It seems that a lot of people are considering training running dogwalks with their young dogs. If you’ve never had a running dogwalk before you might be wondering what additional challenges it will bring in terms of handling the increased speed. In any given situation, where will you be when the dog finishes the dogwalk?
At the same time that more people are training running dogwalks it seems that Judges (especially at many major events) are putting more significant handling challenges at both ends of the dogwalk. How can you decide if you will be quick enough to handle these challenges?
I’ve developed a free tool to help you get an idea about how good your chances are of being at the end of a dogwalk at the same time as your dog. The Running Dogwalk Calculator is a spreadsheet that should run in almost any spreadsheet program such as Excel or OpenOffice.org Calc. I would consider it to be in it’s beta stage right now. It is fully functional, but there might be improvements suggested by the agility community that I can incorporate into it.
The Running Dogwalk Calculator has a dedicated page where you can learn more about it and download a copy for free.
Tags: Agility, Dog, Dogwalk, Running Contacts, Running Dogwalk calculator, Training
Adrian Rowan is a young handler in Kentucky who has been training running-contacts with her Border Collie Panic. They started in April 2009, using Silvia Trkman’s method. Adrian reports that Panic has only missed one contact in competition, which happens to be the 3rd dogwalk in the video below. This is a compilation video of Panic’s contacts in competition.
Adrian’s LiveJournal Blog has a number of posts about the training process. I’ve summarized and linked to the relevant posts below. Follow the links to the individual blog posts for more detail.
April 3, 2009 Adrian decides to experiment with running contacts. Panic already has a stopped contact using 2o2o.
April 12, 2009 Up to 28″ already! Adrian is intermixing running performances and and a stop on the plank. Can you spot the performances that should be rewarded?
April 29, 2009 Panic is doing a full-height dogwalk in class situation.
May 9, 2009 Adding turns to the end of the plank.
June 9, 2009 Panic has a regression and is jumping off a lot of contacts.
July 18, 2009 Adrian realizes that some of the repetitions that she’s been rewarding have been jumps that were deep into the yellow, but were still jumping and not truly running. Re-watch the videos above. Can you spot any jumps? Developing the ability to distinguish between jumping and running the most difficult, and yet, the most important part of Sylvia’s method. Everyone seems to struggle with it at some point. Adrian has some great pic’s that she let me post here. Not every dog has their back feet apart when running but most do.
Panic Jumping – Back Feet Together
Copyright 2009 Adrian Rowan
Panic Running – Back Feet Spaced Apart
Copyright 2009 Adrian Rowan
July 20, 2009 While working on turns after the dogwalk Adrian discovers that Panic does well with turns cued with deceleration but tends to jump when the turn is cued with lateral motion away from the dogwalk. I’m not sure that I’ve heard anyone make that distinction before. I wonder if it’s a common issue. Adrian attributes it to Panic still being green and feels sure it can be worked through.
August 20, 2009 More work on turns.
There are more videos on Adrian’s YouTube channel and on her Vimeo page . Check those out, as well as Adrian’s Blog for future progress reports.
Tags: Dogwalk, Running Contacts, Silvia Trkman, Training, Trialing, Trkman Method
Kristin Cowell has been training running-contacts with her Golden Retriever Rue since March of this Year. Kristin’s blog – Tails of Gold – is nicely categorized so it is easy to find all of the appropriate posts. Simply click on running contacts in the categories list on the right hand panel of her blog and be sure to use the “Older Entries” & “Newer Entries” links at the bottom of the pages to see all of the running contacts posts.
Here’s one of their runs from October of this year.
Rue Open Standard Oct. 17, 2009
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Kristin is using Silvia Trkman’s method for her running contacts. This video is from March 2009 and is Rue’s first videotaped session. Rue is sent around a jump standard (off-screen) before she runs the plank. At this stage Kristin is just getting Rue excited about the idea of running on the plank. She isn’t asking for any particular striding or position at this stage.
Rues First Session March 2009
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By May Rue was pretty consistent at low heights. Kristin said that it seemed like they were stuck at the 2″-4″ range for an eternity. But the work paid off and by June they were up to about 24″. At this point Rue is getting on by using a 3′x4′ board which gives an angle similar to an A-frame.
Rue at 24″ June 2009
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To go above the 24″ height Kristin switched to a 6′ plank so that the approach wouldn’t be too steep. Here’s an image of her setup.
