Contact Performance—Is It Training or Not

[Pam Coblyn]

Sometimes my dog creeps down the A-Frame or offers 4 paws in the yellow instead of 2o2o which is my criteria before releasing him.

If I verbally coax him with "C'mon down" or "That's not good enough" will I be charged with training in the ring? And if I add a body cue—pointing to the end of the contact to where his front paws need to go—is that also training?

Please note that there is no re-do...just coaxing/asking the dog to complete the contact as a 2o2o.

Thanks!

[dmadrid]

Pam,

Not an official answer... but, I've scribed a lot of runs, and yet to see a situation like that considered training in the ring.

The situations that I have typically seen called as training in the ring (and thus getting an "E") are things like re-doing the contact, or putting the dog back in his contact position after he's missed it... things like that.

Best,
Danielle

[Chris Nelson]

If it is done like you described, you will be perfectly okay

[Pam Coblyn]

Whew! Thanks guys. I hate losing a Q but hate letting my guy slide by the 2o2o. If I didn't insist he'd be leaping past the yellow sooner rather than later.

[Lisa Schmit In The Zone Agility]

Just food for thought Pam....
if your dog is offering 4 on the contact, why not accept that performance?

I see many people feel like they HAVE to have 2020 and the dog is really more comfortable doing 4 on the contact.   

If not trained properly, many times it is very uncomfortable for dogs ( I am generalizing here..please don't take offense anyone)   to do 2020 on frames.

Have you ever gone to the bottom on the aframe and put your 2 hands on the ground and your back end up on the aframe? It is really hard on the shoulders.

Just throwing that out

[Sharon Nelson]

Sometimes my dog creeps down the A-Frame or offers 4 paws in the yellow instead of 2o2o which is my criteria before releasing him.

If I verbally coax him with "C'mon down" or "That's not good enough" will I be charged with training in the ring? And if I add a body cue—pointing to the end of the contact to where his front paws need to go—is that also training?

Please note that there is no re-do...just coaxing/asking the dog to complete the contact as a 2o2o.

Thanks!

No, that is just time consumed but no faults.

Sharon

[MoabDiane]

To Lisa:
NO disagreement here, but my personal experience....and this is ONLY for dogwalk, not A-frame.

Bracken was taught a very solid 2o/2o.  Has truly "bailed" only once - have no idea why (that was an interesting Maybell weekend!). 
About a year ago, he started offering a "four on" on the dogwalk, and I thought, well, what the heck.  He was solidly in the contact zone, and I was fine with that.
I wondered if he would start creeping down and/or stopping higher up, then jumping.  Well, he still doesn't jump, but has definitely started creeping.
Sometimes I have to say "touch, touch, touch" (with other physical cues) several times before he even gets solidly into the zone.

Rather than try to retrain him into a running dogwalk ("next dog" - LOL!), I am having him just RUN the board on the ground.  I'll gradually start raising it back up, and hope that he just learns to run most of the way.  He may still end up with his 2o/2o, or possibly even the 4 on....but at least we won't be wasting a lot of time trying to get to the bottom.

BTW, he is pretty trainable, though perhaps not the brightest bulb in the box....but the thought of actually trying to REtrain is just too much for my weak brain to comprehend!

diane

[Sharon Nelson]

Sometimes my dog creeps down the A-Frame or offers 4 paws in the yellow instead of 2o2o which is my criteria before releasing him.

If I verbally coax him with "C'mon down" or "That's not good enough" will I be charged with training in the ring? And if I add a body cue—pointing to the end of the contact to where his front paws need to go—is that also training?

Please note that there is no re-do...just coaxing/asking the dog to complete the contact as a 2o2o.

Thanks!

No, that is just time consumed but no faults.

Sharon

I am going to clarify my answer also to say that I felt that your description of coaxing your dog into the contact was taking 2-3 seconds to complete.......... if you started taking 5, 6, 7 or more seconds to "coax" your dog into a 2o2o when they have already completed the obstacle by stepping into the contact area, then I would be way more likely to call it training in the ring.  Anytime that a judge feels that a competitor is no longer trying to qualify, but has instead changing the priority to train an obstacle or sequence, then they have the right to call it training in the ring.

Sharon

[Pam Coblyn]

We don't have a significant time problem. He's a border collie, need I say more? In other words, everything is fast, fast, fast....even the creep. Even when he does this he usually gets a 1st or 2nd place if we Q. LOL