At class last night, Rider again did very well. We've been practicing on weaves at home so he is really getting those down. It was terribly hot though...we were dripping with sweat.

My question is this. We were working on the A-frame and the instructor was requiring us to stop the dog and hold in the yellow contact area. Now, I understand the point of slowing them down to make sure they don't leap off and miss the contact area, but isn't it getting into dangerous territory when you practice and make them to wait to come off the obstacle? Don't you think that the dog will do this during competition?

I guess it makes me nervous. Rider hits the contact every time when we are practicing outside of class and I am nervous about him thinking he has to stop there....

Thoughts?

You'll see many people use a wait on the end of contacts in both training and trials. Usually it is the people running faster dogs (borders) and they use that to hold their dog up while they catch up :) This is actually the method my club teaches...the theory being that if the dog waits at the base, you never have to worry about missing contacts. If you don't want to train this way, just move the "place" you treat him out a little. I do this with my little guys to keep them moving. Once they are coming down the a fram (or any contact) I bowl their toy or treat (depending on dog :) ) off the end. I do the wait with Darwin because he likes to leap but I think I may try using the contact training "hoops" with him soon. You'll soon find there are as many ways to train as there are people :lol

Now, I understand the point of slowing them down to make sure they don't leap off and miss the contact area, but isn't it getting into dangerous territory when you practice and make them to wait to come off the obstacle? Don't you think that the dog will do this during competition?

I guess it makes me nervous. Rider hits the contact every time when we are practicing outside of class and I am nervous about him thinking he has to stop there....

Thoughts?

I can speak from experience on this one...I didn't thoroughly train Jill to wait at the bottom of the contacts with her back feet on the obstacle (called 2on/2off), and now I am sorry!!! She would almost always hit her contacts in practice, so I didn't worry about it. And then in our last trial, she blew contacts on both the dog walk and A frame. So now I have to retrain contacts. I think what happened is that is with experience, she has gotten more confident, therefore faster...and she gets excited during a trial and goes even faster.

People with fast dogs can and do make them wait at contacts during trials -- like DarwinsMom said, sometimes it's to catch up to the dog -- but also it's because if the dog is really fast and/or prone to blowing contacts, it's worth the extra few seconds to get the dog to wait. Because if they blow a contact, it doesn't matter HOW fast you went - it's an NQ!!!

You can train a dog to do a "running contact" which means the dog hits the contact zone but does not stop. To do this I've seen hoops placed at the bottom of obstacles so the dog has to go all the way to the bottom of the obstacle, then go through the hoop. I guess this gets them used to running all the way to the bottom. The people I train with do not really believe in running contacts for some reason, they always train 2o/2o or something similar.

So based on my experience, I encourage you to train contacts now. Even though it may seem like you don't need it, as Rider gets more experienced and faster, it would be a good skill to have.

The 2 on 2 off method is probably the most popular way to teach contacts. I use it with Tanner on the teeter and on the dog walk, but not on the A-Frame. I truly believe 2 on, 2 off is an effective way to be sure your dog makes contacts. I started training Tanner to do the same on the A-Frame, but then I read some articles that said having a big dog come to a quick stop at the bottom of the A-Frame could leave to long term shoulder damage. One of our trainer's has a four year old dog who is has to retire from agility as she has shoulder damage, so I decided not to risk it. Our number one goal is to have fun, so I'll take a chance with him blowing a contact. I have, worked hard on teaching a running contact, but he isn't as consistent as he is on the teeter and dog walk with 2 on, 2 off. We'll keep working!

Dani,
This is a great topic. Here's how I like to think about it. Training a contact obstacle needs to include the contact. Dogs need a ‘trainable’ or ‘rewardable’ spot where they understand that they have performed the obstacle, including the contact, correctly. If you have your dog cruise up and over the A-Frame, without a pause, how will they know that there is a difference between going to the bottom of the obstacle and jumping off before they get to the contact zone? In their minds, there is no yellow zone; just a big fun ramp that they get praise or treats for going over. What has been observed, by many agility handlers before us, is that this can create inconsistent contacts with dogs, especially when speed or the excitement of competition is introduced. The dog just knows that the reward comes for going up and over the obstacle because no specific point has been rewarded.