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By August Rue was working a full Dogwalk. Still not perfect in every situation but well on the way. They are beginning to work on turns after the dogwalk at this point.
Rue on a Full Dogwalk August 2009
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There is a lot of written background and a lot of other video on Kristin’s Blog – Tails of Gold. You can also see the videos on Kristin’s YouTube Channel. I’m sure there will be a lot of future posts as Kristin finishes the training process with Rue. So bookmark her blog and check back for updates.
Tags: A-Frame, Agility, Dogwalk, Golden Retriever, Running Contacts, Silvia Trkman, Training, Trkman Method
Penny Spencer’s sighthound cross Panshanger (pronounced pan shanger) has had an eventful life. For example Pan was hit by a car in a freak accident in April of 2008. She had a fractured skull and lost an eye. Fortunately Pan is a resilient dog, she not only survived the accident, but has come back to full agility competition.
Pan had a reliable stopped A-frame (two on, two off) but when she sustained a carpal injury (a different incident), Penny decided to train a running A-frame instead. She chose Rachel Sanders “Box Method” for the training.
First Sessions of Box Work
httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=852193A404BE1CD1
Penny has a thorough account of the training process on her YouTube channel and everything is nicely described in her blog. It can be hard to search LiveJournal blogs so I have put links below to the most relevant posts. Penny has an entertaining writing style and an off-beat sense of humour that makes her blog a lot of fun to read. The videos are great because they are tightly edited so that you can see a lot of training in a short period of time. Many of them also have slow motion replays.
One of the most difficult things for trainers to overcome when training with this method is developing the trainer’s eye so that they can see when the dog does a clean four-foot hit in the box. It is common for dogs to hit with three feet and Rachel is adamant that all four feet are necessary for reliable performance.
The great thing about people’s training blogs (and the reason that I’m trying to link to them all here) is that they allow you to get some experience watching for good performances without the pressure of being in a real training situation. Penny has made that even better. Some of her videos have a a red “X” or a green “+” to help you see the hits yourself. Here’s an example of that.
Spot the Correct Hits
All of the videos are on Penny’s YouTube channel and are also embedded in her blog. I’ve linked to the blog posts that refer to the running contact training below.
Penny Spencer’s Running Contact Posts
June 2, 2009 After Pan has recovered from a carpal injury Penny decides to teach her a running A-Frame using Rachel Sanders Box Method. First video session.
June 8, 2009 Penny starts to us the Manners Minder remote feeder to stop Pan watching her in anticipation of the toy. Penny has a table of attempts vs rewards that shows just how hard it is to see the proper footwork in the beginning. Video is a great help!
June 14, 2009 Penny (like everyone it seems) struggles to see the difference between a three foot hit and a four foot hit.
June 18, 2009 Detailed record keeping and video shows that both Penny and Pan are getting better. Developing the trainer’s eye is an important element.
June 19, 2009 A beautiful session with motion. Pan is overcoming a problem that stems from being blind on one side. When Penny is behind, and on Pan’s sighted side, Pan sometimes turns towards her and then can’t see the box.
June 23, 2009 Working through the same problem.
June 25, 2009 A couple of sessions working on Pan focusing her attention forward when Penny is behind.
June 29, 2009 Can you spot the three 3 paw hits?
July 8, 2009 94% for Pan 100% for Penny!
July 17, 2009 The first session with adding the jumps in front of the box.
July 20, 2009 Another session with the grid.
August 5, 2009 A bit rusty after a bit of a break. Pan sometime is sometimes not going straight through the box.
August 20, 2009 Working on collection to hit the box more consistently with speed.
August 28, 2009 A session with the Manners Minder to slow things down a bit from the thrown toy, and have more success.
August 31, 2009 Raising the exit side of the box to ensure a pounce behaviour. Huge improvement!
Sepember 2, 2009 Steady improvement.
September 7, 2009 Disappointment! Penny discovers that her measurements for the grid differ from the dimensions of the ANKC A-Frame which has planks just under 8′ in length, instead of the 9′ planks used in most organizations.
October 11, 2009 More foundation videos with the new dimensions.
October 14, 2009 Penny adds a sheet of wood under the grid. Rachel Sanders told me that it was a Wendy Pape innovation to lie an A-frame flat on the ground under the box and grid. The idea is that it gets the dog used to the wood and slats before there is any height of a real A-frame. Separating the components for the dog to work through one at a time. The plywood is a similar idea.
