The Contact Zone

I am currently in the midst of training Sprout to have great performances on all three contact obstacles. I'm training running contacts for both the A-frame and dogwalk and a 4-on teeter. Because I live in a city home with only a small yard, I don't have space for my own contact equipment. In order to gain access to equipment, I rent an agility building once a week to train. Right now, this means those particular training sessions are very contact focused; basically, I work one contact obstacle then take a short short walk break and/or run a short jump-tunnel-weave sequence before moving on to the next contact. One hour per week, may not be ideal, but it's what I have to work with and I believe I'm making the most of it and being rewarded with good results for my effort.

A-Frame: This is the one contact obstacle where I was able to do the ground work at home. I am using Rachel Sanders box method, which I previously used to train both Poppy and Hokey's running contacts. I started Sprout by running him straight through the box laid out on the ground. I decided in order to get him a little deeper into the box and to get a better bounce, I needed to raise the back end a few inches. The cardboard insert from toilet paper or paper towel rolls works great for this, although you can also add some PVC extensions. I like cheap, quick, and readily handy myself. I worked all 3 of the stationary positions on both sides of the box:

Next I added the jump grid to the box. These are two low jumps that precede the box. The 2nd jump is placed exactly 9 feet from the back edge of the box. This simulates the down ramp of the frame. Running through the grid teaches the correct striding up over the apex of the frame then one bounce before the contact zone and then a 2nd bounce into the contact zone and off the frame. It's building muscle memory for the real thing. I did have a little bit of trouble getting the correct striding from Sprout early on; sometimes instead of the two bounces in 9', he was adding an extra stride - so two little strides then a bounce through the box or sometimes he was missing the box altogether. By messing around with the jump heights and their distances from each other, I was finally able to get a consistent 2-strided performance from him. Once the consistency came, I was able to set the jumps as I normally would have. The following clip shows us working the grid over a few different days. Again, I worked the 3 stationary positions on each side and then, once he was proficient and giving me a consistent performance, I added some motion and obstacles.

Then came time for the real deal. First, I set up the grid right next to the frame and ran him through it a few times. Then I set the A-frame pretty low and transferred the box to the down contact. I set a jump bar on the apex in case that helped him get the idea of leap over the apex; I had done this with Hokey and it had helped her. I'm not sure if it really helped Sprout or not. I didn't use one in subsequent sessions. If you look at the pictures above from our most recent A-frame session, you can see that he is now consistently leaping over the apex and catching a lot of air in the process - and getting a nice two bounce descent. For him, it seemed to come as a natural progression as his confidence increased and his drive accelerated. Here is his first session on the frame. I did raise it a little bit during this first session.

Here is Sprout's 2nd session a week later with the A-frame a little higher. As you can see, he's putting in some solid performances.

And here is Sprout's most recent A-Frame session on a still higher A-frame. Just look at him FLY! His confidence and drive are really starting to take off and he is sailing over the apex and putting in two solid hits. It can be hard to really see what's going on, but the pictures above are snapshots taken from this clip. He is catching some major air!

My plan from here is to continue to move to full height and to continue to get this kind of performance on a consistent basis, then fade the box. What is truly awesome is that NOT ONCE in any of these training sessions, has he missed bouncing through the box. He's 100% when it comes to hitting the contact on the frame so far. I am so pleased with his progress to date.

Teeter: In a previous post, I had shown a clip of the end behavior work I'd done in preparation for training the teeter. Finally, it was time to work the entire obstacle, starting with it set low, of course. Here is part of our first session (after training Hokey, I often forget that I can use a clicker with Sprout, even when it's in my hand!):

And here we are a couple of weeks later, with the teeter a bit higher:

So far, each teeter session goes like this: the first time, run like mad just past the fulcrum, then as it starts to drop suddenly panic and put on the brakes and look like a back-peddling cartoon character, end up in the contact zone, but not down close to the end. The 2nd and maybe the 3rd time through "Oh it's that scary thing that moves when I run across it. I need to be cautious." = a slow performance and a less than stellar contact performance (i.e. in the upper part of the yellow instead of down near the end of the teeter). Then the confidence builds and builds and by the end of the session he's got tons of teeter drive. My plan is to build his confidence while gradually raising the teeter to full height over several weeks. I also hope I can get him out and get him some exposure to other teeters.

