2. Contact

2. CONTACTS

LEVEL THREE

Dog walks a flat board with a click on or immediately after the down contact. This is an optional behaviour.

DISCUSSION: Walking a board is the start of many agility behaviours – the Dogwalk, the Teeter and the A-Frame. It's also a wonderful confidence builder for any dog, and teaches them to think about where their paws are and what they're doing. I like any exercise that teaches a dog to use or manipulate objects

Before you start, decide what behaviour you want from your dog on the contact. If you're not planning on doing competitive agility, just click when the dog's close to the end of the board. Otherwise, you'll need to pick ON the board at the end, just OFF the end of the board, front feet OFF and back feet ON, or whatever. If you're going to be using a target to get the nose down or foot planted on or after the contact, you can start this behaviour at this Level and add the target for the next one, or work on your target before you start working on Contacts.
Be sure the board is solid. If it's a little warped, put something under it or put it on a thick carpet to keep it from wobbling when she touches it.

The "down contact" will be 3' on the exit end of the board. In agility, those three feet are painted yellow and are called a contact zone because the dog must put at least one paw on the yellow in order to get credit for the obstacle.

EASY BEGINNINGS: This is a very good behaviour for building your confidence in shaping. Put a board on the ground near you. I start with one of my dogwalk boards, but you could use any old board – 8" wide (or more) by however long you have or have room for (yes, you can teach this in your living room!). Click the dog for looking at the board, walking toward the board, sniffing the board, putting a paw on the board, the two paws, then three, then all of them. If you're not up to pure shaping, stand or sit near the board and use where you toss your treats to get the dog in a good position to go further. For instance, to get the dog engaged with the board in the first place, toss your treat NEAR the board, or just on the other side of it. Of course you can lure the dog onto the board as well, but why not give shaping a shot here?

When you've got her on the board, you can lure her along the board by moving slightly along beside it, or turning your body and eyes to pull her along the board, or by placing or treats toward one end or the other. By placing your treats at the beginning and the end of the board, you can get her running the board quickly and happily.

Walking along the board beside the dog will almost certainly help her get the idea of walking along it, but, like any other lure, don't spend TOO much time doing this or she'll need you to walk with her all the time. Think of this as a distance exercise, just like going around the pole.
When she's running the board correctly, start clicking precisely where you want her to stop in or after the contact zone. Soon she'll run the board and stop for the contact, anticipating your click (but that's the next Level).

PROBLEM SOLVING:

MY DOG IS BIG AND DOESN'T NOTICE THAT HER BACK FEET AREN'T ON THE BOARD! My llamas have the same problem! In this case, once she's eager to do what she thinks is right with the board, try putting the board up a little higher. Support each end with something solid – a paving block or a large book. If the board is long, put a support in the middle as well so the board doesn't bounce. Or get another, wider board until she understands that ALL her feet need to be on it, then go back to the narrower one. Several of my big dogs were too wide between their back feet to put both feet on going slowly, but when they understood the job and got up some speed, they got it. Once they could do it at speed, they could do it more slowly as well.

I WANT TO USE A TARGET! No problem. There are as many contact behaviours as there are dogs running agility. What we're asking for in this Level is for the dog to be confident running the board and to be rewarded for whatever you're asking for at this stage of training in the performance of the contact behaviour you've chosen.

CONTACT BEHAVIOUR? HUH? Not to worry. Diehard agility people get right crazy about contact behaviours. If you're not one of them, then simply click your dog for arriving at the end of the board. It's a great trick and confidence-building behaviour and you don't have to get crazy about it.

ADDING A CUE: When she's eagerly and confidently approaching the board, again and again, you can start telling her what that's called. I say Walk On. At this point, I'd suggest having just a click for the contact behaviour, rather than adding a cue to it yet.

CONTINUING EDUCATION: Work until your dog will see the board, run onto it, run the whole board with all four feet on it, and clearly expect a click when she gets to the end. That's the test behaviour. From there, you can raise the board a bit – put one end on a step, or rest each end on a low high jump. You can have the dog going up a ramp, or down a ramp, or running a board 6" above the ground. Just be sure the board is solidly anchored so it can't fall down and scare the dog.

LEVEL FOUR

Dog walks a flat board, stops on, in the middle of, or after, down contact on his own. Dog’s contact behaviour must be determined before testing. This is an optional behaviour.

DISCUSSION: The only difference between this and the previous Level is that here we're asking the dog to give you whatever contact behaviour you've picked. If you haven't picked one, now's the time. Choices are two front feet on the ground, two back feet on the contact OR running through the contact heading for a small target placed on the ground out a bit from the contact OR lying down on the contact OR lying down on the ground just past the contact OR stopping and standing on the contact OR stopping and standing on the ground just past the contact OR doing a running contact with the head down – lots of choices, and it probably doesn't really matter which one you choose, as long as you choose one – and my advice would be to choose one and STICK WITH IT. Scuba learned six different ways to do contacts and ultimately doesn't have a CLUE what to do with them.. What we're looking for here is that the dog knows she has to do something specific at the end of the board, and does it.

EASY BEGINNINGS: Put out your target if you're going to use one, and click a billion times for the dog running the board and touching the target. Or put food on it and let her run the board and get the food.

Or click a billion times for her merely arriving in the contact zone or on the ground after it, or for having two-on-two-off, or whatever you've decided. If you're going for a position like this, let the dog run the board to the position, click for the position, deliver the treat with her in the position, and then click maybe five more times in that position, so you get six click/treats for each run and you're doing a lot to emphasize the position.

Once you've done a billion reps of your chosen behaviour, let her run the board once and you DO NOTHING. If she gives you the desired contact behaviour, click it! If she doesn't, you'll have to practise it another billion times, then try again.

PROBLEM SOLVING:

I STILL CAN'T DECIDE WHAT BEHAVIOUR TO CLICK FOR! I had the same problem. In fact, I had the same problem for eight years, during which I trained every single possible way of dealing with the contacts. I settle on the "shepherd method". That is, I'm asking her to stop in the contact zone. That's all, just stop. If I know she's thinking of stopping (and is therefore for SURE going to hit the contact zone with at least one paw), I can tell her to do the next obstacle before she ever gets to the contact. That way, there isn't any pause at all on the contact because I'm telling her to move on before she actually stops. On the other hand, if I think she's going to leap right over the contact and NOT touch it, I can tell her to lie down on it to emphasize it. You'll see many agility handlers making the dog wait on a contact in the first run of the day in order to emphasize the importance of hitting it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

ADDING A CUE: The main cue for the contact is the contact itself. You want the dog to hit her contacts without you having to babysit them. If you're planning on running agility, however, you'll appreciate the control of a cue word so you can remind the dog if you think she might miss the contact in her enthusiasm. Bottom, Floor, There, Hit It, Please, Wait, and YOU STAY THERE YOU KERFLUSHINNER DOG! are all common cues.

CONTINUING EDUCATION: This is a very important distance behaviour in agility. If you're going to be running agility, having excellent solid contacts is one of the hardest and most useful things you'll have to teach (next to good fast weaves!).

LEVEL FIVE

Dog does an appropriate jump, then commits to/walks a board, performs down contact, appropriate cues. Contact behaviour must be announced prior to testing. This is an optional behaviour.

DISCUSSION: And now we're putting it together into the start of a course, so she has to be thinking of making a good entry onto the board, even after having done something else. Distance isn't called for here, but the further away you can be when the dog is performing, the better.