Val,

3-22-07 Tried the restrained run to the "dead" toy at home. First I made the toy "live" for 1 rep with Jaldi running under the hoop (no board). Then tried "dead" with restraint by a leash. This is new for us because at home I rarely have even a collar on Jaldi. First time to the "dead" toy she flew to it. Second time she seemed to have forgot where it was and just barked at me. I moved her closer and we did get a leap at the toy. She likes to pounce. It is very cute, but not necessarily what I want for a contact performance. We limited our training session to 2 min. I used a timer. Two minutes is a LONG time!

We need to practice this in several locations with no hoop before I ask her to run under the hoop to the "dead" toy. I'm also working on building her interest in other toys. She likes them fine when THE toy is not there, but if she has seen THE toy, no other toy is good enough.

3-28-07 Went to obedience class at the park. Jaldi was VERY wound up. We played with the toy on the whip. "Live" then "dead", then "live" again. She was a maniac! I restrained her with the leash so she would leap forward toward it. We did a session before class and another after class. She was able to run to the "dead" toy from about 20ft away. I'm seeing lots more enthusiasm for the "dead" toy. I also see lots more enthusiasm when we are somewhere other than home.

Val 

3-29-07 Put the toy together with running across a flat, 8ft board and under a hoop. We just did 3 reps with the live-dead-live toy. For the live toy, I had a friend hold Jaldi by the tab while I wiggled the toy. For dead, I laid the handle on the ground facing back towards the start and I restrained Jaldi. When I released her I was able to get to the handle about the same time she got to the toy so I could make it come alive. She was very enthusiastic! My plan is to keep adding more boards (I still have the 3-8ft boards from my old dogwalk), then progress to the low (2ft high) 36ft dogwalk.

4-4-07 This week we have added 8 more feet of board to our dogwalk training. So it is 16 ft of board flat on the ground with the hoop at the end and the toy about 10 ft away from the end. Jaldi is maintaining speed and we are continuing to do "live-dead-live". Next week I will add another 8ft of board. I may have to tie a rope to the handle of the whip. At 16ft I can just barely get to the handle of the whip when Jaldi gets to the toy. I'm thoroughly convinced that my muscles are made entirely of slow-twitch fibers. In other words, I'm a slug!

Val 

We have progressed to 24ft of board flat on the ground. I have uploaded a video. Jaldi's speed is great! We will continue with this for a few more training sessions.

Last night (4/16/07) we tried the 36ft dogwalk on concrete blocks. I could not get the toy to move properly by myself though. I got a really long rope so I could make it move from way back, but it didn't work very well and Jaldi did not really see the toy.

So put Jaldi away and rethought this. I didn't have a helper last night. Jaldi knows to stay until I release her to the toy, so I backchained by putting her on the down ramp in a sit-stay and then I went to the toy and wiggled it, then released. This worked great! We backchained all the way to the beginning of the dogwalk. Toy was live every time. At this point I may need a helper for most of our dogwalk training. I could not get enough "action" on the toy by pulling it around the cone. Plus Jaldi has learned to just wait for it to come around the cone. No pointing in wasting energy chasing it when it is just coming back to you. LOL!

My next plan is to have my helper hold the rope off to the side so as not to be "in the picture" and have the helper pull the rope. Timing will be important because the dogwalk is very low and Jaldi could easily leap off the side if the toy is pulled away too soon.

Val 

5-5-07  I've uploaded another video of Jaldi's dogwalk progression. We are now doing the full-length dogwalk at 2 ft high. I have a helper to pull the rope that is attached to the toy. Her speed is fantastic! If you go back to the original video of her dogwalk performance and time it, each rep was 4+ seconds and progressively slower. In the latest video her time is under 2 seconds. Of course, I am not making her stop now. I may stick with the running contact which means I had better get started teaching some better directionals than just "here" and "out". I haven't really decided whether to go back to the 4otf which is what I originally taught her or just let her run the dogwalk.