Dogwalk: I'm still in the early stages of training Sprout's dogwalk. So far, I am planning a running contact performance. Unlike with Hokey and the foam tiles, I didn't do any ground work with Sprout. Instead, the last month or so, I've spent time each week letting him get used to the dogwalk by walking him on leash back and forth and letting him turn around. Then I've worked the down ramp by having my partner restrain him while I get him excited and then, when he's released, I throw a toy for him to run down the ramp and through a hoop I have set up at the end of the ramp. I had originally made the
hoop for Hokey's running dogwalk contact training and found it quite helpful since I was really at disadvantage trying to teach a solid running contact without the ability to use a clicker or any other sound to mark the correct behavior. I found the hoop taught her to run straight off the end of the ramp without leaping off while keeping her head low. She was able to retain the behavior after I faded the hoop. I'm hoping to have the same result with Sprout.

This past week was the first time I worked the entire length of the dogwalk with him (after the retrained ramp runs). Here is a clip of the result:

I'm pretty happy with this. I think his confidence will continue to build off this and his drive and speed with increase as a result. Once I feel satisfied with that, I'll start to fade the hoop and see if we retain the contact behavior I'm looking for.

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

I hate to speak too soon, but it looks like as of today, springtime may have finally arrived. In anticipation of warmer temps that have been MIA for the past several weeks, the dogs and I have been swinging into full gear. Hence, the hodgepodge that follows.

Hocus Pocus - Agility Training

1. Weave training: Hokey's weave training has continued to move forward. The day after my last blog post, she actually had her first real test: her first exposure to a set of 24" weaves (the 2x2s I've been using, as well as my own set of weave poles, are older & narrower) in a different location. As you can see, she had no problem generalizing the behavior.

A few days after that, I decided to add a 2nd set of 6, for a total of 12. I introduced it the same way I introduced the 3rd set of 2x2s to the 4 poles - I set them a few feet apart and gradually moved them together. Hokey picked it up quickly and within a few minutes was weaving 12 poles! Here she is on that first day of 12 poles:

From here, I will continue to do some around-the-clock entry work with the set of 6 poles and incorporate handling/motion into the mix with sets of both 6 and 12 as well as building the weaves into sequencing.

2. Sequencing: And speaking of sequencing, we've been doing more of that recently. Here is a short clip showing some examples, including the first one where she does a serpentine-backside-threadle combo.

I thought it would be interesting to have both Hokey and Poppy run a short sequence to compare. They both do a great job considering Hokey had only been truly weaving for a couple of days before this and Poppy rarely does agility anymore. You can see the difference between the green and velcro dog vs. the experienced one who is confident with distance.

3. Contact Training: Hokey and I have been working on all 3 contact obstacles. Living in the city with only a small yard, I don't have any contact equipment of my own, so I try to make the most of my once-a-week training sessions that give me access to the equipment. I don't have any recent video of her teeter training, but we've been working on her end behavior, which, due to her weighing 12 lbs or less, will be a 4-on-run-to-the-end-and-ride-it-down behavior. I do this by propping up the "down end" of the teeter with a short jump standard so that the "up end" then becomes the "down end".  I then place her parallel to the teeter end and let her hop up sideways and ride it down a few inches. I start with just a small drop and gradually increasing the drop, by placing foam tiles under the end and removing 3 or so at a time, until there are none. After working the end behavior from both sides, I drop the teeter low and, with the help of an assistant, do some restrained recalls running the entire length of the board, while holding the end behavior we'd just practiced.

Hokey's running A-Frame is slowly coming along. Since I was having some issues with her scrambling between the apex and the box, I lowered the frame more so that I could set some bars on each side of the frame to help her stride rather than scramble.

After a couple of weeks of that, this past week I set it a little higher and removed the jump bars (except the one I lay at the apex). At the end of our session, I decided to see what would happen if Hokey approached the frame with some momentum rather than a sit/stay. This is the result:

For the first time, she gave me a 2-hit descent (2nd example in clip), which was wonderful. However, I've decided not to be picky about that. I'm fine with her giving me a 3 hit descent as long as she is moving forward at a good clip and not scrambling between the apex and the box and also hitting the yellow well. In fact, when she gives the 2-hit here, she isn't hitting as deeply into the box as she tends to when she does a 3-hit descent, so I actually prefer the look of things at 3.

