contact question again

[Cody & Duchess]

Cody and I do agility for Cody's confidence. He has done much better than I expected. Working on contacts though. Our prior trainer didn't require a full stop off the A frame. Cody always stayed in the center and never jumped off. Trainer now wants him to do the two on, two off.... how to teach. She put him back in the position last weekend. That is not going to work. Mr. Cody is Mr sensitive, he folds into a heap of bones if he cannot figure out what you are asking him. We had worked on target placement of food when we wanted him to stop- but I thought agility was about how fast you go. Once he is looking for food he is always looking for food. I was thinking about teaching him the word "freeze" and teaching it like a game that he freezes where ever he is when I say it. I think that is possible but I don't want to teach him something that will backfire later because I don't understand all the different angles of agility. Cody is a very bidable dog - you just need to explain it to him so that he can understand what you want. Thanks

[SecretBC]

And this is what I do not like about group agility classes.

 

Do you feel your dog needs a 2-on/2-off? It is not the only acceptable contact performance.

 

When I teach, I *advise* students to start with 2-on/2-off because I think it will make their life easier -- But I do not require it. And once we are out of beginners, it is completely up to them what performance they want. All I require is that they are consistent and ask for the same thing each time -- and correct mistakes when they happen.

 

If you are happy with your dog's running contact performance on the a-frame, tell your instructor you would like to continue that and ask if she has recommendations for how to improve THIS style of contact performance. Not all dogs fit the mold of the cookie cutter. My two boys would never, ever be happy stopping on the a-frame -- So they run it (they stop the dog walk). Secret loves her 2o/2o equally on all contacts, so that is what she does.

[muttlycrew]

I will start by saying that I do like group classes. I practice several days a week, one of those being in a class. I like them as they provide distractions and I like seeing how others walk a course. It's neat being able to see the different handling styles and seeing things I wouldn't think of myself. My newest dog is great when we go to the field and practice by ourselves, but in class she is very unfocused and a total mess because she gets so excited watching the other dogs run. I rather deal with this now then later on in our training. Nothing phases my other dogs in trials as they are used to running in the rain, running in heat/snow, screaming dogs, children running around, other dogs playing or getting tasty treats, etc.

 

Trainer now wants him to do the two on, two off.... how to teach. She put him back in the position last weekend. That is not going to work. Mr. Cody is Mr sensitive, he folds into a heap of bones if he cannot figure out what you are asking him. We had worked on target placement of food when we wanted him to stop- but I thought agility was about how fast you go. Once he is looking for food he is always looking for food.

 

I would do whatever you feel comfortable with. If you are OK with running contacts and Cody performs them correctly and safely, I would say don't change them. For my dogs, I always train a 2o2o. This lets me get out and where I need to be. Once I train the 2o2o, I may do quick releases and eventually a running obstacle (I'm phasing out the 2o2o AF for my Golden).

 

If you want to do the 2o2o, go for it. I would try free shaping the position (so he does not always rely on looking for the food/target). Have a plank of wood or even use the stairs, and ask for him to do a 2o2o. Click and treat. Once he really starts to understand the behavior, move to the actual obstacle itself and ask him to hop up and into position (don't take him over the whole obstacle) and click/treat for holding it. When he is reliable on all the obstacles holding his position, I would start adding the whole obstacle.

 

The most important thing to me is finding a trainer I really feel I can talk to. I have three agility trainers that I go to. All run different dogs and all have different ideas and techniques. They are all very opened minded and open to me coming out and trying new things.

 

Good luck.

[Cody & Duchess]

I have read that it is easy to teach this command.. but I cannot get my head around why it is because the goal seems so unnatural to me . That being said, I am having a hard time communicating with Cody that our goal is two feet on the stair and two on the floor. Remember- if the world gets to much for him he wants to sit= that makes sense to him. Now for my short comings - the instructor wants me to identify each piece of equipment by verbal command. In the past I just pointed and made sure my body was facing the way I want him to go. My present mantra is plank, jump, tunnel, frame, shute, teeter, - I am concerned that I will forget what I am calling the stuff. So now I need a command for 2o2off. Would freeze work or stop or will I pay for it later.

