.com Forum · Real Show Dogs

Our 2nd USDAA trial and loving these challenging courses! Can't say all runs were very pretty but they're just what we love to try! Plus showing a few clips of our running contacts in a trial, not sure if anyone remembers when we first started trying to train running contacts but what a challenge that was to teach the clueless doodle retrain to figure out ho w to adjust her stride and baby Tulies to not overthink and worry herself aboutthe edge. Very much worth these results and the rush they give not to mention everything I learned about my girls along the way... Im a true running contact convert/junkie now, wouldn't trade it for anything! And still room for improvement and much more to learn!

Doodle's USDAA runs from the weekend: Steeplechase/2nd place (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-nWTlyArQk), Grand Prix/messy NQ but awesome DW (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0I8xgkSbV4) & *international-style* Challenge Standard/1st place (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfSJyNXMze0)!

Tess' USDAA runs from the weekend: Starters Snooker/1st place (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6AtefHjPS8), Grand Prix NQ/fastest time & brilliant DW (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPSK7ch2jNc) & Masters Challenge Jumpers/NQ but so proud of this girl and her new-found confidence (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl_PPznWp2M)!

Love watching Sophie so smooth so fluid on her runs!
Nice to see Tess getting it together although with the BC style of slightly uncontrolled acceleration.

grif,

Thanks Grif! Not sure how she manages it but Sophie seems to have always been that way... always knowing all the possibilities for the upcoming choices of path/obstacle yet never jumping to try to decide which one it should be... she just always seems to know and be completely comfortable getting there with efficiency

Tulies has just started to break loose from her shell and is starting to get that "go-go-go!" mentality, sometimes resulting in a lack of judgment, haha I'm just thrilled that she *wants* to go and she's not afraid to take the plunge! She on the other hand has never been super fluid on her path (possibly my fault in handling?) and I can easily recall not that long ago when she wouldn't/couldn't read a bend/turn from even the most obvious lateral motion or deceleration. Watching these videos it amazes me with how much progress she has made and I can't get over the fact that I can send her that way while I move this way and she actually understands what path is being laid out now!

Still so much room for improvement though, for the both of us


TCrown

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Last edited by TCrown on 6/4/2014 9:07:39 PM

How exactly does trkman teach her contacts? I just remember being absolutely amazed by her running contacts the first time I watched a video of her pyr shep.

Trkman starts the dog running on the flat (ground, carpet, very thinwide board, ect) and gets the dog running full speed with lots of separation between the 2 back feet (no hopping, or very airy running, just fast and forward). Then transfers onto a thin plank.thenslowly raises oneend of the plank. Her goal is to always jackpot reward the dog for zuper separation and simply find a goodstarting place/setup so that thedog naturally strides right into thecontact. Separation is higher priority then feet hitting in the contact at first. So long as thedog is maintaining good separationand you are able to start the dog so that it naturallyruns through the contact (bottom 2-3 feet of the board) at about an 80% success rate for several sessions in a row then you can raise the board by about 6 inches at a time. Once you get to bout 2 feet high you canstart asking thedog to think about adjusting his stride a bit to still hit deep. Sometimes that means starting a step further back, other times it means adjusting starting speed, etc. The idea from the start is that you're always throwing the toy/food (before thedog runs the plank) and that you reward a little if the dog has an okay hit but you throw a party if the dog has a super hit. The thrown toy/food is just a lure to run straight and fast but it is not the reward. The reward is something extra you offer the dog after it gets the toy/food. The dog begins to notice theangle the board makes with the ground and puts 2 and 2 together to figure out that the tries where it lands pretty deep it earns the party whereas the tries where it hits okay it gets. Smaller reward and the tries that hit high just get to grab the toy and try again to earn the party next time. If the dog gets over the top excited about the thrown toy/lure then you can send to a tunnel or jump instead and throw the toy as the dog takes that obstacle so that it doesn't go leaping off the board for the toy. You just keep raising height and slowly challenging the dogs understnding to run deep until you get to full height and can hit deep from different start speeds and distances. Then slowly incorporate different entrances and exits and maybe turns if your dog can handle them. Mydoodle can handlejust about anything and knows tojust run fast and deep (though it took her a while to think about how to adjust her stride to always be able to hit deep) and excells at turns and crosses, etc off the end of the dw. My bc is a bit too sensitive and reactive soshe tends to flip out and try to react before she comes deep. Because this makes her worry I just have to run her straight off the dw for nowand turn/handle her on the flat zbout 1 stride after the end of the dw to keep her confident and happy.

The idea is that the more excited and faster they get (such as in the high of a trial situation) the deeper and nicer they will hit so it just gets better and better in trials and with time. If they miss or arent confident youdont have to stop znd fix the behavior but rather keep running to build their confidence and that will lead to better and better hits and lots of consistency too.


TCrown