Contact issues.

[CptJack]

Molly is being taught a 2o2o contact, via use of a paw target at the bottom of the obstacle. She's been doing the paw target without the obstacle since January. On the flat, coming down a hill, at the bottom of stairs, she's fine.

We're just now putting it together with the obstacles, and we're having this issue where she pivots her butt 90 degrees and basically comes off the obstacle while keeping her paws on the target. She hasn't pivoted around like that on the flat/on stairs in months, but it's back and then some coming down the a-frame or dog walk.

 

I have no idea how to fix this (little dog has running contacts), or even reproduce it without having contact equipment at home. I think if I COULD find a way to reproduce the problem I could get it straightened out, but I need either a way to do that OR a way to handle it in class.

 

Does anyone have any thoughts?

[Chan]

I've never taught a 2o2o with a paw target, I use a nose touch so I don't have real life experience with that but, I would suggest videoing your practice to see if it's possible your position/motion is influencing it.

 

Also, it could be that with that method you're not getting good weight shift to the rear. If she has more speed coming over the actual contact then maybe she can't keep her rear straight on? Have you tried hopping her up from the side at the bottom of the contact so there isn't much speed coming into it? Does she do the same thing then? If not, start there and back chain.

 

I suppose you could also try adding some guides at the bottoms of the contact to help her. You can either use wire mesh folded into tents to create a chute or the white lattice type garden fencing.

 

I am very pleased with the results I'm getting with Rook's nose touch. He's the second dog I've trained with a nose touch but I'm doing it slightly different this time - following Tracy Sklenar's method. If you're interested in exploring another option check out Agility University.

 

I hope you figure out a solution that works for you.

 

Chandra

[CptJack]

I think it's the first time the instructor has taught contacts this way, too, and she's really good about offering advice but letting me try things different ways/adapting to the dog in front of her, so I'm willing to play with other methods.

That said I AM pretty sure that the issue is she's not actually rocking her weight back enough to be able to appropriately hit the target and stay on and the pivot off is to avoid landing on her head. If I bring her at it from the side (or we're on stairs or some other slant) she's fine. It's when she's coming over the apex that we have issues - and more on the a-frame than. dog walk, though some of both Even if I slow her down, this happens. I really, really don't think she has any concept that she needs to shift her weight.

I'm not sure how much that would change based on what she was targeting with, and I honestly don't really know how to get her to understand that weight shift. Or to get her to do it at all to start with (right or wrong I feel like if she got it once or twice, we'd be over the metaphorical hump with it, we just need a light bulb moment.) Guides might not be a terrible idea for a very, very short term thing.

Backchaining is going to happen next, though, yeah. Hopefully, me taking a few extra minutes in class won't be an issue. ...I just don't have contacts.

 

(THANK YOU!)

[Chan]

>>I'm not sure how much that would change based on what she was targeting with, and I honestly don't really know how to get her to understand that weight shift.

 

Actually, a big reason for using a nose touch is to teach weight shift. You need to teach the nose touch correctly though, the first dog I trained I didn't realize that. Where you place the target helps, as they reach to touch, they shift back, also getting multiple touches in a row helps. You get the weight shift before you introduce motion or speed into the equation. Reward placement can help also.

 

How are you rewarding the paw touch? If you're rewarding with food you can use how you deliver it to encourage weight shift. Feed low and pressing into the dog to encourage her to rock back a bit and shift her weight as she's taking the treat. That might help.

 

Guides may help her stay in position but probably aren't going to affect weight shift if that's the issue.

 

Good luck!

[gcv-border]

Molly is being taught a 2o2o contact, via use of a paw target at the bottom of the obstacle. She's been doing the paw target without the obstacle since January. On the flat, coming down a hill, at the bottom of stairs, she's fine.

 

It is quite a difference to go from targeting off the obstacle (on the flat, hill, stairs, etc) to targeting on an obstacle. Some dogs can't generalize it very well. Many people I know will get a board that is the same size (width) as a DW board. I would recommend NOT buying a 4 foot training board as sold by many agility companies. IMHO, you need at least 8 feet to approximate the obstacle (which is 12'). I bought a 2" X 10" X 12 foot board at a big box store. (This thing is HEAVY, and I am thinking of cutting it down a couple of feet.) You can start her on the flat, then gradually raise it - or even put it on a gradually steeper hill. Just reward the behavior you want, but go back to step one to start training to make sure she doesn't swing her back end off.

[alligande]

I think there has been a move away from using nose touches as a standard method of teaching stopped contacts, I have heard lots of reasons from the structural to simply not wanting their dog sticking their nose in dirt. I taught Rievaulx the position rather than using a target, same concept but I shaped the position on steps and ramps etc so it became about being in a straight line with your butt in the air and your paws on a different surface. By focusing on a target she is doing exactly what she was been taught too do put a paw on a target, with less focus on body position, maybe work the position, as Jovi suggested get a long board and practise at home. It takes a lot more reps to get good contact behaviour than you can get in a class.

There are lots of slightly different ways to build value in the end behaviour, most are variations on the same theme, spend a little time with YouTube and see how others do it, you might see someone's technique that meshes with Molly's way of learning.

[mum24dog]

It's difficult to advise without seeing the dog's conformation in action and knowing from which position the dog can accelerate best.

