We did a couple of 'beginner' classes but were quickly put up into the 'slightly more advanced' class.
It was here that we met Louise, one of the trainers, who has been fantastic and helped us so much :o)
I remember our first lesson with her, obviously she didn't know what stage we were at so she got us to run round a simple circular type course. All went well until we got to the Dog walk-naturally Obi was well ahead of me, being as he is fast and I am..well..not!
I did my usual contact performance of yelling his name to slow him down and attempted to lunge in front of him with my arm up, but of course by the time I was anywhere near he had soared over the contact area and was on the ground looking at me with a rather puzzled air.
The following converstaion went something like this -
Louise-Right ok, so what are your criteria for Obi on the contacts?
Me-erm ummm well-he has to put at least one paw on it???
Louise-oh dear! (Well ok, she didn't actually say it out loud, but surely she must have thought it haha!)
Obviously this method wasn't working very well for us so with much help and encouragement we embarked upon training '2 on, 2 off' contacts.
Luckily as Obi was already conditioned to the clicker it all went quite smoothly :o)
We began by Obi nose touching a square piece of plastic takeaway container lid, and progressively shaped for longer nose touches.
Once he was good at this on flat surfaces, I began training him the actual position, for which purpose the step in the back garden was ideal-
Once he could do this consistently and quickly with me on both sides we worked on him targeting while I walked, then ran past. When he was happy with that, I started training him on the stairs at work so he would generalise the position and hopefully make the transition from flying three feet over the contacts to stopping at the bottom easier!
Then it was just a case of putting the target at the bottom of the contact, and asking him to 'Touch!' on the way down. Hopefully eventually I will be able to drop the 'touch' command and not say anything, but for now, he seems to still need it as a reminder.
After lots of practice, we eventually faded the target and clicker, and he gets sporadically rewarded for the correct position.
Although we did start with doing nose touches, I don't insist on them anymore, and just the correct position with his head up is fine.
Last sunday I had some 'free time' on the agility equipment so I decided to see how solid his contacts really were-in training I usually tend to be quite close to him at the end of the contact so I wasn't sure if he was truly doing them independently or from my body language.
I set him up as usual in front of the A frame and sent him over, the first few times I kept running and got quite far away before releasing him from a distance, then I practiced running away in the other direction while he went over-he was brilliant and stayed 2 on 2 off which ever way I went, even when I went around other equipment and threw his ball BEFORE releasing him!
I was so pleased with him, what a clever boy! :o) :o)
One gap I have discovered in his contact performance (and I must admit something I had never thought of) is that he will not drive down to the 2 on 2 off position if I am behind him, so this week we have been back on the stairs at work with the target.
Just after a couple of sessions he will go down the stairs to the target while I stay at the top, though I have to say 'Go on, Touch' -for some reason if I just say 'touch', he doesn't seem to get it?
But generally I am so pleased with his contacts, they are well worth the hard work :o)
Now I just need to remember to be 100% consistent... easier said than done for me!
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