Hoot's AKC Debut

I finally got to take Hoot out for a spin "officially".

I have a slightly different approach to the beginning of Hoot's trialing career than I have had with my other dogs. With Tangle, I trained him in the back yard, then signed him up for classes in one place, did some tours of different dog walks and AF's and then he went head first into trialing. All the classes. If you think about it and count up all the differences from a back yard to a trial, it really is a lot to ask of a dog. Tangle is a great dog. He never lost his head, but was careful and never wanted to make mistakes.

Hoot is a different dog. I have trained her from the very beginning as high as I can get her. It was clear that she would be that highly stimulated kind of a girl and I needed her to know how to deal with it. We went to several fun runs in the last six months, gradually asking her to do more and more. She did a UKI trial, but with toys in the ring and it was only jumpers. So, this past weekend we did AKC kind of "for reals". Although I have to admit I used the off course I was allowed in standard to reward good performance on the AF :)



I was really proud of her. She was way beyond my expectations in Jumpers and beyond my expectations in Standard.

I can't believe the challenges the judges gave novice dogs with the running dog walk. And Hoot was successful on her hits both days!! The first day was the DW to a table, she stuck it as best she could. The second day was broad jump to the DW (we talked to the judge and had her move it further away from the DW, ended up being 20 feet from landing to the DW and a slightly less nasty angle).

She got all of her contacts, weaves (only with a re-try), held startlines and her table performance was awesome. Really what more can I ask?

So, coming out of this trial, what is next?

I will work on her teeter a bit more, work the sequences that we had refusals, continue to work the tire with speed and continue to work my timing with her.

The allure of the running contact

I have trained one dog on running contacts and didn't keep them, I have re-trained another dog to have running contacts (and kept them), and I am in the process of training baby Hoot to have running contacts.  So I have seen this process from a couple of different perspectives.

I will say that each time I go through the process I get more faith in it, and have more patience and appreciation for what the dogs have to learn.  I think that I also get more confident in knowing that one or two bad sessions isn't going to ruin my dog.  I also have complete faith that it is a journey.

But this is a reminder to myself...be patient with the process and don't rush it.


I can say that even though Silva's DVD on running contacts does a great job giving you an idea of the process, what she doesn't cover and probably can't is all the changes that you will see in your dog along the way.

The problem with training running contacts is that you have your eye on the prize.  That is a full height DW and the dog reliably hits the yellow.  So away we go, running the dog on the low contact, raising it frequently, putting an obstacle at both ends and before you know it we have a dog running a full height DW.  But when we do this we (and the dog) miss many of the lessons that journey would have provided us.  The allure of the running contact keeps us from fully experiencing the process.

Confidence is one of the gifts in the journey.  It doesn't matter,  my re-trained dog or my green dog, they are both the same.  They build confidence along the way and it is NOT worth rushing it.  I know that everyone wants to get to the end of the line and *have* a running contact, but if you rush it, it is going to be harder to fix when you have problems.  Why?  They don't have the physical confidence on the equipment (I dare you to run 6 YPS on a 12" board that changes elevation twice), and the mental confidence.  The mental confidence is the really important one.

It also takes a while to develop your own internal compass for what is best for the dog each day of the training (and it changes).  This I will say is different for each dog I have trained.   Yesterday I needed to not race Hoot on the DW, today I had too.  I saw a micro-moment (you know that 10,000 hours concept) in her performance that told me I needed to change.

So, if you don't give these things a chance to develop in a controlled environment, they will be changing in a trialing environment.  Many of us know what it is like to take a dog into trialing when they don't have the foundation that they should.  And, we know what it is like to re-train that once they have established a pattern of poor performance.

I am watching the progress of a number of people through out the world training running contacts right now.  So many seem like they are trying to get to the prize as quick as possible.   But trust me when I tell you (and myself), you have to let the lessons unfold until they are all done.   You can't rush the process.

5 Strides!

Split and I have been working on a running dog walk for the past several months.  When it got up to full height he decided to start giving me 6 strides and collecting at the end.  I am sure that he knows to hit the yellow and this was his insurance policy.  I also think that it was influenced by teaching him the Rachel Sanders box method on the AFrame.

Silvia Trkman was worried that it wouldn't hold up in a trial when he was uber excited.  So, she encouraged me to see if I could get 5 strides out of him.