 

Tbh I don't really like props at all as they have to be faded out, except for a clicker to clarify the criteria for the dog.

 

I've never liked the nose in the dirt method either. I want forward focus. I agree with alligande's method and her reasoning.

 

Kye is a tall, leggy dog and he was taught first a good fold back down and that was transferred very quickly to the contacts even though he's not a particularly bright dog. Head down was never going to work for him and slowed his acceleration off the contact.

 

Risk is smaller although still proportionately leggy. With him the weight shift back isn't going to need to be so pronounced. We have used foot targets but tbh they don't add anything.

 

He is nearly a year old and all we have done so far is flat plank work in the garden. I'm happy with his shopping and understanding of the position without a cue and I can send him on from different directions and run past and away while he waits for a release.

 

I was most pleased when we were watching a class and he ran to the dw and assumed the position.

[CptJack]

Lots of good information here, and my reply is going to be a bit disjointed.

 

First of all, we're only on week TWO of her seeing any equipment besides flat planks on the ground and tunnels. It's still lowered, and it's still very, very new.

 

My thought with the guides was mostly that if Molly was aware that they were there it might slow her down some over the descent and make her more thoughtful about it approaching.

 

We're definitely not trying to add speed right now - in fact we're trying to get some brain in the picture, since all she has right now is speed and enthusiasm. That would be fantastic if she knew what she was doing, but since she doesn't she pretty much just FLINGS herself at (over, around, through) things and hopes for the best.

 

I am rewarding with food for the contact so using the food to get her weight back is definitely something I can try.

She has a fold back down naturally, so she does understand at least moving her body back.

Board is a good idea, if I can find somewhere to store something that big so it's not just left out to be an appealing place for a snake to hide - we live pretty rural and with lots of woods and wildlife around us. I'll see what I can come up with as far as places to stick it.

 

Will probably do some combination of board/prop, backchaining when I have access to the whole obstacle, and some rear end awareness work. And general work on precision since she's way better at flail than precise anything.

 

Mostly aside: I don't really know how I feel about props for this with my particular dog, but I DO trust my instructor so I'm going to give it a go. If it doesn't work out for me, well. Dog's a year old. I can always reteach later without.

[Sekah]

My guess is that you could probably benefit from doing proofing exercises with the target and legs raised on the obstacle (or stairs or whatever you're using). My instructor called the exercise puppy cement. The exercise was basically luring a dog forward with a treat that they can self-reinforce with (nibble, lick, etc) that you allowed them to access as long as they kept their rear feet on the object. If the feet came off, the treat went away and we reset the exercise. Pretty soon we had dogs that were very keen on controlling their back end.

[CptJack]

We actually do/have done that exercise and I really like it. She's pretty great at it, at home - she'll even put her back feet where they go without taking her front ones off the target most of the time and if not immediately gets herself back there via other means (ie: she'll come back down again to hit it).

For whatever reason it does not translate at all to class.

I probably really do need to figure out that board, or at least something new enough to make her excited and help her generalize.

[alligande]

CptJack, there is no reason why you can't train different methods at home and work on your trainers method in class.

 

Another consideration is that many trainers today teach the stop and the running over separately, once they are both doing well they come back together. This is not the same as training running contacts. The first time I took a seminar with Amanda Shyne, she said I love your dog I hate his contacts, and then went onto to give me some brief advice. By the time I took a private with her 4 months later we had the problem solved. She has a book out, which can be bought through Clean Run and most of the work can be done at home without real equipment.

[Laurelin]

Well I mean she's still really new to this all. To me it just sounds like she doesn't know what her criteria is. Hank has not seen a full dog walk at all yet and he's been doing classes since the winter. I think we are going to try it the first time this week.

 

We've done a lot of work on targeting with his back feet. He is my first dog to train stopped contacts with (Summer and Mia were small enough and slow enough that it rarely mattered). He wanted to swing his butt off at first but once he fully understood the game he stopped. I've done a lot of swinging him around on the down side of the ramp and having him stop. Reward in place with food, move around, release to a toy, swing him back and repeat a few times. We play 'contact games' a lot. I also do a lot of having him a few feet from the base of the contact and backing up into 2o/2o position.

 

Most of this is me messing around at home because there's just not enough time to do so in class. The other dogs are basically running and hitting a target and getting the food on the target. I am lucky in that I have access to 2 practice lowered A-frames that we play with some. I also practice on my stairs, curbs, boards, etc. All the time.

 

I'm not an expert but it seems to be translating well. It has taken MONTHS to get this to work at full speed. Slowed down he's great. Get him going full throttle and he would run off the end. It's been the last two weeks it's started clicking. This is taking a lot more effort for us than the weaves.

 

For the butt swinging I've seen people use gates. I didn't but we did at very first have my trainer kind of stand to where he couldn't easily swing his butt off.

 

So yeah... don't rush things. It's going to take time.

[CptJack]

She's definitely young and it's definitely going to take time. I played around with it some in the yard today, just on the flat, asking her to hit the target on the flat while we played a game of fetch. I think it helped her learn to realize, at least, that sometimes she needs to control her acceleration/deceleration if she wants to hit it right and get her reward.

I'll keep playing with it on stairs and assorted other 'down' locations, too. I'm not feeling too rushed about it. Dog's barely a year old.