Of Cakes and Contacts

Okay Karen, this one's for you - Jack's photo has disappeared into the black hole of the alternate reality of my computer, so I have recreated for Cruz's second birthday.

Carrot, zucchini and peanut butter cake with low fat cream cheese frosting, hand made dog biscuits and of course the icing, 'smakos' and doggy choc sheep - mmmmmm !

Plus pupcakes for his 'brothers' and friends. Well, the friends didn't really get a look in thanks to the brothers, but the intent was there.And while I'm on the subject, here's one I made a few months back as an order for a dog's birthday party. Which annoyed mine as they got to 'look but not touch...... or taste !'

And now to the topic that is almost causing me sleepless nights - at least it would be if I wasn't so cosy with an electric blanket and two kelpies (oh, and there's a husband in there too somewhere I think) - CONTACT TRAINING , namely one A Frame.

This would have to be the piece of equipment that I have decided I hate training, as I have a clear picture in my head of how I want Cruz's performance to be, but achieving it is another story......... Cruz prefers messing with my mind instead.

We started with 2 on 2 off, as we are doing on the dogwalk, where he performs it brilliantly. This was fine until I started raising the A Frame close to full height and then he lost all speed and started creeping down to the position at the bottom . After a few weeks of this with no improvement I decided to train a running contact on the A Frame.

Began with a stride regulator at the top and a hoop at the bottom, got rid of the regulator early on as video analysis showed he was hitting the (almost) identical spot every time. Hooray - she says ! This will make it easy. (Fool!)

So a couple of weeks back we finally went to full height and it is a lovely running contact, fast and accurate. Am I a good trainer or what ? Well here comes the what ........... Cruz is getting faster and faster as his confidence grows, last week he began to fully extend and really run it, well that taught me something about running contacts.............a very long skinny kelpie when fully extended can actually get through the hoop at the bottom without touching the colour. Picture head down, fully extended with his back legs just above the colour and his front legs just off the end on the ground and you get the idea.

So my choices now are - put stride regulators back on to manipulate his stride, try to implement some sort of a board on the bottom of the contact for him to hit, or go back to a stopped contact. I don't feel I am experienced enough with stride regulators to do this successfully, plus by changing his stride I will need to go back to the months and months of muscle memory with loads of repetitions and even then there is no guarantee as I have just found out. The board has potential - and there are several DVD's in the pipeline using this method coming soon, but the problem is that his nose touch is so hard wired, every time he sees any sort of a board he wants to do 2o2o and nose touch - so I would need to break him of that habit first.

The problem with his stopped contact was that he never really got his weight back far enough as he does on the dogwalk, creating a slow performance which I also don't want.

So I am going to give Elicia's method (slide into a drop on board) a go. That way he can still nose touch if he wants, and then I can fade it. Began shaping the position on a touchboard last week and he has caught on to this very quickly. Put the board onto a lowered A Frame today for the first time, and he had no trouble with the position at all, so we will see what happens with this method. I am prepared to sacrifice a little of the speed I had with the running, but I don't want the 'creeping' down to the bottom.

I need to be patient this time and make sure I raise the A Frame one link at a time instead of rushing it. ('Patience is knowledge disguised' - Kay Laurence)

This whole training issue has also given me a better insight into how hard it is for people at club to train contacts with their dog when they don't know what they are doing. I think as Instructors we confuse them by all having our 'pet' ways of doing things. So they are told something different every week depending on who the instructor is plus they don't have access to equipment to train at home. I 'kinda' know what I 'm doing (at least I thought I did) and I have access to an adjustable A Frame at home, but I'm sure Cruz will tell you that I am still stuffing it up. So we need to get some consistency with the way we are teaching at club - something else for the next Instructor's meeting agenda.

Contact Training

After working with Elicia late last year, I have decided to retrain Atilla's dogwalk contact to a running rather than 2 on/2 off. I am amazed at how his speed has improved already - which is what I have been wanting- but 'don't wish too hard for what you want'............. his incredible accuracy (never missed a contact at a trial) has gone out the window ! However, we now have the 'wheeee' factor, which is worth it. I am focusing on teaching him to RUN the dogwalk at the moment as that is one foundation skill that I overlooked. At the same time we are working on hitting a contact board with his front paws on the flat. I put the board on my small dogwalk tonight for the first time and in 6 repetitions he only missed one, so I think that is coming along nicely.

I timed his dogwalk performance a couple of weeks ago, just to get a 'benchmark' and he clocked in at 3.06 seconds on one run and 2.96 on the other, but at that stage he was still a bit 'creepy' at the bottom as he wasn't sure if he should stop or not. Now he is very happily 'not stopping' so I'm sure we've shaved that time a bit. I don't expect world class times with 'Mr Cautious' that's for sure, but I am aiming for around 2.5 seconds, as I think this is realistic for him and also fast enough to be competitive here.

I have decided to keep trialling for the time being - at the moment I only want him to continue to run his contacts and if we miss the colour I can live with that for now - I just need to remember not to react and keep running as obviously he doesn't understand his 'new job' just yet. If we need to stop running agility for a bit later on when the board goes on the full size walk then we'll take a break and just do jumping for a bit.

Cruz is doing 2o2o and I am extremely happy with his dogwalk performance. His best time was 2.56 seconds from paw on 'up plank' to nose touch at end. I am considering phasing out the actual nose touch, but need to do a bit more 'research' about this first. I did this with his seesaw performance as he was running to just before the end of the board (about 3/4 of the way down) riding it down, but then sliding into 2o2o with nose touch after the board came down, which was wasting a lot of time. I am now releasing him as soon as the board hits, which he seems to be coping with pretty well. Not the fastest seesaw going, but I am still happy with it.

The A Frame is another story - this would have to be the piece of equipment that I feel the least comfortable training for some reason. Atilla is continuing his 'moving' contact on this - hoping it will become more of a running contact once the touch board goes on but I'm not messing with it until his dogwalk is a bit more under control. Considering I didn't have access to an A Frame when I taught him and he learnt by running a full size frame once a week in class, I don't think he has done too badly but there's always room for improvement.

I now have a height adjustable A Frame but I am not happy with Cruz's speed. Started training a stopped contact, then decided I would train a running on the A Frame only, but his long legs and huge stride were causing problems with this. Reverted back to 2o2o and I was pleased with his speed on a lowered A Frame. As I raised it, he lost speed at first, but then regained it as he became more confident. But we have now been using the full size frame for about 3 weeks and this time his speed has not increased. He has a very fast up ramp, but really slows to hit the position at the bottom, which I don't want. His weight appears to be back and his position is nice, but I would really like more speed. I have now lowered the A Frame again so we will go back and work on this. Timed their frames tonight - Atilla 1.65 with a 'running' (more of a moving) and Cruz 1.88 with a stopped. Would like to get them both around the 1.5 sec. mark if possible.

It's amazing how your expectations change with each dog as you learn more - to think with Yasser I taught him the 'PnP' method (Point 'n Pray) and was really happy with this at the time!