Tuesday, May 08, 2007

running contacts!

I don't remember when but I decided to do running contacts with Sing. He never is a fast dog and with his marginal height to jump in Medium is definitely not an advantage for us, especially there are so many Collies in the Medium now!

Sing is pretty good running the A Frame but we are having faults on the Dog Walk every now and then. I already know running contact is a risk but I still want to try to train him to be more persistent in the Dog Walk.

Surprisingly, his dad gave me such a good "advice". He reminded me back in 2005 when I competed Sing in Flyball, and in many occassions, there is a company called Mordern Dog Sport (?? I may be wrong but definitely something to do with "Mordern" and "Dog"!) always have a small fun agility course and they always put a hoop at the end of the Dog Walk, I don't know what is the reason/rule behind it. Sing has a go at one occassion and we got to the final round, unfortunately we cannot compete in the final because Sing was also in the final round in the Flyball Team, so we have to give the 1st place to a Manchester Terrier but Sing and the Team won 1st in the Flyball too!

Back to my running contacts ... I cut some pipe out and stick it at the end of the Dog Walk, hopefully Sing will slow down and go through the hoop. The first time, I show him there is a hoop at the end of the Dog Walk, so when he walk up the Dog Walk, I am hoping he will run through the hoop without missing the contact, guess what? This Super Sheltie ran up the Dog Walk and jump over the hoop to finish his Dog Walk!!! Oh God! I make it worst? I thought I am suppose to teach him not to leap but now with the hoop at the end, he has to leap far before he reach the bottom!!

Anyway, I need to try again, but this time, I pick him up and put him on the lower plank and tell him to go "THROUGH" the hoop, he did it and I click. We tried a few times and each time he go through the hoop, I click and treat. Then, we do the full dog walk. I must admit, when he knows there is a hoop at the end, he actually slow down. I think I am going to leave it like that for time being so we can practice the running contact. I may try to take the hoop out tomorrow to see if he misses the contact, well, trial and error!!

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