Training Contacts Vs. Slowing Dog

[t(AD)pole]

Hi there!

I'm interested to know how many people (in agility) actually teach their dogs to stop at a contact until they are given the next command. And how many people just slow their dogs down (like with a hand signal or something).

At my dog club the agility instructor just gets us to slow or dogs down, but I would prefer to have a solid contact under my belt. So I am teaching my dog to touch her nose to the ground at the bottom of the contact obstacle (from Susan Garrets "Shaping Success") and I am interested to know how others teach it.

Thanks!!

[Kavik]

When I did club agility with Zoe, they got us to slow the dogs down - I used 'Slow'. Seemed to work alright except for the seesaw (she would sometimes jump off the seesaw when it tipped or just stop on it if I tried to slow her down too many times).

With Kaos, after talking to other agility people, I am teaching the two on/two off contact behaviour. I like this idea as it doesn't require me to be near my dog for it to work, the dog should stop on its own without being told. It's good also because it is something I can train at home, as we haven't been to classes yet and Kaos is only 9 months

[Rom]

I took my girl to an ADAA club for foundation agility and they trained for the 2on/2off although I see more and more people using the nose touch and I feel that this makes for a safer exit for the dog because they have to push their body weight back to get their head low on the down side of the contact. I remember an agility judge telling me that the lower the dogs head on exit, the less chance of jarring shoulders and pasterns.

[Sayreovi]

I train them to stop.

Prevents them jumping off and missing the contact completely that way.

[Tassie]

After trying a few things without success, I've retrained my fast little girl with a target just off the end of the contact, which I'm pairing with the cue "touch". At a recent dog camp, the trainer had the same thing - but used a 'wait' and then a cued release as the dog touched the contact. In competition, she just dropped the wait, and gave the release cue immediately so that it looked like a running contact.

Apart from the fact that it's working for my girl (touch wood, she hasn't missed a contact in competition for the last few months), I like the targeting, as it makes it much easier to get the dog performing the obstacle correcty at speed and at distance - essential for me.

Now, if only there was a quick and easy way to teach my brain to remember courses and handle cleanly, so that I didn't waste those lovely contact performances my girl is giving me ...... :rolleyes:

[haven]

I train my dogs to slow but they only use agility for fun, not for competition. Were I going to train for competition I'd train to stop. To my knowledge all of the people I know who do competition agility train to stop at the contact.

[Pippi]

I don't believe there is any one way, you need to choose one though and stick with it - the method you decide on should take into consideration your ability as well as your dogs e.g is your dog a large breed or a small one?, is your dog fast or slow?, can you keep up with your dog? as long as it suits you and your dog. I am using 2o2o for the contacts and then releasing. As the dogs contacts get more reliable and she completely understands what is required, then the release starts to come sooner. Much like what Tassie said.

Now, if only there was a quick and easy way to teach my brain to remember courses and handle cleanly, so that I didn't waste those lovely contact performances my girl is giving me ...... :rolleyes:

Oh yes, I know how that feels - last comp I managed to get lost on course, so if you find a way to imprint the course in your brain let me know. :rolleyes:

Edited January 12, 2007 by Pippi

[J...]

Count me in on the course imprinting!! I get lost on practise courses - hate to think what I'll be like once I start competing and having to memorise more than one course :rolleyes:

[Pink Panther]

I trained Solly, with the help of a target (gets a reward when he touched the target with his paw) to just touch the contact zones, I find this is more effective than stoppinng or slowing him down, but it may vary from dog to dog.

This way, though, he retains his enthusiasm, and remains on the obstacle until I give the release hand signal that I am happy with his touch.

[Cosmolo]

One of my dogs (who is extremely quick) will be trained to slow AND that if she misses the contact, she won't get to keep doing the course (she won't compete until she is reliable) Because agility is her ultimate reward and she loves to work, i don't expect her to take too long with this method. I have used it before with the same dog with success when training for scent detection and it only happened once before she realised that if she wanted to work she had to get the exercise right! Thats not to say i would use the same method for all other dogs though

[t(AD)pole]

Thankx everyone! Well it seems teaching the contacts is the "thing to do"! :rolleyes:

No seriously though, I think teaching a dog to stop at contacts is more reliable. Thats what I've been doing with my BC. She originally had to touch a small piece of wood on the ground at the bottom of the obstacle (see-saw in this case coz thats all I got) with her nose. Now she just touches the ground (faded the target out) with her nose, that way she has 2paws on 2 paws off.

t(AD)pole :rolleyes:

[Vickie]

The problem with "slow" is that there is no defined criteria for the dog.

I found that out with Trim, I taught her 2on 2off and she had what looked like a beautiful running contact in a trial. Although she never blew her contacts, I decided to retrain as I knew it was only a matter of time.

