Stuck point with Running Contacts
Still struggling with Zumi's running dogwalk training. I counted and I've been at the same setup for 16 sessions, about 3 weeks. Previously the plank was grafted to the full DW and was actually at a bit taller height before I lowered the full dogwalk to half height to work on speed. I knew this stage would be hard, I just didn't expect to be here for so long.
Trying to do 3 styles of rewards for the Duck.
1. No reward other than getting to bring me back the ball I threw for obvious jumping.
2. Small reward of light praise and maybe a little tugging for striding over, but not superwoman feats.
3. Jackpot of huge praise, tugging, and recently letting her run victory laps with the toy for nice hits. Zumi likes to run a bit lap and then usually likes to come back over the dogwalk with the toy in her mouth. Those hits are actually usually pretty nice! But slower obviously as she's not driving towards something.
This was our session Saturday afternoon. Starting her very close to the end most of the time, any further out and the rate of jumping goes even higher than it already is.
I don't know much (I gave up trying to train RDW on Stout...), but I think you throw earlier when she gets no reward. When she jackpots, you've thrown later.
Thanks for the advice! I've also been experimenting with a stationary toy.