5-6-07 I have uploaded a video of the dogwalk shuttle. We used a 2ft high dogwalk and stopped to play after each dogwalk. Speed was very good, but she was matching my speed and not running ahead. We will keep working with the toy. I may start throwing the new toy now (or just as soon as I learn to throw straight LOL!) We also did not have a hoop at the end of the dogwalk for this game since we were going both directions. Jaldi ran right through the contact and did not leave early. So she is starting to get the striding pattern down. I will continue to use the hoop for quite a while, though.

Val

5-10-07 Tried throwing the toy at the end of the dogwalk. I had my friend throw the mouse-in-the-ball toy (with a rope attached so Jaldi couldn't run away with it) while I ran Jaldi over the dogwalk. She threw the ball as Jaldi started to decend the down plank and tried to have it land about 10 ft from the end of the dogwalk. I had the hoop on the end of the dogwalk also. First rep, I tried to rev her up a bit by running a jump-tire-jump to the dogwalk (as in the setup for Lesson 14). I thought she did well, but maybe not as fast as with the toy on the whip laying there at the end. We repeated 2 more times then took about a 5-10 min break. Then did just the dogwalk to the l toy, but now I can't remember which toy (the whip or the ball?). This time the toy was already in place with the rope wrapped around the cone so the toy could be pulled away as Jaldi ran towards it. It was a very fast dogwalk so I quit there.

Now I'm trying to decide how to progress. Stay at this height and start adding obstacles before and/or after the dogwalk. Or should I work up to full height before doing that? The dogwalk is at 2ft right now. The next adjustment is full height. I think I could do a 3ft height with the saw horses I used for my old 24ft dogwalk. Would that be beneficial or does it not matter?

-Val

5-21-07  Been out-of-town for the last week so Jaldi was primed and ready to train. I decided to go ahead with a full-sized dogwalk. I had my friend, Sheryl, wiggle the toy-on-the-whip and I placed Jaldi on the downplank about half-way up. She flew to the "live" toy. We backchained. By the time I got to where I carried her back to the beginning of the dogwalk she was screeching! Not quite the "I see a rat" screech, but close.

Later, I worked on the full course of Lesson 14 with a full-sized dogwalk and a "dead toy". She had pretty good speed. I noticed from watching the tape that one time she did not go directly to the "dead toy", but I also had not said "Get it". I've been working on teaching her to only go to the toy when I tell her "Get it" so I'd better be sure to use my command!

Val 

5-22-07  We went to our club's fun run. The course was a Grand Prix so we got to try the dogwalk in a different location. I took the hoop and the toy. Jaldi did great and ran fast across the dogwalk. We played and then continued the course. She did really well for such a difficult course. The first time that we ran it I broke it up into about 4 segments and rewarded after each segment. We got to run it a second time later and except for stopping to play after the dogwalk, she ran the whole course very nicely.

Val 

6-4-07  Jaldi and I attended an AKC trial this weekend with Jaldi entered in Nov Preferred. I wanted to see how she would handle the dogwalk at a show. She did a great job. I wish I had remembered to take my video camera! Both days she seemed to run the dogwalk about as fast as she does at home when I am running a sequence with her (as opposed to sending her to the toy). Saturday I sprinted as fast as I could and she vaulted the contact zone in order to catch up. Oops! Sunday, I tried not to run that far ahead and she got the contact and a Q and 1st place. Yeah!

Val 

6-9-07 This morning we did some more dogwalk training. I tried to set up the toy on the far side of a jump after the dogwalk. I put the cone out so I could pull the toy around the cone, but this didn't work very well. I had the rope draped over a sawhorse so that I could get hold of it quicker, but I found myself way ahead of Jaldi and it didn't make sense to stop and pull the rope. I have some video of this which I will try to post later in the week. I think I just jumped ahead too fast in the training.

