I have been working on a running A-frame for Pixie. She has learned A-frame by clicker training and 2on2off technique. I started this project last autumn. Our first goal was to brake A-frame stops. This was easy on blank and piece of dogwalk and running dogwalk was ready in no time. On A-frame she just didn't know what to do: jump or come slowly to 2on2off.
I tried different helps to brake the running in A-frame. My first try was with the "box". It is square shaped frame made of pipes. Soon she run with it nicely. But when I took it away, everything just fell apart. Pixie came really uncertain what to do. After that I tried speed bumps. It stopped her from slowing down and getting more better at running over the A-frame but again she didn't get the idea after I took the bumps off.
So we were at the beginning. I finally what's the Running Contact video of Silvia Trkman. It showed so easy and Pixie had done nice job with the dogwalk. I founded two key factors that I had been missing: Jackpot and hitting contact with hind legs. So we started to use double reward. Pixie would get tennis ball from running over the A-frame and would get Jackpot reward if she did it without jumping the contact zone and gradually she got the jackpot only when she hit the contact zone with her hind legs and low enough. Soon we both the idea!!!!!
Now we are working on turns to right and left and changing tennis ball reward to another obstacle. This journey has really hard but I have learned so much. I actually learned more from this because I didn't watch Silvias DVD. Although it took us way way longer to reach the goal!!
Marianne, Pixie and Louise
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