 

This dog knows the commands sit, easy, wait, faster, "wait for me, I'm old", leave it, and bye, bye baby boy.....I am heading home. Oh yeah- and he know to race me to the front door when I say "I am going to win". He is full of quirky commands that work for me- what do you say to your dog to get them to stop in a race and stand there until released?

[Root Beer]

He is full of quirky commands that work for me- what do you say to your dog to get them to stop in a race and stand there until released?

 

I use "contact" for my stopped contact and "bottom" for my running contact. You can use any word you want.

[SecretBC]

I have read that it is easy to teach this command..

 

..........what do you say to your dog to get them to stop in a race and stand there until released?

 

It is "simple," but it is not easy. It takes time and consistency.

 

You can use any cue/words you want. I originally taught Luke "touch" in the beginning, but he was trained wrong (group class....). When I retrained his contacts, I switched to "bottom." I now use bottom with all three to make my life easier.

[muttlycrew]

I use go wait for two of mine, which literally means GO to the bottom and wait until I release you. For Stella, she is using Touch, which means the same thing...but I use wait a lot at home. The others never had an issue with using wait to mean "freeze, stop right there and hang on" vs "go to the end of the contact and wait". But Stella doesn't seem to be able to differentiate between the two right now, so to keep it simple we are calling it Touch. Maybe one day I'll change it to Wait and maybe I won't. I don't confuse the words going between multiple dogs as my handling style is different for each dog.

 

Use what sounds natural to you...Wait, Stop, Freeze, Bottom, Hit it, etc.

 

If Cody is having trouble free shaping, try this approach:

- put an unloaded target at the bottom of the stairs

- leave him in a wait, sit, stay, whatever halfway down

- you walk to the bottom by the target

- release him (add your word or not, I personally wouldn't until he is doing it on his own)

- Click/Treat and then release

- rinse and repeat

 

Not my favorite way of doing it, but if he is a soft dog and isn't getting the whole "offer me a 2o2o on the stairs", you want to set him up for success so you both don't get frustrated. Hopefully others will have more things you can try.

 

 

When I first was learning about 2o2o, I too really didn't get the concept. But once my dogs gained confidence and starting to really RUN, I just couldn't keep up. I'm not good with directionals (left, right) so having three objects where the dog HAS to stop gives me time to leave them there (provided they have a good understanding that they cannot leave until released) so that I can get myself positioned for the next few sequences. Maybe one day I'll actually beat them...

 

I would talk to your trainer. If you honestly don't feel the need to have a 2o2o contact with Cody, then don't. Your trainer should be open to this as this is your dog.

[Carlasl]

with both of my dogs I found using a short milk crate the easiest way to capture the 2o2o behavior, I would sort of use my body to help them walk over it then click when the two back feet were on it, once they realized what I wanted I named it (feet) then I moved it onto a mini A frame (easier to get on and stay on the contact) load from the side, ask for the behavior and treat in front of the dog to get the desired response. Then I moved it to a plank.

 

My problem right now is that Maya is waiting for my foward motion to get into the 2o2o position, she will hold it no matter how fast I am running past her, but I have to be in motion for her to go to the end of the contact.

[MrSnappy]

the instructor wants me to identify each piece of equipment by verbal command.

 

Why does she want you to do that? I try to talk to my dogs very little whilst running a course, except to identify certain contact obstacles (to differentiate between a walk and the teeter, for example).

 

what do you say to your dog to get them to stop in a race and stand there until released?

 

I don't. I have a "wait" command on the start line, which is reinforced with a hand signal so I can do reasonable lead outs. I have a 2o2o command which is "hit it" and the function of that command is to go to the bottom, stand with two feet on the ground and wait for the release command. I have a release command which is "kay". I have no other reason to ask the dog to stop anytime that we are running!

 

RDM

[bcnewe2]

Sorry to hijack but...