October 21, 2009 The most recent video.
I hope Penny continues to blog about Pan’s progress so that we can all learn from her experiences. I know that I’ll be following along.
Tags: A-Frame, Rachel Sanders, Running Contacts, Sanders Method, Training
Toni Dawkins is one of the stars of the British agility scene. Her Border Collies Kite and Minx are regulars at the podium. Toni has represented Britain at the FCI Word Championships in 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. She went four times with Kite and once (2006) with Minx.
Toni and Kite won both the prestigious Kennel Club Agility Stakes at Olympia and the Crufts Singles twice in a row, in 2006 & 2007. They also won the Crufts Championship in 2007 and 2009.
Toni and Minx won both the Crufts Singles and Championship this year (2009). That means that this year Toni won the Crufts Championship in two different heights – Medium with Minx and Large with Kite.
Here’s a video of Toni and Kite in competition. Kite has a stopped dogwalk performance. Watch the turn off of the dogwalk in this run.
Toni Dawkins & Kite – Hinckley Olympia Qualifier
Dogwalk Turn in Slow Motion
Toni wrote a series of articles about training her young Border Collie Beep. She talks about a wide range of training topics in the articles including tricks, toys, jumps, weaves and of course, the process of training running contacts.
The great thing about these articles is the refreshing honesty displayed by Toni. Things don’t sail along perfectly and effortlessly from the beginning stages to the finished behaviour. Some things happen that weren’t planned for or foreseen. Yes, there are glitches and challenges, and we can see a great trainer work through them.
Of course I have been focusing on the running contact sections of these articles but they are good articles whether you are doing running contacts or not, so enjoy!
Part One First post and Beep is 9 months old. Not a lot on contact training but Toni talks about her decision to train running contacts. Essentially Toni spends 90% of her competition rounds reinforcing the correct contact behaviour instead of going for the win. (Winning is the only way to advance in the British agility system) So running contacts, that could be treated the same way in competition and training, should have some advantages.
Part Two February 2008. Beep is 10 months old. Toni talks about how she altered Sylvia’s method to include specifically training turns off the end of the dogwalk. She introduced 90 degree and 180 degree turns at the plank stage.
Part Three April 2008. Beep is 12 months old. Toni reports Beep has been doing 10 repetitions of the plank, twice a day, 5 days a week, for 5 months. By my calculations that is over 2,100 reps of the plank with a slightly increasing angle. Clearly there’s a lot of work involved in this. Toni raises the plank by an inch when she gets 3-4 days of 100% correct striding.
Part Four Beep has a false pregnancy so Toni discusses her Teeter (SeeSaw) work with her competition dog Kite.
Part Five July 2008. Beep is 16 months old. This is the seventh month of dogwalk training for Toni and Beep. Beep is doing really well on plank work. She keeps running through the contact zone even while balls are being thrown etc.
Part Six September 2008. Beep is 18 months old. Since her last post Toni has begun the A-frame and moved it up to full height. Beep is now working a full dogwalk at a low height. Toni notices how the amount of running room Beep gets on the approach to the up-ramp affects which feet hit the contact zone on the down-ramp!
Part Seven November 2008. Beep is 20 months old. Toni is rethinking her reward after the dogwalk. Up until now she has left a static toy out for Beep past the end of the dogwalk. If there is a good performance she lets her have it, but if it isn’t a rewardable performance she calls her off of it. Toni thinks that this might not be the best tactic for a dog with Beep’s personality.
Part Eight February 2009. Beep is 23 months old. The dogwalk is about 1 foot less than full height now. Beep has increased her enthusiasm.
Part Nine May 2009. Beep’s A-frame and Seesaw are fast and accurate in many different locations now. Toni feels that Beep’s dogwalk is affected by her confidence and although it is nearly 100% some hits are high enough to make a judge think about it, and Toni doesn’t like that. Toni is concerned about Beep’s confidence on the dogwalk and has decided that she will carry on until the winter and if she is still not confident she will add a stop to the dogwalk. They have done one agility round in competition with perfect contacts.
Part Ten September 2009. Toni Decides to end Beep’s running dogwalk training and to put a stop on Beep’s dogwalk. There are a lot of reason’s for this decision and many of them relate to Beep’s personality. In the end Toni feels that Beep isn’t suited to the training process she was using for the running dogwalk. The good news is that the running A-frame was a success and that’s staying. In this article Toni discusses the reasons for the decision, as well as the pros and cons of running dogwalks in general.
