On the adventures and training of Cinnamon Snapdragon, a papillon destined for greatness.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Contacts - private agility lesson with Susanne #1

On Monday morning I had a 30 minute private agility lesson with Susanne Cohen, our current class instructor. (Unfortunately the class is changing instructors a second time due to scheduling issues. A shame, because I really liked learning from Susanne!) My goal was to make progress on our contacts, since I didn't have much confidence in teaching them on my own.

We started off with the teeter. Dragon will have running contacts on the dog walk and a-frame, but on the teeter I am using a target at the end, feeding on the target, and giving him a release. The advantage is that it gives him a clear spot to drive into right at the end of the teeter. I am focusing all my training efforts on teaching him to drive to the end rather than slowing down or stopping midway across the board, and many under-confident dogs do.

In my practice at home, we went through a short period of him slowing down as the mini-teeter tipped. However I have licked that problem by putting the board back directly on the ground, pivoting only on the 1.5" pipe attached to the middle, and putting towels underneath the ends of the board to break down the motion into even smaller increments. This morning I took it outside and practiced changing my position (as Susanne says, "ahead, behind, and to the side") as Dragon drove forward to the target. There was a brick lifting the near end of the teeter where he jumped on but the far end was pivoting down a couple of inches as he ran across, and he did great.

The wonderful tip that Susanne gave me during our lesson was to break down the teeter behavior even further between having him bang it to make noise (have already done LOTS with that), having him run across and feel the tip (slooowly integrating this more now), and separately teaching him to run UP a stationary teeter and drive all the way to the end. She shoved a jump pole between the ground and the top edge of the teeter and held in it place as he ran up to his target. He had no problem with this -- he would even stop with his foot fur slightly hanging over the edge. We will practice this more and then start securing the up end slightly lower, so that it moves down a teensy bit as he runs to the end. This is much, much harder for Dragon. He doesn't know how far it will drop down, unlike the lowered teeter that will definitely stop when it hits the ground. Eventually the two methods will meet in the middle.

For the dog walk, we are simply backchaining the boards. I placed him on the down ramp, told him "go!" and then rewarded him with a toy thrown forward. I have to remember to release him when he's looking straight ahead. I click for his paws hitting the lower end of the contact zone. I don't think we'll have any problem with this obstacle at all.

The final contact obstacle is the a-frame. Susanne said that we are not ready to train the a-frame yet. Sure, in class she had people practice their 2o2o at the base, and I had been putting Dragon on it and having him run down. However she was not planning on teaching the actual obstacle any time soon, and we don't expect the new instructor to do so, either.

We have a couple of options for it. We could backchain it, same as the dog walk. We could use a guide wire or box to keep him from jumping off. She said that some people like to use a big, obvious guide and some people taper it down over time so that the dog doesn't see it until they're right at it. The third method was to use a PVC box as a target. I forgot who she said it was that developed that technique. You build a rectangle with the same dimensions as the contact zone and teach the dog to stand in it with all four feet, facing straight forward. Then you teach them to run into and out of the box with all four feet. Then you add jumps in front as stride regulators. Finally you put the box onto the contact zone of the a-frame and reward the dog for hitting his feet in the box. Susanne said that this method is very thorough and she's seen good results from it. I am a little bit reluctant to commit to all those props. I honestly can't see Dragon being a dog who would jump off the a-frame and miss the contact zone. He is too careful when going down stuff. However maybe that is naive -- after all, I am working hard to increase his speed and drive. As of right now I'm not sure which method I will use.

I bought a package with two more lessons, spread one week apart. My bank account is not happy, but damn, this sport is addictive and I want to be competitive.

4 comments:

  1. Great progress!

    The pvc box method is from Rachel Sanders. It is a fantastic method and since most of the training is done on the ground, you could easily start now with Dragon and only use it on the Aframe if you decide he needs it when you get there. Otherwise the Silvia Trkman style of running dogwalk training neatly transfers to the aframe so you often don't have to really train the aframe once your dogwalk is done!

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  2. Thanks, Laura! How does Silvia Trkman do the dogwalk? I've seen videos of people practicing on full-length boards propped up at an angle and having the dogs run down, but nothing more. Does she start with a board on the ground and slowly raise it up?

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  3. Unlike some trainers, Silvia offers her entire method free on her website.

    Go here:, our training- faq running contacts:
    http://www.silvia.trkman.net/

    And if you go here, you can question and answer her on the running contacts page. Just browsing the many pages will give you a fantastic idea of her method:
    http://www.lolabuland.com/

    Basically you start with a flat plank, slowly raise up. The focus is on FULL speed from the start, so almost always to a toy thrown before the dog is released (or food set out already for non toy dogs) and you want good hind feet separation.

    In my opinion, her method is, so far, the only proven method for running dogwalks for dogs of all sizes.

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  4. Ah, I forgot about that! Thanks for the tips!

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