We just started agility and I was wondering today that we're learning "touch" wrong. Dew is "touching" a little frisbee then I treat her. I know her well enough I'm not teaching a word I'm teaching an action for a certain little frisbee. Am I doing it wrong or will we both figure it out later? I would think I want to teach her to touch whatever I tell her to touch plus she's only putting her nose on it so again am I teaching her "touch" means to touch your nose to a tiny purple frisbee?

TIA

[Carlasl]

Sorry to hijack but...

We just started agility and I was wondering today that we're learning "touch" wrong. Dew is "touching" a little frisbee then I treat her. I know her well enough I'm not teaching a word I'm teaching an action for a certain little frisbee. Am I doing it wrong or will we both figure it out later? I would think I want to teach her to touch whatever I tell her to touch plus she's only putting her nose on it so again am I teaching her "touch" means to touch your nose to a tiny purple frisbee?

TIA

 

You are teaching her that "touch" means touch my nose to a tiny purple frisbee.....I did teach a nose touch to my dogs to a CD and to my hands, the command for that is "touch" but honestly I can't think of the last time I used either, Whether that is wrong or not depends on what you are trying to train, if the point of the target is teaching the 2o2o then I would drop the target and free shape or train just the 2o2o, personally I think a floor target for 2o2o can be more detrimental than helpful for many dogs. I prefer to teach things as I want them and not have to drop an aid if I don't have to. I do use a target on the floor for certain things, but I prefer to use a toy that my dog likes and we can play with, rather than a food reward, but of course that depends on the dog and what motivates them.

 

My 2o2o command is "feet" and that means put your feet on something and don't move until you hear the release word. As long as you keep the criteria of what you are training clear, you don't not need to add a wait to your 2o2o command, so that means when you teach your contact word, you never reward the dog for self releasing, you only reward when you give your release command.

[Root Beer]

Sorry to hijack but...

We just started agility and I was wondering today that we're learning "touch" wrong. Dew is "touching" a little frisbee then I treat her. I know her well enough I'm not teaching a word I'm teaching an action for a certain little frisbee. Am I doing it wrong or will we both figure it out later? I would think I want to teach her to touch whatever I tell her to touch plus she's only putting her nose on it so again am I teaching her "touch" means to touch your nose to a tiny purple frisbee?

TIA

 

There is no "wrong" in this. (This = targeting) You'll teach what you teach. If it turns out to be something different from what you want, you can then teach something else and she will know two ways to target.

 

That said, when you are teaching a "touch" (in this case, nose touch), you have to start out teaching her to touch her nose to something. I teach touch to my hand first and later move to touch nose to a small plate that I hold, and then eventually put it on the ground. On the ground I call it "target", but it's actually the exact same thing - just on the ground. But a lot of people teach the nose touch to a small object first. Starting with my hand is just personal preference.

 

In Agility, you most likely aren't going to have her nose touch anything other than a target, or possibly the ground. So, if you don't plan to use this for anything outside of Agility, you really don't have to worry about whether or not she learns to generalize the nose touch to other things.

 

If you want to generalize it later, you can do that. Just think of the frisbee as the first thing you are teaching her to touch. Later on, she can learn that "touch" means to touch her nose to whatever you indicate.

 

You can make targets mean whatever you want them to mean, and they can mean different things over time.

 

And that's probably way more information than you wanted. Short answer - you will figure it out later!

[bcnewe2]

Thanks...I think I think way to much!

[Root Beer]

Thanks...I think I think way to much!

 

LOL - I can relate! :D

 

I remember when I taught Speedy to target. I had no clue why I was doing it, or how to go about it. To top it off, the scamp kept picking up the little round plastic lid to run around and play "keep away"!!

 

That was actually one of the first times I remember deciding that I had to change what I was doing to make it work for the dog. I went and got a small dessert plate because I knew he wouldn't pick that up to play with.

 

The day he understood that the little plastic lid was the same as the dessert plate and he touched it with his nose instead of trying to play with it, I was so proud of him!

 

OK, now this is really a hijack, but that is such a sweet memory for me.

[bcnewe2]

They gave us tiny frisbee's to teach this with....

Dew is my only dog that doesn't know how to play frisbee, or we'd be sunk.