So, we lowered the DW, put a carpet on the end and set everything up to get extension out of him.  Super speedy entrances and exits, I was running ahead of him, etc...

A week of running like that, clicking when I got extension and not really worrying if he didn't hit the contact zone (which was covered with carpet).  I would jackpot however if he did hit it.

Finally!  I got 5 strides out of him.  This is his session from today, carpet is faded, not quiet full height.

There is one rep where I think something surprised him and he collecting on the top, but other than that, we have progress.  Huge progress!!

A Great Running Contact Day!

I have been struggling with how to get Split to have 4 strides (5 hits) on the dog walk.  He seems to want to collect at the end and that gives him 5 strides.  Yes, he hits the yellow nicely, but we worry that it isn't maintainable once the trial excitement hits.  I have my theories as to why he is collecting, but don't really know.

So, most inspirational moments in life happen, one thought vocalized, lead to another thought, that lead to the "inspiration".  Tell Split where he is going when he is over the first apex of the dog walk.



You can visit my channel on YouTube if you want to see what he was doing.

So, just for good measure I ran him again this afternoon.  BEAUTIFUL!

Pushing my luck, as I always do, I decided to see what Tangle was going to do today.

Here is his running AF.  I have been working on USDAA height trying to get deeper hits.  FINALLY!  Yep, my golden day.  Really nice hits.



I should go buy a lottery ticket!!

This is why I adore Tip

Let me preface this with saying that Tip is basically retired.  I don't have any goals for her, but I do run her in an occasional trial.  She still joins our practices several times a week. It keeps her connected and happy.

I am retraining Split's dog walk to a running dog walk.  It is kind of messed up anyway, so I decided that I might as well mess with it more :)

Tip

So, since one dog gets to do something, Tip must never be left out.  Especially if it involves a thrown ball!!  So, just to entertain her I was letting her do a couple of running dog walks each session as well.  She wasn't bad, but she did leap some.

About a month ago, for some reason I gave her the command "hit it" (curious what she would do with it).  I used "hit it"  for Rachel Sander's box method when I was retraining Split's 2o2o AF to a running AF.  Again, I had no intent to apply the box method on a contact for Tip, but it involved those two ingredients 1) another dog getting to do something 2) a ball being thrown. So, Tip ended up with a stupid pet trick where she can target a box on the run and I will reward it with a ball toss.

Just a side note, if I don't think it is going to hurt any current training I will always teach all three dogs the same thing.  You never know when it is going to come in handy :)

So, for a month now, a couple of times a week when I work Split I will let Tip run her dog walk with the "hit it" command.  Her version of a RDW has been amazingly reliable.  Most sessions she never misses even one contact. 

Now, would I do this with all my dogs--never in a million years.  Tip has some unique skills that make her a great candidate.  She is uber confident, she has a ton of forward motion, and she is amazingly smart.  So, she can actually slow down, hit the contact and then drive at full speed again to the next obstacle.  Split and Tangle would just end up confused.  They would slow at first, but if some slow is good they would slow more.  We would eventually end up with walking at the end.  They are both smart, but don't have the confidence that Tip has.




Here is video of her this weekend and again today.  Notice today I had carpet on the end of the contact.  That was there for Split, but somehow she still knew where she needed to slow down and she did.  She never stops amazing me!!

Running as "One", confessions of a junky

I went to a  USDAA trial down in New Mexico this weekend with Tip and Tangle.  We were going down to pick up some more qualifications for Cynosport (Nationals).  Not sure if we will make the trek to Nationals, but always want the option for a good road trip (ok, maybe Tennessee isn't the ideal destination).

I was driving back to the motel after Friday's Team events telling my husband about the day.  He asked me how the day went, in which I replied it was "OK".  Just "OK", not awesome, not horrible.  Being the good "ASS" (Agility Support Spouse) that he is he asked me to go into detail about the day.  Why was it just "OK"?  Did you not get your Q's?  Did the dogs get hurt? Were they not wanting to run (I would know Tip is dead if she didn't want to run)?

Tip's team placed 1st in Team and Tangle's team got second (thanks to my awesome team mates).  Why then was the day just "OK"?  I should be thrilled with those results right?

We executed the runs well enough to place high. The courses were awesome, fast and technically difficult. Judge was funny. The club was friendly. What more could you want to feel great right?

I remember having these moments in music.  I would walk out on stage and start to performance.  Yes, I got through all the notes perfectly, but I didn't "feel" the performance.  We get the applause at the end, but you didn't feel that you earned them.

