Clean Run - March 2014 - 30

There are many reasons you may decide to switch from a running contact to a stopped contact. Maybe you have
discovered you aren't fast enough to consistently keep up with your dog or you're having too many oﬀ-courses
after the down side. Perhaps your dog hasn't maintained the speed needed to consistently hit the yellow in trials or
he misses the yellow to check back with you. Maybe you don't find running contacts rewarding enough for you
to devote a large chunk of your limited training time.

Switching from Running to Stopped Contacts
Part 1

By Kate Bigger, photos by Clean Run except where noted

Don't despair-all that training time
wasn't for nothing. The good news is you
most likely have a dog that loves the dogwalk. Training a running contact helped
my young dog develop tight turns. Many
times he was sent to a jump 15' beyond
the dogwalk entrance, while I took off
in the other direction to throw his reinforcer past the down ramp. A tight turn
from the jump back to the dogwalk was
the best thing for him to choose to do,
so he could race on his beloved dogwalk
and get his reward as fast as possible.
Also, teaching a running dogwalk helped
me learn to "just go" and run flat out past
the dogwalk-no falling into bad micromanaging habits at the down contact.
Chalk up the time you spent training to
instilling many good behaviors for both
members of the team.

Stopped Contact Methods
There are several stopped contact criteria
to choose from for your dog. My favorite
is the "one rear toe on" or 1RTO as developed by Linda Mecklenburg (Clean Run
30

November 2004) where the dog comes off the contact by almost a body length before
stopping with at least one part of a rear paw still on the contact. The dog can choose to
have two rear feet firmly on the contact and it is still correct. Choosing to reward the
back feet can help ameliorate the slamming into the ground which can happen when
you reward the front end of the dog. Also, the cue for the dog to stop becomes the
board, or really, the down ramp transition from plank to running surface. I add targets
to training because I want to help the dog understand this is a new stopped behavior.
The goal is to fade targets as quickly as possible after the dog clearly understands the
1RTO position.
If you are switching to a stopped contact because your dog more often than not misses the yellow entirely while leaving the board, carefully consider your options before
choosing a "four on the floor" method as your stopped criteria. Your dog can still jump
over the yellow on the dogwalk and flatten into a perfect down on the ground. He will
have met your criteria yet still incur a fault.

Rear-End Awareness Skills
If you haven't already trained your dog rear-end awareness skills like backing up onto a
different surface, now is the time. Face your dog and step into him, watching the back
paws. As soon as one moves back, click the action of the paw moving backward. It can
be a little difficult at first to crane your neck to see what's going on with each back foot.
Having a helper watch and click the action is helpful. Keep this light and playful to let
your dog know it's a game; some dogs get a bit worried about you stepping into them.
After you click the action of a back foot, deliver the treat close to the dog so you don't
reinforce the coming to you as much as the backing up. Try tossing the treat on the
ground between and behind the dog's front feet. This might get you another step back
which you can click and reward.
Clean Run | March 14

Clean Run - March 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - March 2014