Ottawa Dog Sports

I’ve read the links Lisa R. provided and a few others on a variety of methods used to train running contacts. I don’t think there is a one size fits all method, so I’ll combine a few things that should work for Sammy.

I know that Sammy needs a specific behaviour to perform at a specific location, running thru a box or creating muscle memory by repeating many runs across won’t work for her. She’ll get bored. I remembered that way back when I was first training Sammy for agility we used the nose target, but Sammy always touched with a paw followed by her nose.

I thought I’d see if she still had this old habit so I found my 3×3 piece of clear plexi put it on the floor, and I got a foot and a nose the first couple of times, but with a few well timed “Yes” ses, I was getting just a foot after only a few tries. I don’t want her stopping on the target so as soon as she touches the target with her foot I say “YES” and toss a cookie a few feet ahead of her to keep her moving forward.

For the next few days we’ll work on foot targetting the plexi and on Monday I have some time booked on real agility equipment and I’ll give it a try on the dogwalk, but back chain so that we are only working the descent of the dog walk.

Will keep you posted on our results.

Lisa R has suggested a few blogs to get me started. I did check out the Silvia Trkman method and from a first read thru, it seems to be about creating muscle memory.

These bloggers follow the
Silvia Trkman method for training running contacts
Days of Speed Blog
Dream Dogz Blog, and
C Fly Run Journal

I left out a critical point in my initial post, I am looking for the safest, quickest and most comfortable way to get Sammy up and over the A-Frame and dog walk consistently.

Now that I have spent most of my pregnant state retraining Sammy’s weaves, (a very big thank you to Susan Garrett) I am devising my plan to retrain Sammy’s contacts after the baby arrives in April. Too bad SG has not found a reliable method for running contacts, but give her some time, I’m sure she’ll find it! In the meantime Sammy will have to be my guinea pig.

I borrowed Rachel Sanders Reliable Running Contacts DVD from a friend this past weekend. Perhaps I was expecting too much, but I want a 100% reliable method to train running contacts and even Sanders herself admits that her method is not.

These are the factors I see affecting Sammy’s performance on a contact obstacle
1. speed
2. length of stride
3. obstacle before contact
4. angle of approach to the contact

The 2 on 2 off method didn’t work with Sammy because she was simply not comfortable running to the bottom of the A-Frame or dog walk and stopping. Since beginning running contacts, the number of times she has leapt over the contact area has diminished to the point that at our last trial in the fall I didn’t not have any fly-offs. BUT, there is no criteria for the running contact. Sammy only knows that she doesn’t have to stop at the bottom. Her stride is quite long so depending on the combination of factors I listed above, she has on occasion strided right over the contact area.

Can’t blame the dog, Sammy has done exactly what I have been asking her to do. NOW, how do you train a dog to reliably step into the contact area at speed and run thru.

Do you teach the dog to “hit” the yellow area? How many paws, 1, 2, 3 or all 4? Do you teach the dog to step in one exact spot each time? Is it about hitting the “yellow area” or about the bottom of the plank? Is there one method for all dogs? Or perhaps each dog should be viewed as unique and your method tailored to your dog? Can the method for the A-Frame and DogWalk be the same?

At this point, I can see one skill Sammy needs for her toolbox;
1. willingness to adjust stride (not to keen on shortening her stride)

I think that for a reliable running A-Frame and DogWalk, I need to look at Sammy’s entry, her ascent as well as her descent. Perhaps consistent running contacts are a combination of trained behaviours rather than a single behaviour such as the 2o2o. If it’s going to be a series of behaviours then the A-Frame and DogWalk need to be trained separately.

Please share your thoughts!
Jenn

I booked the 1/2 hour before our flyball practice to do some agility exercises with Sammy. We pretty much repeated the exercises from the last session, just to see what she understood and what needs work.

1. Directionals over single jump.
I think she’s got this one now. Sammy really understands the left command so we started with the right. Success, then I switched to the left, then mixed them up a bit. No problems.