I used to have Zeus drop on contact. It was very reliable that he'd do it...just not reliable where he would do it and he would often drop before the contact zone as I had no way to mark it. Again, he always got them, but was slow getting there.

I see many people saying "touch" and releasing the dog with praise. The problem is that I think the dog rarely understands what this means & they tend to be very hesitant...just going slow until the handler praises them. These contacts are rarely reliable unless the dog has a natural stride to get the contact or it is slow enough that it will hit it anyway.

The best thing about 2on 2 off is that the dog can very clearly understand exactly what is required of them and as a handler you can easily reinforce the correct behaviour and see when criteria is not met. For the dog it is as easy as running until 2 feet (or nose) hits the ground & then stopping until released. This is something they can very clearly understand and provided we as handlers are consistent from the beginning, should work.

[kelpiechick]

Totally agree Vickie !

It is very easy for handlers (myself included with first dog) to fall into the trap of using loads of verbals on the contacts

(slow, waaaa......it , steady,etc.) the dog slows down because he thinks 'what the hell?' and the handler then thinks that the dog understands its job is to slow down. (anthropomorphism rears its ugly head again, including my 'what the hell' comment, I know!)

As Pippi ( I think?) said in an earlier post, the method you choose , whether stopped or running contacts, totally depends on the individual dog, but both methods should be performed at speed (to the capability of that particular dog) not slowing down for any reason. If a dog slows on the contacts then I believe it shows that the dog doesn't really understand its job.

Both stopped and running need to be trained with very clear criteria from the beginning - you can also choose a combination of both methods, my kelpie does 2020 on dogwalk and seesaw but I retrained a running contact on the A Frame and he has had no trouble with contact performance.

Stopped contact behaviour also needs to be maintained in a trial situation or your dog will most likely come to anticipate early release - mix it up at trials and release early on some and hold for a brief moment on others.

t(AD)pole, if you decide to train 2020 don't forget you can backchain the end position using a target, graduating to a set of steps, than an angled plank, so you don't actually need a dogwalk or A Frame for quite a lot of the foundation training.

Have a very clear picture in your head of what you want your 'ideal' contact performance to look like (one of the hardest things about agility training I think, especially for 1st dog handlers) and train toward this in very small steps.

[Cosmolo]

kelpie chick makes a good point- many of the two on two off or stop on contact dogs that i have seen become quite slow going over the obstacle. I also like the suggestion of using different methods for different equipment depending on the dog.

Going OT a little- i'd be very interested to know what all of you do when a dog jumps of a contact obstacle early in training- some people say go with the dog and try again, some might suggest a verbal correction etc etc What do you do?

For a dog that adores agility itself, would you stop the dog from doing any more obstacles? I have had instructors during training tell me to finish the course regardless which drives me nuts because then the dog doesn't know they've done anything wrong.

[Vickie]

Going OT a little- i'd be very interested to know what all of you do when a dog jumps of a contact obstacle early in training- some people say go with the dog and try again, some might suggest a verbal correction etc etc What do you do?

I think it depends on whether the dog understands what is required or not yet. If it does not, I would not correct in any way...just not reward & jackpot when the behaviour is correct. If there is failure more than once or twice, then you may need to go back a step & make it achievable for the dog to reward success.

For the dog who understands the required behaviour, we learnt a great trick at the Ronda Carter seminar recently. She does not put the dog back on the contact, but makes it sit on the ground, while the handler goes back & runs past & releases the dog when they are ready. She believes a lot of missed contacts are release issues, rather than contact issues. With her way, the dog does not get to do the obstacle again, but is made to hold the stay.

For a dog that adores agility itself, would you stop the dog from doing any more obstacles? I have had instructors during training tell me to finish the course regardless which drives me nuts because then the dog doesn't know they've done anything wrong.

For the most part I do not believe in stopping a dog on course & agree that they should continue because the do not know they have done anything wrong. The exceptions to this would be startlines, tables, weavepoles and contacts. Also dropped bars for some dogs.

Anything else is handling & either the dog does not understand your signals, you are late, your handling is ambiguous or you are asking too much too soon. It would be odd for an instructor to tell you to continue if your dog is blowing contacts? OTOH if you continually stop a dog on course every time something goes wrong, one of 2 things will happen: the dog will become cautious & slower...or the dog will just blow you off & do the course itself.

A good instructor once told me never to continue to repeat mistakes. If it's not working...put your dog away & work it out youself...you owe it to your dog to get it right. I think far too often we don't walk courses enough or properly & then expect the dog to get it when we don't even know what we;re doing till we get out there.

