Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Running a-frame

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When watching the video of the running a-frame, she talks about fixing problems. If you have a dog that is 3 hitting at home but 2 hitting in a trial, she said to move the box up , so that the dog is still hits in the box frame. You will slowly move the box down , inch by inch. So do I do that?. Will she be able to only be 2 hits?

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This is the 3 hits on the a-frame. I still have the box a little up, which if she is doing three hits she should be able to hit in the yellow without a problem. The second run thru she hit the box, that's why I didn't reward that one.

So my dilemma is, do I go for 2 hits, or 3?

7 comments:

Lian said...

So far, I have not have any problem with running A Frame. Sing and Sizzle seems to be natural. I don't have to train hard on that. Preferably you want a 2.5 hit instead of 2 or 3 hits. I don't know how that work but when I went training, that's what I got an advice for to do that.

Lian said...

I forgot to mention, have you thinking of lower the A Frame down to the baby height then start from there. I guess you are using the stride method?

Diana said...

when the height was 4'8" she was 2 hitting in the yellow. But when I moved it up she was jumping off above the yellow. Its now at 5'1" Ive been using the box method. Its where you teach them first with ground work and then add the box to the a-frame. Diana

Dawn P said...

Have you tried using hoops/zoner honers? I'm wondering whether it will help if you add it to the box. When we first started the running AF, we went back to using a target first - 2o2o with a quick release to remind her about the bottom. We did it for several months, then started with the hoop at the bottom to get her to run through to the bottom. I haven't used Rachel's method.

On another note, I'm keeping the hoops out for practice all the time on the DW whether or not I'm running course or practicing contacts. I'd rather not have her have the choice of jumping the DW contact in practice. The percentage of DW's she does in a trail are very low. I'm hoping that the behavior will hold up. She's gotten called on one DW in a trial but the judge was no where near her to judge the contact and all the dogs at this trial had a stopped so I think he was anticipating a stopped and when she didn't, he called it. The next time we ran, he came from behind us and judged her in the zone so he fixed his mistake.

Sara said...

My teacher is using the hoops with one of her dogs, and says they are working well so far...although I can see Miley jumping right over the hoops :)

I don't know how you have time to even count how many hits Miley does. I'd have to video and watch it in slo-mo. You must have to really focus.

Lian said...

I used to put hoop at the end of DW for Sing and Sizzle. Sing understands the "hit it" board and "not to leap" idea so it was easy but it didn't work with Sizzle. I have a few people told me the hoop will not stop the dog from leaping. When I remove the hoop and Sizzle sees there is no hoop, immediately he leap/jump off the plank. I have been told the only place I can put a hoop is the see-saw, as the dog will not see the hoop before the see-saw tip. But it is worth a try.

I am trying something new with Sizzle at the moment, to place his toy at the bottom of the DW, close to start with and gradually move further, eventually I want the toy to be on the other side of the next obstacle. After one week, the toy is about 5 phases away from the DW.

Kathy-bordergirlsmom said...

Hummm, I wonder if you could email Rachel Saunders and ask her? Or Monica Percival from Clean Run magazine, she helped with the video and has answered a lot of questions on the clean run list about it. Other then that I wonder if you could go back to where the Aframe was lowered and you were getting what you wanted and then make sure you continue to get what you want, then move it up even slower?