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