Because I've been concentrating on the A-frame and teeter, I haven't had much time to incorporate the dogwalk into our training. I really need to get a 12' plank to practice running her across at home (if I can figure out how to get a 12' board to my yard from Lowes or Home Depot) and also build her a little arch hoop to run through to encourage her to run all the way down to the end instead of leaping. Here is what little I've done with restraining her and letting her run down the plank to a reward.

Hocus Pocus - Conditioning:


I decided that Hokey needs more conditioning in certain muscles that she will be using when descending the A-frame and dogwalk and riding the teeter down as it drops. I decided to use stairs for a couple of different exercises in order to help with this. One exercise will involve her walking backwards up a few stairs. I decided to train her the same way I trained Ollie and Poppy to reach back with their hind legs to walk up various objects backwards (see previous post Back Up That Booty for details). Since Hokey is small and the stairs are relatively high, I felt I needed to start with something a little lower. Here she is backing up onto a box:

I used the box to transition her to the stairs, by placing it in front of the bottom stair, then having her back up onto the box, then onto the bottom stair. Then I removed the box and had her just backing onto the bottom stair.

Then I added a second stair to the mix. This is a little trickier because she actually has to move her front end up and back first and then move her rear end. She does have a tendency to curl her body instead of keeping it straight, but she's getting better.

And finally, I started to add a third stair:

Now that the weather is starting to get warmer, I'm able to get her out for walks more often. This helps build both her muscles and her stamina. There are also a couple of places in my neighborhood that have concrete steps. We stop and do our backing up exercise as part of our travels. The lesson seems to have transferred well to other locations.

Poppy & Ollie - Nose work:

Poppy howls for nose work

After a month-long hiatus, nose work class has started back up. Now that they have both passed their ORT, Ollie and Poppy are preparing for their first nose work trial at some future point yet to be determined. With the weather getting warmer, we are now able to more comfortably practice exterior searches and vehicle searches. Here is a clip of Ollie practicing a couple of exterior searches. The tin contains 3 Qtips of birch odor.

And Poppy as well.

A friend gave me a couple of plastic vials for exterior search practice. Because they are

somewhat pointy on the bottom, you can place a Qtip inside, close the lid and drive it down into the ground anywhere in the yard, then open the top back up so that it is hardly visible. Today was the first day I tried using them and both dogs did amazingly well at finding them even though I only had one swab of odor in the container and it was windy out. I also taped the vial to things like the branches of my lilac bush, lawn furniture, and weave poles, so the dogs would get practice searching for odor at different heights and not just at ground level.

FUN!

I will wrap this up with a quick video of Hokey and I after one of our backyard agility training sessions. I hope it makes you smile. Always remember to play with your dog and share joy together! That's what it's all about.

Time to put this blog post to bed.

Flying Frame Update

Just a quick update from what I posted a few days ago. I worked Hokey on the A-Frame again today and concentrated on getting her to jump the apex, rather than scrambling over it like she was doing on Sunday. I placed a jump bar at the top of the frame to encourage the behavior and it seemed to work the majority of the time. It looks like she's getting 2 strides on the upside rather than the 3 she was getting on Sunday. However, on the decent, she is putting in a short stride between landing over the apex and pouncing into the box. I guess I'll see if that starts to fade as she gets more experience and gains more confidence. I think this is pretty good for only her second time on the frame though.

Running Dog Walk Training: Modification One

I still have other material on other subjects related our foundation training to write about, but, in the meantime, I added a modification to my running dog walk training set-up in order to help with one of the problems I've been having that wrote about in my last post. The issue is that Hokey often comes off the side of the plank as she runs toward a remote controlled treat dispenser placed several feet from the end. A friend of mine (thanks Ivette!) suggested using a hoop at the contact end that could act as a visual aid to keep her running straight on the plank all the way to the end. I do have a hoop, but thought that maybe just a couple of upright posts connected by a short stabilization bar (in this case, roughly 16") might be enough to do the trick.

