RC Session 2012.08.23
The best thing about my two months summer leave from the heavy books is all the time I get to spend with my dogs. All the seminars I've been giving have been in the evening, so I could spend the whole day as I choose.
We've mostly been practicing our running contacts. Short sessions of a couple of minutes a few days a week. Amazing how few reps that are needed when you plan your training session in order for the dog to succeed at a high rate. I could probably have raised my criteria a lot faster, but I want to test the dogs understanding of the running behavior every time I raise the plank.
This is how fare we've come. The video shows all the reps we did in that session - nothing is edited out. The one time Zap misses the contact it looks like he slipped on the down plank.
Even though my dog walk can be lowered to the height of the table, I decided to go with this set up for a while. This way I minimized the amount of running in each session and I get more efficient repetitions. Also it alters the dog's running pattern compared to jumping on to the table and running down the plank. As you can see in the video Poncho struggles a bit at first because of the altered running pattern. I made the challenge easier for him and then i figured it out and hit the contact with great accuracy and speed.