2. Obstacle discrimination.
Still some hesitation on the first 2 tries, but then she was great.

3. Directionals over single jump with tunnel.
We worked this exercise from each end so that the tunnel was on the left or on the right depending which end of the line of jumps we started from. I was too slow with my left command the first couple of times. But when I said “HAW” tunnel when Sammy was committed to the jump, she got it each time.

Then at the end just to make sure she was paying attention, I added a 3rd jump to the line and instead of a directional told ther to “GO” and she continued in a straight line without turning.

4. Weaves with tunnel
She does love this exercise. The tunnel was about 2 feet from the entry to the weaves and that was as close as she could handle at speed. If the tunnel was any closer she really slowed down. I’ll leave it at 2 ft for a few more sessions until Sammy has her footwork figured out. She was doing more single stepping than hopping yesterday and she looked much more comfortable in the weaves.

5. Just the Weaves
I sent Sammy into the weaves at some pretty crazy angles. For an entry between 9 and 3 I need to step into the weaves so that she gets the entry. Something to work on when I receive my receive 2×2 Weave Pole Training DVD

No contact training today.

Saturday November 29th, K9 Sense loft.

Normally I bring a copy of Clean Run with me and work on a few sequences, but on this day I had a workplan that made better use of my 60 minutes.

These are the exercises for our practice

1. Directionals with single jump
2. Running Dog Walk
3. Weave Exercise #1 from Exellence in Weave Pole Training
4. Obstacle Discrimination -jump & tunnel
5. Weave Exercise from LOH seminar - tunnel to weave poles

1. Directionals with single jump
This is from the One Jump DVD by Susan Garrett and the LOH Seminar. Thanks to our skijoring training Sammy’s knows her left and right quite well. Sammy is definitely a left handed dog though, her turns to the left are tighter and quicker than her one’s to the right. This just means that we spent more time working on her right turns. We did a few turns to the left, then spent the rest of the time working on the right. I used Sammy’s favourite goose. for this exercise. [Next time I'll start with the right]

2. Running Dog Walk
The reason I am switching to running contacts is that I finally realized that Sammy’s leaping over the contact zone, may have started off as exuberance, but in the end I realized that she is simply not comfortable with the 2o2o.

For now I’m working on creating muscle memory. I used a 2×2 weave base with a pool noodle over top to form an upside down U. I put that about 3 feet from the base of the dog walk and Sammy simply runs across the dog walk and thru the hoop. Next time I’ll bring my stop watch to time the dog walk because it appeared that Sammy was actually getting faster each time.

3. Weave Exercise #1 from Exellence in Weave Pole Training
As I mention in the post about the e-book I had to modify this exercise a bit for Sammy. We are definitely not ready for 90 degree weave entries, but Sammy did very well with the 70 degree entry. We used 6 poles instead of 12, space was a bit limited, I was afraid that weaving into a wall would make her slow down at this point in her training.

4. Obstacle Discrimination -jump & tunnel
I learned something on this one, Sammy will do a single jump with me standing still, but when faced with 2 obstacles and I don’t move she is perplexed. This exercise definitely needs work, but by the end she seemed to understand what was expected.

5. Weave Exercise from LOH seminar - tunnel to weave poles
I have to admit that this exercise was my favourite of the day, Sammy was having a blast. Sam loves tunnels so she was entering the weaves at a good speed which made the entry more challenging for her. I think the weaves started at about 6 feet from the tunnel exit and by the end they were 2 feet from the tunnel exit. Sammy loved this exercise so much that when I said “All done” and went over to pack up my things she stood in the middle of the loft with that perky look of hers that says “aaah, I still want to play”.

Next time we’ll start this exercise with the weaves a bit more than 2 feet from the exit of the tunnel.

A great training session, everyone had fun.
Jenn

I have a short laundry list of items to work on over the winter with Sammy, one of those items is to increase her enthusiasm for weave poles. Over the summer we have managed to achieve consistent entries in the backyard and I’d say 80% of entries away from the yard.

Sammy is still trying to figure out her footing thru the poles, in the backyard where she’s comfortable and confident she’ll single step but at trials and fun matches she tends to hop. I’m not pushing her footwork at this point because as she gains more confidence I’m sure she will do what is most comfortable to her.