IF I'd relax and just enjoy I think we'd have more fun but I'm obsessive over training. I like to!

[airbear]

...I would think I want to teach her to touch whatever I tell her to touch plus she's only putting her nose on it so again am I teaching her "touch" means to touch your nose to a tiny purple frisbee?

I found this article useful when I was trying to figure out why anyone would want to train their dog to touch a yogurt lid, and what the heck did it have to do with agility anyways.

 

And just to show you what a loony dog I have, when Wick transitioned from a lid on the ground to the bottom of the equipment (to get the 2o/2o position) she started to smash/piledrive her face into the target. Had to retrain the nose touch to a paw slam. Was glad to read, years later, that other trainers have had similarly insane dogs with no self-preservation instinct. Ah ... life with a loony dog ...

[bcnewe2]

started to smash/piledrive her face into the target

I can just see this!

[Diana A]

You don't have to teach 2on2off if running is working for you. If you haven't trialed yet, you may not know if it's working though. I see a lot of dogs who seem fine doing running in class, but the excitement of a trial gets to them and they start flying off the contacts.

 

If you do teach a stopped contact, I would recommend against teaching it as 'stop on command'. It works much better to teach the dog it's a PLACE to get to and wait there for release. Think about how hard it is for the dog, to run full speed, not knowing when you may stay 'stop'. Some dogs start guessing, or anticipating, and you get creeping over the contact. Others will stop, but if they stop too soon, their next move is to launch off. If you don't time the command perfectly, you're sunk. If your dog is fast, it's very hard to time it perfectly.

 

The easiest way to teach the contact behavior as 'go to a place and wait' is simply to get the dog in position and reward the heck out of it, keep the dog there for up to a full minute, giving a treat on the ground under the dog's nose at the rate of one every second or two. Then release the dog (you may need to make him get off). Then repeat. After a few reps of this, most dogs are very eager to put themselves in position for more treats. Then you can move all around while tossing treats under his nose, run around etc. Then transfer to a real contact obstacle. Most people are in too big of a hurry to get the dog in the position, reward maybe once, and pull them right off. You have to make that position have a lot of value for the dog, and the best way I've found to do that is to reward for an extended period of time before releasing them.

 

for how I've taught my last two dogs (and puppy currently in training) their contacts. (The first demo dog in the video did not have a trained 2on2off and the video is just one training session, so you can see how far he was able to get with in a short time). The two older dogs are very solid and reliable and fast. The puppy has barely started but already understands her job on contacts better than most dogs who have been trialing for years. I have to put the practice board away when we're done because otherwise I can't get her to leave it alone, she wants to do contacts so bad.

 

Diana

[Chi-Ann's Mom]

Remember- if the world gets to much for him he wants to sit= that makes sense to him.

 

Your Cody sounds just like my Ch-Ann. If she gets confused about what I want she lays down and just looks at me. Basically just shuts down and won't continue the exercise. So, then I have to get her "up" to move forward to another thing that we can end on a positive note!

Audrey

[Pat W.]

I totally agree with those here that have said basically "if its not broken dont fix it" If YOU are happy with the way your contacts are performed and Cody is comfortable performing them that way, the I say let your instructor know thats how you feel. The biggest key to training agility is knowing what works for you and your dog and what doesn't. Example: I train without a clicker Im the only one in the class that does this because my dog shuts down at the sound, so I use a verbal - I let my trainers know when we first started training thats how we work. If your trainer cannot work with you on this and insists on you do it her way then its time for a new trainer.

 

Like Kristine (Root Beer) I too trained my targeting to hand first then a target in my hand and then transitioned to a target on the ground. To train a 2o2o I used what is commonly called a travel plank - basically a short 3-4 ft long raised board. Placing the target at one end on the board I had my dog run and target, once he understood that I move the target to the ground and repeated the skill on leash making sure that he understands what his job is, before performing off leash.

 

Unlike alot of competitors I did not name my contacts although I had in previous dogs. My command for AFrame and Dog Walk is "Poke" the command for my 2o2o postion. For example we're approaching the A frame I will call "Poke!" meaning complete that obsticle and get in your poke position as fast as you can.

