manage to figure out a second place to stride on the picnic table.

After this session was over, I added some more foam pieces underneath of the carpeting on the 24" table, this now makes both of the tables even. I will tape another session of that set up as soon as the snow from this morning melts off of it a bit more.

Running contact Journal thus far...yeah I know I am way behind!

After USDAA Nationals, I talked to Rosanne DeMascio and we had a couple of lessons were we just tried to get Cheetah to run, it worked some, but I figured I should go back to the beginning and really try to do some of the Trkman foundation steps. Last February when I got the new rubberized DW, I started it, but I didn't have very much room in my basement to work on it and it didn't seem to be working very well. So as I am want to do, I ended up reverting back to a 2o/2o and trying to muddle through with the contacts. I really worked on her teeter and that is making good progress, but I don't think we will ever be completely done working on that.


Anyway, I first tried to use the electronic touch board that I have, and that proved to have limited success. As both Silvia Trkman and Rosanne pointed out, too much thinking on her part is not what we want.







So I played around with a couple of other things, and then I got out my teeter plank and propped it up on a cinder block and ( at first with the hit it board, then later sessions without it. I like the ones without it much better. The other thing that I think really made her think was the target out in front. She thought she was being proofed. So I spent a couple of sessions ( not taped ) where I introduced her to a frisbee upside down like a bowl with some kibble in it. ( She loves working for kibble - freak that she is!) then I held her collar and revved her up and said "ready - ready - get it! I did that for her dinner a couple of times and that seemed to get her out of the proofing mindset!




Then I ran her over the see saw plank on a cinder block a few sessions, always giving her at least one cookie already in the frisbee and throwing several more in if I liked the rep- if I didn't she got 1 cookie and I said "nice try - try again"

Then I put it on a 16" table with her running from a tunnel. I did that 2 different times, one at the love on a leash training building and the other at Hunter Mountain Farm where I teach a couple of days a week too. I liked that one of the boards had slats and the other one didn't, because I didn't want that to be a factor.



I have been putting foam ( the puzzle piece type flooring foam) underneath it to help stabilize it, since she is NOT going to run over a plank confidently if it is wobbly.

The next session I put the table up to 24" and tried the same set up, but her confidence went down since she smacked her leg trying to time the jump up with the next stride forward. so I didn't do too much with this set up.



I have decided that she needs more room to run at this height, so I placed my 24" table at home up against the picnic table, added some old carpet for traction and added a jump to send her to an viola! a working set up for this height. I am still putting the target out about 15-20' out and putting some kind of treat pre-loaded and then following up with more if I like the rep. I am not moving too much my self yet, mostly because I have to send her to the loop before I can put the treat down, then by that time she is on her way back and I don't want to be running towards her while she is running full speed down the plank.



My next step is adding the up plank to the picnic table set up and start to do a little bit of turning off of it. I don't want to go too quickly with that, I want the running full tilt to be pretty set before I start asking her to do any collection on it. I will also add a jump between the down plank and the frisbee, so she gets used to looking for obstacles after and not just the target.

I promise to keep you posted more frequently.

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.