I had no intention of retraining Sammy’s weaves using the 2×2 method but the weave pole exercises in Susan’s e-book are excellent.

At our first session on Saturday in the K9Sense loft we worked on exercise 1, 3 jumps to a 90 degree weave entry, which is advanced for Sammy so I put the poles on a 70 degree angle and managed to close it up to what looked like a 80 degree angle when we ran thru the exercise a second time.

Our second weave exercise of the day was definitely Sammy’s favourite, a tunnel to the weaves. Each time the dog is successful the weaves are moved closer and closer to the exit of the tunnel. We finished with the weaves within 2 ft. of the exit of the tunnel.

I’ll repeat both of these exercises at our next session, until we get the 90 degree entry to the weaves and the tunnel is nearly on top of the weave poles.

Jenn

I purchased a copy of Susan Garrett’s DVD “Crate Games” at the LOH seminar. I’d like to progress with Sammy’s crate training.

For those of you who don’t know, Sammy is a rescue and somewhere in her life before me, she developed an insane fear of crates and small spaces. Thankfully, Sammy was always a very good girl and a crate was never needed when she was left home alone.

I used the crate at a recent indoor trial and Sammy “tolerated” the crate quite well. But was obviously not ecstatic about the experience.

I watched the beginning of the “Crate Games” DVD and decided that Sammy is not even ready for exercise 1 yet so over the last 2 weeks, she has been eating her dinner in her crate and I have also been hand feeding her dinner to her as well. At this point the door is always open.

Yesterday I upped the ante, by asking her to play dead inside the crate. For a fearful dog, lying down on their side with their head flat on the floor of the crate is asking a lot. I waited her out, it took a couple of minutes, but she finally played dead, her head wasn’t on the floor, but it obviously took a lot of courage for her to get to lying on her side so I rewarded that. A couple of minutes later I got another play dead, but this time her head was a bit closer to the floor, by the end of the cup of food Sammy was lying flat out in her best “dead dog” position.

I’ll do this for another night or two, then I think I’ll try the first exercises from the “Crate Games” DVD.

Jenn

Session 1 (with clicker, C/T = Click and Treat)

With the basket right side up Sammy did her usual nose touch, C/T, then tried another nose touch, no C/T because I was waiting for a different behaviour. I waited a very long time but nothing, you could tell by her body language that she was afraid of the evil laundry basket. So I turned the basket upside down, she nose touched so I C/T, but she was still afraid of the basket, so I C/T when her toe nail touched the basket, after that initial toe nail touch she would put more and more of her paw on the basket each time. I ende dthe session when I was getting a paw on the basket.

Session 2
Started with the basket upside down. Sammy gave me a nose touch -C/T, then her entire paw on the basket, C/T (a few extra treats), the next time she put both her front feet on the box, C/T. By this point she was obviously having fun with this new game because she started doing push ups on the basket, C/T (jackpot) and we ended the session there.

Session 3
Started with the basket upside down again, immediately got a nose touch - C/T, then 2 paws on the basket -C/T, then a push up - C/T, a sit with front feet on the basket, then to my amazement she jumped up onto the basket - C/T, then a sit on the basket - C/T. I got her off the basket and we started over, she ran thru the entire routine.

Then I turned the basket the right way around Sammy immediately without hesitation jumped into and out of the basket - C/T, she jumped in the basket - C/T.

We ended this most excellent training session here!

Last week I audited the LOH Distance and Gambling seminar at Best Friends Dog Training in Ottawa. The information provided was excellent, some taken from the Say Yes One Jump DVD and other new one’s I had never tried before.

The first exercise I attempted with Sammy once I got home was the laundry basket game. I have tried this a few times over the past 3 years but Sammy was always petrified of the laundry basket and would only do a nose touch  because that’s the behaviour I have always asked for whenever she was afraid of something. Last week I decided to give it another try.

More about “Basket Games” in my next post.

Jenn

Let’s have a round of applause for Tucker and his handler CM.  This was their first appearance in any dog trial whatsoever and they completed a spectacular first run!

Jumpers was their first event and here is the video of their performance.  Congratulations to you both!