To correct this, some trainers began teaching the dogs, through rewards, that they should pause at the bottom of the obstacle. This would work, for the most part, until some clever dog would begin stopping further and further away from the bottom, until they actually paused above the contact zone and then launched over it. Remember, the dogs don’t get that the color has changed, just that they were rewarded for pausing—so in their minds they were getting to the reward more quickly by stopping sooner. (This can be corrected with training, but in my opinion, is not worth the effort when compared to 2on-2off.)

Now enters 2on-2off. Dogs don’t get the yellow zone, but they do get that 2 paws are in the dirt and 2 are still on the A-Frame. This is a very ‘teachable’ spot that you can consistently train; and, unless you have a Great Dane, you can be assured that they will have 2 paws in the yellow zone if 2 are in the dirt. It is a very kinesthetic position and seems to make sense to dogs. In my mind this is very important and easy to train consistently.

Now, if you buy into the merits of training 2on-2off as a consistent contact obstacle, the next question becomes: won’t it be slow to make them stop? That depends on how long you ask them to hold the “Touch”, as we call it, before they are released. Wouldn’t it be useful to have the ability to use a pause at the bottom of a contact to catch up or perform a front-cross? What if the Dog Walk dumps right into a tunnel trap? If you only have a running contact, you may not be able to call your dog off a situation such as this. On the other hand, your release from a pause can be very short and will keep the dog moving as if it were a running contact—the important thing is that you are releasing the dog be it short or long. I believe having both behaviors in your repertoire can be very useful, so we train both.

Is there more than one way to teach contacts? Absolutely, these are just my thoughts. I hope they are helpful.

Jason

PS: I just saw Gail's post and she makes a good point about the damage that could be caused by sudden stops at the bottom of a steep A-Frame. Most of our labs don't fly over the A-Frame with enough speed to really cause a problem with this, however if it is an issue I'd suggest practicing a large majority of the time on a modified A-frame that is not as steep. The dog should translate a properly performed contact from the short A-Frame to the tall one.

Okay....all of this makes sense. I appreciate the perspectives. And by the end of the session Rider was doing well on waiting...but it was up closer to the middle of the yellow area. So I will work more on a two on two off way. I do think that Rider is going to really give some of those border collies a run for their money...too bad I will probably be left in the dust! :)

I am so glad for this section! Thanks!

They told us in class you can either stop them (they will do it in competition) OR a running hit contact.

What I do with Keno is not a complete stop, but tell her "slowwwww" on the way down - that way she hesitates some and I know she will hit the contacts. I do it on all the contacts (teeter, A-frame and dog walk). It took her a few months to be comfortable with even doing the A-frame (she was scared of heights) so I didn't want to teach her to stop completely.

Now her problem is on the "up" side - she needs to go a little easy; otherwise she is so quick to get up she kinda leaps on the A-frame and doesn't always hit the contact. I don't want to slow her too much as she needs the momentum to get up to the top!

Ask your trainer if you can do a "slow" command rather then a complete stop and go.

I used to do a slow or an easy, until I started working with a new trainer.

What she is teaching me is that a properly performed contact obstacle is run quickly all the way to the end, and then you pause. If you are slowing down the entire length of the Dog Walk or A-Frame, then you are performing the obstacle slower than you need to. For an example watch the competitive dogs--they sprint the entire distance of the obstacle and then pause. Instead of slowing down the entire way.

My trainer calls what I used to do: "Easy, Eaaasy, Slow, Slooooooow," the pressure cooker because you are just inviting a hard driving dog to explode. Why not train them to run it fast and pause at the end? Now the command is: "Touch", which means get to the end quickly and wait for me to release you.

Rider was doing well on waiting...but it was up closer to the middle of the yellow area. So I will work more on a two on two off way.

I think you will enjoy training the 2on-2off. It will help Rider understand the behavior you want more clearly than just, stop-somewhere-on-the-down-side-of-the-a-frame.

Like I said before, these are just my opinions. Hope it helps.