I realized what really THRILLS me about agility and what makes my day.  When I can walk away from the day knowing that we ran as a "team".   We, as a team, "felt" the run deeply and ran with that effortless, fluid motion.  That is a GREAT day for me. 

 When I have the kind of runs with my dogs where we run as "one", I walk away from a day of agility loving the sport.  This is not something that you can see on film and it isn't something you can describe.  It just "is"!  It is that fine dance that you have from the moment you hit the start line.  You look back and your dog is just waiting for that moment when you release him.  From the moment you release him it is like synchronized swimming.  You both execute your part of the run in tandem.  You don't "think" about the cues, there are no worries about off courses, there is just the feeling of fluidity of motion between you and your dog.  It leaves you in a state of pure joy regardless of the outcome.

The pure joy of being together

These runs don't have to be placements, nor do they have to be perfect, they just have to "be".  Although it is not her original idea, Daisy Peel wrote an article on the moment of "Unconsciously skilled". 

These runs don't come every trial for me, but when they do the "high" from the experience is enough to carry you through to the next perfect run.  I am a junky of the unconsciously skilled run!

PS, to give credit where credit is due.  Tip did have one of these runs on Sunday and Tangle on Saturday.   So, was the trial a success?  It was!

Running AFrames!

I will start with a quote that I stole from anne stocum's blog and will probably put on a t-shirt at some point!

"running contact heaven is worth spending some time in running contact hell"

Specifically her post on running contact training

I thought she did a really great job describing some of the feelings that you go through while training running contacts :)

This blog entry has been in the making for quiet some time.  It is a hard one to write.  Why?  Because I am almost always somewhere between heaven and hell on this topic.  My thoughts and what I am learning is constantly evolving on this topic.  What I know for sure this morning, is not what I will know for sure this afternoon.

What I do know for sure (almost always)

1. Training running contacts is more of an art than a science
2. What works for one dog does not always work for the other
3. You have to be diligent and committed to not let the frustration affect your relationship with your dog
4. Explore what EVERYONE has to say about teaching running contacts.  You may need the nugget of advice later on.
5. Have a running contacts support group.  This process can make you Bipolar.

Why the journey?  I love having a reliable running contact.  For me, it adds better flow to running the course.  For the dog, I know they love it more than a stop.  I will admit, also it is about the challenge of learning how to train this!

This is our latest footage on the running AF.  Fairly typical, one thing goes great, other aspects need work.  Tangle had a fairly consistent day.  Split was technically in the yellow, however he was hitting much higher than usual.  My goal is to have them hit between the first and second slate in the yellow.



From this point, I am slowly introducing handling around the AF and trying to get both dogs to have a consistently deep stride.

But today, we will work on other skills that are packed with fun for both the dogs and I.  Again, it is the commitment to maintaining a strong and happy relationship with my dogs.

Just Because!

Sometimes I have to step back and be a proud mama of my dogs.  I am not proud because they just won some huge national competition, I am proud because they have done something that was hard for them or overcome some obstacle that has been in our way.
I went to drop-in last night with Split and Tangle.  Both of the dogs did really great and it was nice to sit back and just love being their mom!

If you have read about Split on my blog then you probably know that he is a very driven, focused, yet an issue filled boy.  Sometimes life is a little too much for him and he develops a fear to something.  Sometimes I have no idea why that fear developed.


Lately Split and I have been working through his teeter issues.  He decided that he would be afraid of some (not all) teeters and would refuse to get on them.  Also, he is "Border Collie" stuck when it comes to downing on the table.  He just can NOT lie down quickly on the table and I have yet to work through that with him.  But, I love this dog and he has taught me so much about training!  He is my hero!


Split's run last night at drop-in was amazing for him.  Lately he has been taking 15 extra obstacles (can't keep his head), running (quiet nicely) his 2o2o dog walk contact and running around the teeter.  I was really happy with how he kept his head in this run, took the teeter willingly (twice), and downed fairly well on the table.  These are all things that we have been working on and making some progress.







Tangle did well last night too!  I am super proud of him and how he is transitioning from a baby dog to a confident dog. There are things on this course that would have been very challenging for him 2 months ago. He is picking up speed and breezing right through them.  His stand on the table made me laugh. His trained behavior is an automatic down, which until last night had never been questioned. A green dog has to try it all on and see what sticks, don't they?