Hope this helps

JMO

Edited January 13, 2007 by Vickie

[Cosmolo]

Hi Vickie, thanks for your thoughts. I am talking about a dog who does know what is expected, not a dog who is not sure what is required. And i certainly wouldn't stop a dog continually on a course if we weren't getting it right. Let me try to explain a scenario (and what i may do) more clearly

- the dog jumps off the dog walk without touching the contact.

- i would consider removing the dog and tethering (no dragging, no collar correction etc, just quietly removing the dog) in an area where the dog can see other dogs run the course. i have found that this builds frustration and the dog realises he has to get the exercise right in order to continue.

-I would then provide another opportunity for the dog to get it right OR depending on the situation, the dog in question may not get to run again that night- i would only do this if i could train again the following day- not with a week between training.

I have used this method with scent detection where the dog understood what was required but just wasn't working at all on a particular day. She was too interested in the reward at the end as i had been feeding her meat from a fridge (as a final secondary reward) the 3 days prior when she had worked well and she was yet to realise that working well was the determining factor for getting fed. The 4th day where she worked poorly, she was put away within 5 minutes and not given the opportunity to work again (the primary reward as she loved it) OR get fed.

A similar thing was also done with the SARDA dogs when one dog didn't work well- he was put away, other dog was worked and the following day only the second dog was worked while the first dog watched on and got frustrated. The day after that, the dog who didn't work well initially was begging to be worked and was better than ever.

In agility it would be the denial of the opportunity to work as well as witholding of the tug toy we use as her reward. I have found that just witholding the tug toy is not enough if the dog who loves sgility is allowed to continue running the course or repeating obstacles.

So the exercise should only need to be repeated once or twice and will obviously only work on a dog who has the running of the course as their primary reward. What do you think?

Sorry if this is hijacking the thread..

[Vickie]

- the dog jumps off the dog walk without touching the contact.

What does the dog think it's job is? Is it just a touch somewhere on the yellow? Where exactly should the touch take place, at the start of the yellow? on the ground? Do you give a command to touch? Do you require a stop of any kind?

I guess the question is...if I sat down with your dog and asked them "what exactly is your job here?", what words would they use to describe the behaviour? This is always a good question to ask of people & often people are very suprised by their own responses.

IMO, unless you are asking for a stop or a specific behaviour in a specific place, the dog either has a trained running contact (which requires a lot of very specific training related to muscle memory...or no contact.

- i would consider removing the dog and tethering (no dragging, no collar correction etc, just quietly removing the dog) in an area where the dog can see other dogs run the course. i have found that this builds frustration and the dog realises he has to get the exercise right in order to continue.

I have used this method in the past for start line, but in all honesty it was never truly reliable and I was doing it often so it was obviously not effective. (probably me as a trainer, not the method). I have never done it with Trim because I have never truly felt she was blowing me off. Any issues we have had have either been me missing/not proofing something in foundation or teaching her something which was ambiguous in some way.

So the exercise should only need to be repeated once or twice and will obviously only work on a dog who has the running of the course as their primary reward. What do you think?

If you only have to do it once or twice & it works & you really have reliable contacts afterwards forever, then that's great, it is obviously right for you & there is certainly nothing to lose by doing it. I think dogs are a little more optimistic than that. Even if you were 100% consistent, I think it would still take a little longer & even then not all dogs would make the connection.

Again JMO.

Edited January 13, 2007 by Vickie

[Cosmolo]

Some interesting points and i realise it wouldn't be right for alot of dogs. 3 out of 4 of my dogs wouldn't understand/ make the connection which would make the technique a waste of time and potentially confusing to the dog. However, the other dog (who seems to be a cut above the rest in alot of respects) would understand it quite clearly with only one or two repetitions.

I do take your point though about the dog understanding its job and perhaps i have been a little lax with my criteria (which needs to be addressed before doing the above) It has been very difficult as the instructors where i was training didn't know what to do with my dog as she was much quicker than they were used to and initially the criteria was all over the place- for instance if she touched higher up they would just be happy that she had touched (with the new rules making the dog walk all one colour).

[Pippi]

.............for instance if she touched higher up they would just be happy that she had touched (with the new rules making the dog walk all one colour).

Hi Cosmolo, maybe I am misreading but the new rules do not state that the dog walk is all one colour.......

quote " there will be a contact area of 1100 mm painted a different colour to the remainder of the obstacle".........

Actually, have just had a thought about what you wrote and it occurs to me that maybe you were talking about the walk being 2 colours now instead of 3?

[PAX]

I run a large breed dog that is not that fast so I haven't worried too much about running contacts.

My new pup is very fast and I will try two on two off which so far she seems to understand.

I see a lot of dogs at trials miss the contacts or freeze on the contacts and lose heaps of time, which I think means they are either over trained or misunderstand.

I will stick to the 'two on two off' and the OK relaese until or if it fails.