Dog agility and training running contacts?
July 4th, 2010
How do peopole train running contacts, please don’t recommend any videos’ please go by personal experience of what is the best way to train them.
Thank you x
Actually, I disagree strongly with the first post. For running contacts (and again, it would depend upon the system you’re using), you do not want to go slow.
The abreviated version is:
–you can use stride regulators (PVC that prevent the dog from jumping off the A-frame sooner–they have to run under the PVC which forces them to run through the contact)
–you can use targets (except instead of targeting with the nose you’re training to run through or touch with pads/paws)
–you can start with a flat board and bit by bit raise the angle.
Also, I know some people who have running contacts on one obstacle (say, an A-frame) but 2o-2o on the dog walk. Don’t assume you need to be running contacts on everything. Look at how your dog handles each contact obstacle. Finally, you should assume that if you’ve already trained your dog to do 2o2o or 1rto, that you need to stop trialing for 9 months or so. I talked to one trainer (very experienced) who decided to train running contacts and instead it just produced a dog with confused contacts (run some times, stop others, sometimes miss the contact, began to hesitate). It’s trainable but it’s very intense, requires a lot of time and you shouldn’t compete until you’ve got the behavior down.
ainawgsd
Train the obstacles slowly to start with. So many people see the border collies tearing up the course on TV and want to go out and run the agility course as fast as they can. But accuracy counts for MUCH more than speed and trying to run a fast course while the dog is learning the obstacles is a sure way to end up with a dog that misses the contacts in their haste to get to the next obstacle.
The specifics of how are different depending on individual trainers and dogs. One thing that many have in common however is actually giving the reward while the dog is physically on the contact. If your dog is already in the habit of racing ahead of you and skipping contact zones you may need to consider putting her on leash so that you can slow her down and reward the touching of contact zones.
July 4th, 2010 at 10:38 amReferences :
Agility Man
Actually, I disagree strongly with the first post. For running contacts (and again, it would depend upon the system you’re using), you do not want to go slow.
The abreviated version is:
–you can use stride regulators (PVC that prevent the dog from jumping off the A-frame sooner–they have to run under the PVC which forces them to run through the contact)
–you can use targets (except instead of targeting with the nose you’re training to run through or touch with pads/paws)
–you can start with a flat board and bit by bit raise the angle.
Also, I know some people who have running contacts on one obstacle (say, an A-frame) but 2o-2o on the dog walk. Don’t assume you need to be running contacts on everything. Look at how your dog handles each contact obstacle. Finally, you should assume that if you’ve already trained your dog to do 2o2o or 1rto, that you need to stop trialing for 9 months or so. I talked to one trainer (very experienced) who decided to train running contacts and instead it just produced a dog with confused contacts (run some times, stop others, sometimes miss the contact, began to hesitate). It’s trainable but it’s very intense, requires a lot of time and you shouldn’t compete until you’ve got the behavior down.
July 4th, 2010 at 11:07 amReferences :