That’s all of the articles so far. Hopefully there will be more in the future. In addition to Beep (who is now 2 1/2 years old) Toni has a new puppy and will try training the running dogwalk with him. I’ll try to keep you posted on that when the training starts.
Toni has just started a YouTube channel. If we’re lucky there will be lots of new video in the future.
One last thought. Toni has trained a running Teeter (Seesaw) with Beep. That means she runs up, rides it down and leaves. I’m going to ask if she’ll write about that in her next article. I’ll let you know what I find out.
Tags: A-Frame, Dogwalk, Running Contacts, Training, Trkman Method
In yesterday’s post I talked about the Large Dog Team Agility (Standard) course from this year’s FCI Agility World Championships. It was an interesting course for handlers whose dogs have a running dogwalk.
Here’s the closing sequence again:
2009 FCI Large Team Agility course map - closing sequence
The full course can be seen in yesterday’s post. All of the courses and the results can be found on the FCI WC 2009 page of Louis Hillebrand’s web site.
Here’s a video of Sylvia Trkman and Bu running that course.
Silvia Trkman an Bu Large Team Agility FCI WC 2009
Were the spin and the subsequent dropped bar related to the running-contact or not?
[EDIT Oct. 6, 2009] The YouTube Channel mentioned below was closed. However “Sally Canon and Cheddar” suggested another in the comments. The video above, in fact all of Silvia Trkman’s runs from this years FCI WC are on Lautailyn’s YouTube channel.
Today’s video is from Nina Mayer’s YouTube Channel. In August I did a post about Nina Mayer training running-contacts with her dog Jay using Sylvia Trkman’s method.
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All of the runs from the FCI World Championships are available from Agility Vision as a Video-on-Demand for a reasonable price. Lots of running contacts to see!
Tags: Competition, Dogwalk, FCI, Running Contacts, Silvia Trkman, Video
I spent this weekend glued to my computer screen watching the coverage of the FCI Agility World Championships. Probably many of you did also. If you didn’t see the competition yet, it’s well worth watching. The people at Agility Vision still have it available as Video-On-Demand for a reasonable price.
There was an interesting closing sequence in the Large Dog Team Agility (Standard) course. Of course there are always a lot of interesting and exciting things at the World Championships, but this was particularly pertinent to running-contacts, specifically a running dogwalk.
Here’s the closing sequence from the course.
This was a difficult sequence for a fast dog with a running contact as there was a tricky sequence at each end of the dogwalk. On the approach to the dogwalk, handlers had to manage:
- The back-side approach to #14
- Followed by a threadle #14 – #15
- Then a send to #16 – if they were planning to be at the end of the dogwalk with their dog.
After the dogwalk the dogs naturally wanted to do #18 from the wrong side. I saw a few strategies for handling this that worked well, but the handler had to be there to execute any them. If the handler spent too much time making sure they got the wall jump at 16, then it was very hard to beat the dog to the end of the dogwalk and manage the back-side approach to the 270.
Here is a link to the whole course:
Course map of 2009 FCI Large Team Agility
The course shown above, and all of this year’s courses and results can be found on the FCI WC 2009 page of Louis Hillebrand’s web site.
Results are also available from the Official Site for the 2009 FCI World Agility Championships.
Tags: 2009, Agility, Competition, Dogwalk, FCI, Running Contacts, World Championship
When should you retrain a stopped contact to a running contact? Trainer Bonnie Norris made a choice that seems to be paying off for her. Back on June 7th (2009) I did a post on Bonnie and her Border Collie Ice. Bonnie had trained a running A-frame using Rachel Sander’s box method, and a stopped contact for the dogwalk.
Bonnie was unhappy with Ice’s performance of the dogwalk. She saw that Ice was very confident when performing his running A-frame, but much less confident when performing his stopped Dogwalk. She wondered whether she could get the same confidence on the dogwalk by changing to a running contact for it also. She eventually decided to retrain Ice’s dogwalk to a running contact using Silvia Trkman’s method.
Here’s a video of Ice’s first 5 months of competition. The first half is with stopped contacts. You can clearly see that he is very hesitant on the dogwalk compared to the A-frame. In the last half of the video he is doing the retrained running contact and he is much faster.