Val

6-12-07 This morning we did some more dogwalk training. I am adding obstacles before the dogwalk to promote speed onto the ramp. We started with a "live" toy just 10 ft from the end of the dogwalk. Jaldi saw my friend walk away with the toy to the far end of the dogwalk so she was already pumped. Very nice, fast performance. Next we had the "live" toy on the other side of a jump after the dogwalk. And for the 3rd rep, we had the "dead" toy on the other side of the dogwalk. She seemed to maintain her speed for the "live" toy. For the "dead" toy I just about beat her to it. I think the speed was still good, becasue I did have a head start since I had sent her over a couple of jumps and through a tunnel to get to the dogwalk. This session was much better than the last. I should probably repeat this until I am getting the speed to a "dead" toy past the jump consistently. Then I could try adding a second jump.

Val

7-21-07 We had a good dogwalk training session this morning. We have progressed to 3 jumps past the dogwalk with a dead toy. I think next time I'll do a live toy right after the dogwalk. I want to make sure that I don't just keep making it harder.

I posted a video of her running to the dead toy that was placed 2 jumps after the dogwalk. Her speed is under 3 sec for each rep although I did notice that she was getting a tad slower with each rep. 

Val 

Well, it's been quite a while since I posted anything to this blog. Time flies! Jaldi is running the dogwalk very nicely now with or without the toy. I have recently bought a "food tube" at Home Depot and Jaldi seems to like it a lot. I can throw it easily and I did this this morning as she ran under the hoop. So that was our "driving straight" exercise. :)

We've also started working the turn to a tunnel under the dogwalk using our left and right commands. It is going fairly well. Jaldi does left and right verbal very well standing still, but while running she is still figuring out what it means. I've started adding it with jumping sequences, too.

My next goal with the dogwalk is to add more distractions during training and teaching her to straighten her approach regardless of the angle she is sent from.

Val 

I have purchased a Hit It board to aid in our dogwalk training. I have determined where Jaldi hits the contact zone on the down ramp when the hoop is in place. So I will place the Hit It board at this location. We spent the Thanksgiving weekend learning to run to the board (laying on the ground), "hit it" and keep going. I am throwing a toy or treat ahead of her just as she touches the board so that she doesn't stop on it. I've just been clicking this and haven't used the beeper, yet.

Val 

Well, I see it's 4 weeks since I started my Hit It board training. Time flies! We have progressed to the point that Jaldi can run to and Hit It! after going through a tunnel. The first time we played with the tunnel it was pretty funny. Jaldi knew she should pounce on the Hit It board, but couldn't adjust her stride, so she missed it about half the time. Now she is getting it every time and also we can do a couple of reps of this before rewarding. So sometimes I reward the Hit and other times just send her through another tunnel. Next I will try some jumping sequences and randomly send her to hit the board. If she can do that then she is probably ready to put the board on the dogwalk.

Val 

I took the Hit It board to my club practice this week. We need to repeat all the things we have learned at home at this new location. Jaldi was having much difficulty finding the board from further than 3 or 4 feet away.

At home we did the jump to the Hit It board where Jaldi is one jump height (12" for her) away from the jump and the Hit It board was 3 jump heights (about 3 ft) away from the jump on the other side. She did really well with this. 

I will be waiting until she can do the more complicated exercises on the flat somewhere besides home before I put the Hit it board on the dogwalk. In the meantime, when we do the dogwalk, I put the hoop out and just encourage her to run fast.

Val 

I took the Hit It board to the park last night. Jaldi is only about 50% on actually hitting it. We were working from a distance of about 3 ft. Maybe I need to go back to holding the board in my hand.

Val 

Hit It board training is progressing slowly. Some days Jaldi gets it and some days not. Plus we have been neglecting it a bit because I have been concentrating more on teeter. I also started her on a conditioning program after I got the "Get on the Ball" DVD for Christmas. I'm trying to keep a schedule of doing it every other day so some other things are getting ignored. I'm trying to get my older dogs on the ball, too. Duke loves it because I give him some cheese while he's on the ball. Aspen is not sure it's worth it for just cheese out of a can. 

I got some video of us working on the Hit It board at the park this week which should easily show how far away we are from actually using it on a dogwalk. I'll try to upload it by the weekend.

Val