First, I needed to introduce her to the concept of running through the uprights. I shaped this simply by strolling by the obstacle and rewarding her for taking the initiative of going through the uprights. We've done this when introducing other obstacles in the past, so it's a familiar drill to her. The only "new" concept was the narrowness of the uprights. Here I am shaping the behavior. As you can see, as Hokey gradually becomes more confident about performing the behavior, her speed and drive increase. By the way, that soft click you might hear is a flashlight that I'm using as a substitute clicker. More about that later.

Once Hokey clearly understood the concept of running through the uprights, I placed the remote controlled treat dispenser on the ground for her to drive to. She would get a treat released for a "hit" - running through the uprights, but, in theory, wouldn't get one for a "miss" - running by the uprights without going through them. She never did get a miss during this phase though.

Then it was time to put it all together by putting my foam tiles down with the uprights placed at the contact end and the treat dispenser placed several feet from the end.

I have decided it is easiest to see a contact hit if I have 3 foam tiles of all the same color linked together at each end of the "plank" (recall from the last post that 3 tiles are equal to the USDAA contact zone measurement). Here I have red on one end, yellow on the other.




The modification with the uprights worked really well. It seemed to do its job of acting as a visual guide to help her stay on the plank all the way to the end the majority of the time. She had a couple of instances where she came off and then swung back on to run through the uprights, but those misses were not nearly as numerous as those during the training session a few days ago when I wasn't using the uprights. Here is Hokey getting some nice "hits":

As for the other main problem mentioned in my last post - that of the absence of a good clicker substitute to mark the desired behavior - that is something I'm still working on.

 As you can see from these stills from videos taken during today's session, she still has times where she is leaping over the contact area rather than hitting it.

 
There is a slight possibility that the uprights will encourage this behavior since she might interpret them as a cue to jump, but because she had several instances of just running through the uprights rather than jumping, I do not think this is the case.

Here is the video showing her leaping over the contact zone:

Without a proper aid to give her instant feedback, there is really no good way for me to communicate what I'm looking for her to do. I'm sure it's frustrating to her. Not having the ability to communicate my criteria to her properly is frustrating to me.

However, I do think I may have a workable solution. I bought a little push button LED flashlight a couple of days ago to try to use as a substitute clicker (as an alternative to my hand flash). It's relatively bright, so as long as Hokey is looking at it, she should be able to see the light flash on even when outside during the day. It also has a relatively quick reaction without much of a delay, which is a huge bonus as this is something I have struggled with when trying to find devices that will work well in our training.

The downside to using the flashlight is that Hokey needs to be facing it in order to get the information. In training the running dog walk, if I'm restraining her or holding a stationary position at any location other than right at the end of the plank facing toward her, I can't provide her with the information contained in that flash of light. Even with me standing at the end like that, things don't work out so well. Having to release her, watch the contact, decide to click the flashlight followed by clicking the remote for the treat dispenser all within quick succession did not prove to be very workable in practice. Therefore, I think it would be best at this time to have a second person stationed at the contact end of the plank watching the contact area for "hits" and clicking the flashlight, while I concentrate on releasing her and operating the treat dispenser.

In the short time I've introduced her to the concept of the flashlight as a substitute clicker (I picked it up on Friday and today is Sunday), Hokey has grasped the concept very well. Here we are today demonstrating how it can be used to shape a sit/stay. Notice that she is definitely glancing at the flashlight in anticipation of getting information/feedback from it.

 

So that's the update! Running dog walk contacts are still a work in progress, but with improvements!

Foundations: Running Contacts

I finally have time to report on the progress I've been making with Hokey's agility foundation training. In fact, I have so much material, I'm going to have to split it into more than one post. This post will be dedicated to our attempts to develop solid running contact behaviors for both the A-frame and the dog walk. 

But first, let me report that we all survived "Superstorm Sandy" (I still prefer the pre-storm moniker "Frankenstorm") without any hardship. However, Hokey begs to differ with that assessment. She was convinced she'd melt by getting rain in her face. Is this not the most pathetic sight ever?