[Cody & Duchess]

thank you so much for all the input - it is wonderful to have such help. We were with our new trainer for the first time last Saturday - me explaining that we do this for fun and building confidence. Over the week I have thought a lot about the class. Realizing that this Saturday I should explain to the trainer that my over the top praise of Cody for doing something right is not because I am a nut- I do it because it works. Show frustration, anger, loudness - he shuts down. Jump up in the air and clap your hands telling him he is is the best BC - he is Mr. Happy boy. Have tried repeatedly this week for 2o2o on the bottom stairs. 95% of the time I get a sit. One time he was so upset afterwards - that I had to go sit with you to comfort him. Cody does the plank and A frame at a nice trot- we are not winning any speed races here. His favorite is jumping - the most elegant jumper you have ever seen ( he is a big leggy boy). I think I understand that the biggest point of the 2o2o is for you to position or reposition yourself and to keep the dog safe from jumping off the equipment. Maybe I will just table the 2o2o until a need develops.

 

One last thing - he did the weaves perfectly last week. We had worked on them prior but mostly the channel method. She just leaned the poles and Cody pranced down them like an expert - in both directions. I was amazed- told the trainer it was a miracle. She said maybe Cody had done agility before I got him. That is one thing that I know is not possible. When I got him he had problem with big spaces. Had to walk along the fence - would never have allowed himself to be standing in the middle of an agility ring. He was afraid of car rides, garages, etc. For the first year we had him we had to do everything the same to not upset his little world. He has come so far - chutes, tunnels, A frames, jumps- we won't make it to trials.........but you never know. Thanks for everyone's time and insights.

[Cody & Duchess]

Sorry- double post- must have hit my enter button 2x

[Mariji]

I haven't read all the previous posts as I am feeling extremely lazy today but I will just tell you what I did to teach my contacts. You first need to decide and not be told by your instructor what contact you wish to do. I was told to do a 2o2o with a nose touch which we quickly discarded only doing it in class for the good of the instructor. I am now in the process of changing my A Frame to a running contact and leaving the dog walk 2o2o. This is purely for the physical points of my dogs safety. She has a perfect contact with all the proper weight shift training before we did the contact position but because of her high drive and the high value of the object itself I have decided the stopped behaviour is not doing her any favours on the A Frame. If your dog is not particularly fast then a running A Frame would be fantastic especially if he is a dog that shuts down quickly (my older girl does too so I sympathize).

 

To teach the 2o2o I shaped everything. Although it is easier to have a dog that is clicker or shape savvy I just clicked every time her back feet hit the board. Obviously I started small just looking at a flat board on the ground and then moving towards it till feet (any feet) were on it. Then refined it to back feet and forwards facing etc. These were tiny sessions a few times a day maybe about 30sec-1 min because she shut down quickly. We did this over a few months eventually starting at the other end of the board and moving into position. If shaping is too much for him help by putting the plank against a wall and using your body to block the other side. As him or lure him to move forward and reward when he feet hit the floor. I then tend to wait a second and if they stay like that reward again with lots. Dogs that shut down need lots of reinforcment and short sessions also finish with a game of ball or tug or even his dinner. Recognise the signs of stress and finish before it gets to a stage they start to shut down.

 

For a running contact which may be more fun and motivating for your dog depending what he is like use the Box method. The trainer name escapes me at this point but it does start with S. Try looking for videos on Youtube they can be very helpful. Contacts should be taken slowly and take alot of care to make sure the dog enjoys every second of it. You don't want a dog that hesitates when they get to every piece of contact equipment anticipating having to go into a position that was no fun to learn. Maybe if you are confident in what you are doing refrain from doing them at class and just work on them at home before moving to a new environment to practice a behaviour that is not yet figured out. Just explain to the instructor what you are doing so they can help you if you are doing something wrong but just work on it at home. Good luck I am doing contacts with my puppy at the moment and they do prove a little difficult.

[SecretBC]

Diana, that was a fantastic training video -- thank you for sharing it! I love the process of watching dogs learn through shaping and that video is excellent proof of how well this method works for training contacts.