Retraining an AFrame

More than anything I wanted to put these thoughts down for myself.  One, to remember what I have done, and two, it helps me solidify my thoughts on this topic.

I decided about a year and a half ago (maybe more) that I needed to retrain Split from a 2o2o AFrame (AF) to a running AF.  He clearly didn't like the pressure on his shoulders and after 5 or so reps he would start limping on the front-end.  Plus, I just really like the fluidity that it gives my runs.

I tried many things and some I believe contributed to the solution and some didn't.

Split is a boy that wants to do the right thing, is very sensitive, and is a little (a lot) Velcro.   His personality is key in how I trained things.  It is hard to work with sometimes and almost always I have to adjust my plan.

The first thing I needed to do was "break" the 2o2o and have him run his AF.  I put the AF  down low so that it would appear different to him.  It took me about a week of practice every day to get him to start running it without hesitation (see doesn't take long to ruin criteria does it?).  When it was down low he would run it without a leap.  Once I started to move it up, he began to leap (it was probably less than 5 feet high).  I tried marking the correct behavior, but things didn't really improve.  He enjoyed leaping and sometimes would creep to make me happy.  He just didn't get it.

Frustration and many weeks later...

OK, so now he is leaping.  I decided to train him to hit a box on the ground, similar to Rachel Sanders box method.  I trained Split so he would run away from me, intentionally hit the box and keep running (to catch a ball or something).  Although I don't remember exactly, I think this probably took several weeks to get the behavior that I was happy with.  Once I had this I put the box on the AF. 

Fast forward many months...

When the box was on the AF he would hit it.  Trying to fade the box was murder!  Also, a gnawing feeling in me just knew he didn't really "understand" the criteria.  After all, how do you explain that to a dog.  Really, this is about muscle memory to a degree.

Frustration again, and a break from training this (after all, I wasn't getting a reward)...

While re-training Split on the AFI began to train Tangle on a running DW .  Let me just say, everyone should train a running dogwalk.  Not to get the end behavior, but because it teaches you and your dog so many valuable things (maybe I will blog on this some day).  Seriously, this is a fabulous experience but it does take diligence.

The training of the running dogwalk gave me a much deeper understanding of how to teach a dog to run a contact.  I learned details on how to progress through the process that I never would have learned retraining Splitty.  So, I put Split through running AF 101 school which Tangle was doing running DW 101.  I didn't want to retrain Split's dogwalk, just too much.  But, fundamentally all the principals that I learned with Tangle applied to Split and his AF.

AF went down low again, clicker came out, and the treat-n-train.  Another obstacle to overcome with Split!  Some days he would be afraid of the clicker sound and almost always the treat-n-train.  Back to the tennis ball!

In order to not make this a novel, basically I followed many of the steps that Sylvia uses for training a running DW.  Low obstacle, very little stimulation, low motion, lots of repetition, gradually increase all of those.  Always, jackpot and high reward for getting it right.  Training the AF was now Split's favorite game!

Again, once I raised it to about 5 feet he began to leap.  Frustration set in!  This is when I began to put a stride regulator on AF between the change of color.  There are two things that this did   1) Split's stride would ALWAYS hit the yellow 2) it allowed me to get his performance on a higher AF to the point of frequent reward--key!!!  I ran the AF this way for probably a month.  Slowly adding more motion and other obstacles.

When I took the stride regulator off I had leaping back again.  Another round of frustration! 

But once I sat back and thought of everything I learned with Tangle and running DW the emotion wained and some constructive thoughts set in (I learned this process from training Tangle's running DW).  I removed my motion, stimulation and obstacles and left the AF high.  I began to reward Split for successes and not reward for failure.  Presto, I was beginning to get different results!

To me, the key was teaching him what success was (the look, sound, and my reaction).  That is, when he did something right what would happen and when he did something wrong what DIDN'T happen.  When Split got his AF right I would throw a huge party (not too much happy sounds because he is emotion sensitive I had to increment into this), throw the ball, and give a boat load of praise.  When he didn't get it right, there was no reaction, just walk back and try it again.

Within days I began to see Split adjust his stride to "get it right"! 

So, we are now several months into this break through.  We have done a couple of trials without any AF calls.  I still work the AF 4-5 times a week in a training mode.  Each session starts with little motion and increments into full motion and obstacles.

Can I call him "retrained"?  Nope, not yet!  But have we hit a major success milestone? Yep, we have!

