Corgi Running Contacts Update
So Lance has been doing running contacts for two weeks now and I've gotten in 10 sessions. I've been raising the board pretty quickly since he really seems to be doing a fabulous job of running and not jumping. I have also become an expert on efficiently dismantling the dog walk plank and resembling it all by myself. When the board got high enough that he could no longer run and jump onto it he started having weird striding and has done much better by resting the down plank on the DW.
I am currently stalled while deciding what to do with his current striding. I don't think that Lance is jumping but with the board raised to just at the top of the yellow he is hitting higher up than I would want if it was at full height. I have been rewarding pretty much everything since he is running and not jumping and then I've just been jackpotting any lower hits he gives me. The problem is at this height Lance really isn't offering very many hits in the "2nd square." At just a few inches lower Lance has at least 85% in the lower 2/3rds of the contact. Here's a snippet of some of his attempts at the nicer height vs the slightly raised height, in slow mo of course:
I know that Silvia really emphasizes running over all other criteria so I'm not sure if I need to be stressing over feet placement at this point in the game. Any suggestions on if I should go back to the slightly lowered height, stay at this height and keep jackpotting lowered hits, or even raise it since he's not jumping?
Gosh, it looks really good to me!! My only thought might be that you are always in about the same position. Any way you can take your movement out of the picture? Toss the toy in advance? Have him run to the toy? Run to food?
She just gave me her seal of approval!!! YAY!!!!
Thanks Amy for the great observation! Actually Lance already is running towards food, he's not very toy motivated. Even with the toller I suck at throwing things so always have his toy already placed on the ground.
I think I was running with him from the beginning since I didn't want him offering his old 4 on the floor, but clearly that isn't of concern anymore. I will try and get myself out of the picture more now. Although at least with him I'm fast and he's slow enough where I will pretty much almost always be able to be there on course.
I think it looks great :) I wouldn't mess with it one bit...
As the angle increases he will go deeper...lovely!
Thanks for the advice Loretta! I won't worry about it anymore
You wrote: "When the board got high enough that he could no longer run and jump onto it he started having weird striding...." Not sure exactly what you meant but can you use the pause table to get him to where you need him to be? Can even be used next to the dogwalk to just do some backchaining on the down ramp.