End Behaviour For A-frame

[DeltaCharlie]

Cody used to do a running contact because that was all I knew and nobody told me there were better options. 9/10 times he would hit the contact but I wanted something better. He died before I realised there were actually better options.

I heard about 2 on 2 off just before I started training Delta and Charlie so I set about doing the foundation work with them. Charlie took to it immediately (much to my surprise, he doesn't have much going on upstairs) but Delta just wanted to lie down on the target and even the best timed clicks wouldn't stop it. One night a different trainer came over to me and suggested doing 4 on the floor with her as she insisted on lying down at the end. I wasn't entirely sure as I had heard bad reports about it, but I started doing the foundation work for that and she took to it really well. We have now hit the wall in terms of her training though. She has generalised the behaviour to be "find a patch of grass somewhere near the end of the contact and lie down" which means she is just randomly lying down and sometimes not even facing the right direction. It hs also thrown her teeter behaviour out the window as instead of running to the end, dropping, and riding it down; she is running to the end, hanging on for dear life, then lying on the grass next to it.

I can go back to basics and retrain it but Im not sure I want to. I can see me having to retrain it every 6mnths and I can see Delta getting really frustrated with it as well. You can see her thinking "I lay down on the grass like I am supposed to, what was wrong with that?" Unfortunately there is no way to explain to her that this bit of grass is better than that bit over there.

Last Friday she started offering me a 2 on 2 off :rolleyes: and did the same thing on Monday. I would really like to do a 2 on 2 off with her as I feel it is a much more definite behaviour and tells her exactly where she should be in relation to the contact. Im hoping to maybe bypass the target and work the nose touch in after she is confident with the position or we will go back to square 1. Charlie's nose touches rarely connected with the target itself, he was simply bobbing his head up and down so I removed it and left him bobbing. If I add it for Delta she will lie down on it again, so Im hoping I can get her in position and shape the head bob from there if I need it.

Now, I am left with the same dilemma I have for Charlie now that I am training him again- what do I do about the A-Frame? I have heard so many people talking about how bad it is for them to do a 2o2o on the AFrame as it is a steep angle and puts alot of pressure on their shoulders. I already worry about their shoulders as they do flyball and I don't want to be putting extra pressure on them. I have also spoken to people who have done it with their dogs for years and have no problems with it.

Alot of people seem to be going for a running contact but Im not sure I have the time to really train that well and I would rather have one that involves them stopping at the end to allow me to adjust my position if need be.

Someone told me they have their dog sit on the end but that seems kinda awkward to me, I would rather have head down and bum up. The only other thing I can think of is to get them to lie down on the end, 2 feet off if they prefer.

Pretty much just after some ideas.

[J...]

I half-heartedly started off with 2o2o as I had the same concerns about shoulders. A suggestion from a visiting instructor resulted with me meddling with running contacts for a few weeks but I don't have an A-frame myself and I honestly don't think you can train a running A-frame when you are reliant on once a week club training for access to an A-frame.

We went back to 2o2o after a good chat with a more experienced instructor/handler. Started back on a 3 foot board with 2o2o and went from there. 1st few times she jumped off the A-frame because of the aftermath from the running contact which got her NRM'd real quick.

As a result she now gets down low and creeps quite quickly down the side of the A-frame, with very minimal impact on her shoulders at all. It probably costs us 1/2 to 1 second on course, but if she's safe then I'm happy to lose that extra second. She's quick enough that its not going to put us over SCT.

We do need to proof it more at trial level because I'm really naughty and quick release her

Edited May 29, 2008 by Jess.

[Ptolomy]

I use 2o2o for 4 of my kids.

Lexi who is now 2, is height challenged (41cm) and is being trained by somebody else, is doing running contacts.

Most of the new kids on the block - who are all hanging around in novice waiting for the Nationals (we have something in WA called not for competition - where the dogs can compete in any class under trial conditions but they are not in the competition) are using either 2o 2o or the 4 on the floor. Have to say this crop of youngsters, there are probably 4 or 5 of them, are awesome because they are still in novice yet they probably have 12-15 runs under their belts.

[skip]

Just reading this made me recall that the May 2008 issue of Clean Run has an article on a new way of teaching the running contact on an A frame.

I am a beginner and my little dogs are pretty OK at the moment on the A frame, although I can see the dog walk being different.

If you know a friend with this mag I'd have a look. It was written by Rachel Sanders who I think is making a video about this new method.

I thought it was an interesting method, maybe someone experienced has seen it and could voice an opinion?

[DeltaCharlie]

I have actually read the article Skip, I have the mag at home. Only problem I can see with this is that it would require a lot of time and dedication and I don't know that I could provide that. My dogs have training 5 days a week for their various sports, Im not sure how much time I would have for teaching this on top of that. I have a feeling it would be a daily commitment and taking shortcuts or rushing through it could be disastrous. I also have rather nutcase dogs who would probably forget it all in their excitement at a trial My biggest problem with Charlie at the moment is missing the up contact, he is so excited to go over it that he jumps almost to the top then launches himself over the top and then to the ground. I have actually seen him reach the top in one bounce, then miss the down ramp completely... That level of excitement is hard to harness LOL

[Kavik]

sidoney told me of the Clean Run article, looks interesting. At the moment, I am teaching 2o/2o. I didn't teach it with a target, but clicker trained using a board, first all paws on the board, then three, then two. Now we have progressed to making the board a ramp. Seems to work OK so far, though I haven't yet used it on real equipment.

[JulesP]

My club insists on 2o2o with nose touching so that is what I do. Brock is super careful so I really didn't need to do it with him. I taught the nose touching first and then moved on to a flat board and then moved to sloped one. If I do nose touching without a board Brock will sometimes drop to touch. I don't use a target now but did in the beginning.

[whatevah]

With Moses, he would race to the end of the contact and pull up so quick to do the two on two with nose touch, that he would end up doing a handstand. I was doing four on the floor with Tia as it is a natural behaviour for her but when I changed clubs they insist on nose touch. But at the end of the day I don't really care what she does as long as the contact is touched.

[DeltaCharlie]

Wow I had forgotten about this thread. Might as well update you.

I ended up going with a 2o2o. It clicked straight away in Delta's head for the walk and seesaw and she offered it on the A-Frame without being asked. When I sat down and thought about the logistics of teaching a running contact I realised that it would require so many repetitions which would likely put more strain on her joints than the few we would be doing each week at training to keep the 2o2o good. Became a "lots of repetitions but no stop" versus "a few repetitions but has to stop" and I decided to go with the fewer repetitions side of things. Make sense?

She is still getting herself into a good position for it anyway. She fast crawls the last metre (on all the obstacles). She is also much happier at training again now. She went through a period of real stress that I just could not work out and I think it was at least partly contributed to by my frustration with our contacts. Now that I am relaxed, so is she