P.S. There are a ton of thoughts out there on what the "proper" running AF performance looks like.  Leaping over the apex, almost touching their belly over the apex, only one stride on the downside, two strides on the downside and on and on.  I now have three dogs with a running AF.  Each performance is slightly different.  The answer is "it depends" and ultimately what can your dog do confidently and reliably matters!

Split's progress to date, http://youtu.be/vZiwfyocu2Y



Split and Tangle with stride regulator, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGrB8XgXS_Y

Running A-Frame - Tangle and Split

I have three dogs with running A-Frames! Tip is awesome, fast, and reliable. It was a gift from God, I don't think I really contributed to the success of that one. Split has had a 2o2o, running, 2o2o, running, etc. So, now he is leaping, but I am determined to make it reliable. Tangle's A-Frame was trained first with a running dog walk and then the skill transferred to the A-Frame. There is one thing nagging me about his performance however and that is his back feet. They hit, but I want them farther into the yellow.

So, I had a little time a couple of weeks ago to surf YouTube and see how people were training running A-Frames. I ran across a site (ops, don't have the link) where a gal and her BC had put together a really nice running A-Frame. The stride regulator was put on the yellow line. I have to confess that I had never thought of putting it down that low. All the conversations I had about where to place the stride regulators was up high so that they would extend their stride, there by putting them into the yellow.

Placing the stride regulators up high produced mixed results for me with both Split and Tangle. I actually think that it made Split leap a little bit more.

I have been playing with the regulators down low for a couple of weeks. I really think that they are getting the stride into the yellow a bit more and have shored up the reliability of the performance for Split.

We will see if they hold up through time and even more importantly, once they come off will I be left with a better A-Frame performance?

Running contact update

Tangle and I took a week or so off of running contacts. We were stalled in our progress so I wanted to give it a break and give myself time to think through what my response should be. I went from thinking about scraping the running contacts to having confidence that I could figure this out. (For the record, I am still not in love with the idea of how a running contact is trained.)

This morning we started on our adventure again. I decided that practicing being stuck wasn't a good idea, so I set up our next logical progression. jump-dog walk-jump.

Today's setup



Long story short--we were back up at our 80% range. You know, I have no idea why these things work in training, but they do. Maybe one theory is, if I change something, the dog has to go back to thinking and things improve! Would love to hear thoughts on this.

On other fronts we have worked more seriously on the teeter and Tangle is learning weave entrances! He is doing stellar at both!

Running contact week

Tangle was BRILLIANT today!

I will get video posted I promise, but the move has been keeping things busy.

Here is the video finally

I decided that Tangle was had a very good hit rate this week and I wanted to start working on speed. Mostly show him that he can run fast on the dog walk. So, I set up a small little course built for speed. I acknowledged to myself ahead of time that this could bring his hit rate dramatically down and might be too exciting for him. But ya never know until you try right?

I set up a tunnel at both ends of the lowered dog walk. I would send Tangle in one tunnel, tell him walk-it, then tunnel, if he showed any hesitation I would give him a 'go' (which is really just encouragement that he was doing the right thing).

I will modify this post once I know what the stats are, but it seemed that he did really well. He is always better when he is on my right. On my left he leaped the first couple of times, but quickly figured out what was expected.

So, speed is what I had after 10 or so reps. Not his adult speed for sure, but greatly increased. I don't plan to do this too often because I don't want to encourage the tunnel sucking, but I will use this as a tool.

Getting Better

Looking back on the last week of running contacts, I see now the first week is really about adjusting to what each other needs. Since we have started there have been several things that I have had to troubleshoot and figure out a better way to do them.

• I added a Manner's Minder (MM) - keep Tangle looking down
• I added a jump for a couple of days after the ramp to keep Tangle driving forward
• I took out the jump because he is now driving forward and I didn't want to encourage driving forward after a jump without my motion supporting it
• I turned off the MM sound because it buzzes late and just use a clicker
• I turned the MM back on to get Tangle looking forward AND used the clicker
• I started with a plank, moved to plank and table, ended the week with the low dogwalk and back chainging. Tangle drives forward much better on the DW.

You get the idea, constant tweaking until I got the desired behavior I was looking for.

I still need to solve my late clicks and clicking for inappropriate behavior. Making the films and watching them over and over certainly helps.

Tangle's latest video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHJ7IUmiTXc