Hokey "suffering" the effects of Superstorm Sandy

So back to running contact training starting with the A-frame. I have introduced Hokey to the PVC box. The introductory step involved me sitting in a chair while shaping her moment into the box (i.e. first moving toward it, then a foot in, two feet in, etc) by building value for it with lots of tossed treats. She moved through those steps very quickly. Then I ran into some trouble at what would ordinarily be the next couple of steps - me still sitting in a chair off to the side of the box with her moving straight through without looking at me while getting a nice pounce into the box then bouncing straight out. Because of her deafness, I had trouble imparting this concept to her and actually ended up jumping ahead a couple of steps. The main problem is that I have yet to come up with a good alternative marker to use in lieu of a clicker.  Such a marker would need to be visual, yet not require her to look at me for information (i.e. some remote device that she would look at to get her information regardless of my position relative to her). It would also have to have very little delay so that the feedback would be virtually instantaneous. I've experimented with a couple of things, but none of them have worked out quite to my specifications. SO, I decided to jump ahead and see how she would respond to me working the 3 positions around either side of the box (front corner, side, back corner) with me tossing a treat or toy to keep her focused on driving forward. Being a bouncy jack, she naturally picked up on the one bounce into the box with a bounce straight out. She really gets some nice pouncing action, as seen in this still from the video that follows:

Hokey "pouncing" into the PVC box

And here is the video of us working the 3 positions around the box at full speed followed by half speed:

We've also started to work on the foundation for a running dog walk contact. I want to try to train this and see how it goes. So far, it's proving to be challenging and sometimes frustrating. I may need to rethink how I go about certain things, but I figure if it doesn't work out, I can always switch to a 2o/2o instead. I think it would be an easier transition to retrain a running to a 2o/2o contact behavior than the other way around. Currently I am using interlocking foam tiles as a portable substitute for a plank. They are 12" x 12", so 12 tiles represents a DW ramp and the last 3 tiles are equal to the USDAA contact zone specifications.

One of the interlocking foam tiles

When training a running DW contact, you want to teach your dog to drive forward with speed while remaining completely independent of handler motion. Therefore, in these early stages of training, I remain stationary and position myself at either end of the "plank". I have a remote controlled treat dispenser placed several feet from the end of the plank that acts as the "goal" for Hokey to drive to. I've also used a tug toy stuffed with hot dogs placed or thrown at the contact end of the plank. However, if I use the toy, I give up the control of rewarding her for a correct vs. incorrect performance since she's often driving forward far ahead of me. In other words, the toy reward is indiscriminate; it rewards her for performing both correct and incorrect contact behaviors. Therefore, I prefer to use the treat dispenser so that I can reward her only when she runs all the way across the plank without leaping off the end or stepping off the side. The downside to using the remote dispenser is that it has a little bit of a delay, so that sometimes in my eagerness to deliver the reward to her at the correct moment, I anticipate her performing correct behavior and instead end up rewarding her for an undesirable behavior.

Remote controlled treat dispenser

Unfortunately, as mentioned before, I haven't come up with a good clicker substitute with which to provide her with instant feedback for performing the correct behavior without her having to look at me, so, right now, Hokey is stuck with the imprecision of trying to learn what gets her a reward and what doesn't and trying to tease out what she did right from the wide range of possible behaviors. This is a currently source of frustration for the both of us and something I need to give more thought to in order to come up with a better solution.

Below are video examples of our hits and misses.

In this clip, I stand stationary at the "contact" end of of the plank near the treat dispenser and release her toward me:

I have found that she tends to show a little more speed and drive if I am at the opposite end with her and do a restrained release, sending her across the plank toward the dispenser, as shown here:

As I mentioned before, Hokey is a bouncy jack russell and has a tendency to add an occasional leap amid her strides as she runs. Sometimes these leaps carry her right into the contact zone, such as here:

However, this is not the most desirable behavior as it can easily turn into a leap that has her sailing completely over the contact zone:

A frequent problem I'm having with her is that she has a tendency to run off the side of the plank as she's heading toward the treat dispenser.

This is happening more often lately and I need to fix it now before it drifts into habit. My thought is that I either need to take some steps back and build high value for staying on the plank before running the entire length at full speed OR get a helper so that one person can be available to give some sort of visual "click" for the desired behavior. Or maybe some kind of combination of the two.

Like I said, it's a work in progress with some kinks to be worked out. We'll see how it goes as we move forward.

Another post on our progress focusing on other skills should be up within the next few days. Stay tuned!