Stopped Dogwalk vs. Running Dogwalk
Truthfully, I’m the sort of person who believes that almost any “normal, healthy dog” can be trained to perform stopped contacts reliably, and with good speed. However, watching that video really makes me wonder whether it’s always a good idea to persevere in the face of adversity. If you are swimming upstream, is it always a good idea to just swim harder?
Could Ice eventually have learned to perform a stopped dogwalk, happily, confidently and at speed? Even if he could, is it necessarily the best choice? Perhaps sometimes it’s better to consider the individual dog, and “brush with the fur” instead of against it. I can’t say that I know the answer, but Ice sure seems happier with his new dogwalk performance.
In an recent email to me Bonnie said:
…I expect that we are only just beginning our adventure with running contacts. As he increases his confidence level, I’m sure our challenges will evolve in a new direction as well.But that’s what keeps us getting out of bed in the morning, right?
Indeed. Maybe one day running contacts will be the norm in agility. But at the moment it seems that most people who are training them are filled with a sense of adventure about the process. That’s got to be exciting, or scary, or both. You can keep up to date on Bonnie and Ice’s progress on Bonnie’s YouTube Channel. Also, take a look at the original post for more video and links about Ice’s running dogwalk training.
Tags: A-Frame, Dogwalk, Rachel Sanders, Running Contacts, Sanders Method, Trkman Method
I wrote a post about German agility competitor Nina Mayer back in mid-May. Nina had a nice series of nine videos documenting her running contact training with her Border Collie Jay. Unfortunately seven of the nine were somehow accidentally deleted from Nina’s YouTube channel. If you missed them on the original post that’s too bad because they are gone. The link on the original post still plays the remaining two videos.
The good news is that Nina has posted a compilation video that shows a bit of each step of training. It’s shorter than the original videos but still illustrates the process.
Jay’s Running Contacts – From Day One
In addition to the compilation Nina has posted 3 new videos of Jay from more recent training sessions. In this one from July 30 Jay is looking really consistent.
Jay July 30, 2009
Here are two other videos from earlier this summer. To see more subscribe to Nina’s YouTube channel or, if you can read German, follow the process on Nina’s blog.
Jay, June & July 2009
httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A2688B08E5065FDB
Tags: Agility, Running Contacts, Silvia Trkman, Training, Trkman Method, Video
Well, maybe you can’t completely train a running dogwalk in your living room. But when Francoise (Sassie) Joiris found herself in a position where she could only get access to a dogwalk once a week, she decided she needed a creative solution.
Sassie is a professional animal trainer who has done extensive film, television and print work with her Norfolk Terrier Stamp. In addition to Stamp, Sassie has a Whippet named Boing that she also trains in agility. Sassie was unsatisfied with Boing’s Dogwalk performance and was having a hard time progressing as quickly as she wanted to because she couldn’t get Boing on real equipment often enough. But Sassie didn’t want that to be an excuse.
“I always swore I wouldn’t be one of those people who used where I live as an excuse for my dog’s shabby performance. Sometimes I do feel a little put upon since I live in an apartment and my dogs generally only get to work at a real agility facility with contacts etc. once or sometimes twice a week, nevertheless, there are always ways to get around problems.”
So she ended up with the setup that you see above. She has Comfort King agility matting over an 18 x 6 foot section of her living room for cushioning and traction.
Recent Dogwalk Training With Boing
More Running Contact Training
Here is another video from a different angle where you can see the entire setup.
There are more pictures and discussion of her training on Sassie’s blog. In particular, these three recent posts discuss her running dogwalk training.
- June 21, 2009 More videos and pictures of the setup
- June 22,2009 More video and a fair bit of comment and discussion.
- June 25, 2009 Watch for the cat distraction. Can your dog handle that?
Boing is being retrained from a stopped contact so there are always added difficulties in that situation. Sassie is using a modified combination of the Roukas-Canova method and the Trkman method and has had this setup for about three weeks now. You can definitely see the progress with the extra training time.
Quoting Sassie:
“I’ll have to see what the long term result is, but I think it’s going to have been worth the effort.”
I think Sassie is an inspiration for us all to look honestly at our training and make sure we are doing all that we can do, in order to get the results we want!
There is more video of all sorts of agility training on Sassie’s YouTube Channel. You can learn about more Sassie and Stamp at Sassies’s web site.
Tags: Canova Method, Dogwalk, Mixed Method, Training, Trkman Method