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
Cool idea but for those who feel they are too “slow” to handle a running dogwalk don’t despair. We can’t all run like Silvia Trkman but we can TRAIN. Train independence, turns, entries and exits off the boards… train, train, train so if you do see the above you have already prepared yourself and your dog and you don’t need to be running the entire 36 feet side by side (and trust me, if you’re dog is full out running on a board you’ll be in the dust on quite a few occasions!)
Katie is right of course. It’s all about balancing the different skills and assets that you have. This just measures one of them – handler speed. It’s value is in giving a reality check – that is, giving the handler a glimpse into what additional training or additional speed may be required. What’s required is very dependent on the venues you compete in and your goals.
In the end success is balance of training attributes/skills and handler attributes/skills. I think someone with exceptional training skills can get by with less handling skills. And likewise, someone with exceptional handling skills can get by with less training skills.
So I agree. Look forward and see what you might need to do to make things work. This just measures one element of the equation.
Great idea! I’m going to point to this calculator in my blog; got here via AgilityNerd. Thanks!
Hi Gary
I like most people have watched a lot of the clips of running dog walks on u tube. I would say most if not all lose time on sequences like yours above as they wait until the dog is in the contact to direct and you cannot watch the contact and run into position at the same time.
You need to give the turn command at the top of the down plank or before to let the dog know to adjust its stride but even then you cant beat your dog every time and get ahead, you have to teach as Katie said so the dog understands when you are not there.
Even Silvia loses time after a contact or like your earlier clip something goes wrong after the dog walk because the contact is so fast and you cannot always be in the correct position.
In the UK straight runs off contacts are getting less and less its nearly always a turn and for that reason I have chosen to teach turns first this time round. Who knows if it will work!!!!
Silvia’s method for straight runs off contacts is by far the best but more experimenting needs to be done with turns.
Everone I talke to seems to think you must do running contacts or stoped contacts all the time. I am trying to be able to use both. It may not work but I do not see why not. Currently if I feel I will have a problem with the sequence at the end of the dog walk I simple give my dog a wait command he slow down and waits for me to catch up. Now in this instance he does not do a stop on the contact just a slower running contact. I think with enought training you could teach a dog to run if you give one verbal and even a two on two off if you give another. anyone else trying this.
Dave: Here is a video of the dog Kisa who knows both running contact and 2on2off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9pJFYIEECU