I am a computer whiz!

OK, I am not a computer whiz, but, I actually downloaded, oops I mean "up"loaded a video to this blog!!

This is a clip of SoBe doing some A-frame training that I took a few weeks ago :-) Of course there are no A-frames happening right now as the lameness continues, we are going back to the specialty clinic tomorrow and hopefully will receive good news regarding the direction we take from here.

I am not sure who is more bummed about this forced lay-off, SoBe or myself! I have so much fun training the little monkey and I am actually home for 10 days, of course she is out of commission, AARRRGHHH!

I apologize, I need to whine a bit to keep from worrying even more about her.

OK, I may have lost my mind completely but I am seriously considering teaching Vandal a running dog walk as well as a running A-frame.

I have been heard to say that I would never teach a running dog walk again after Wally, yet here I am already thinking about it and I am still working on Wally's dog walk :-)

So, why am I thinking such outrageous thoughts? 

Honestly, because in this day and age of agility competition it is becoming less and less likely that a stopped contact performance will be competitive at the level that I choose to compete. 

Don't get me wrong, a well trained 2on/2off contact performance is very fast and there is always the quick release, however, I feel that it is the "quick" or "early" release that can undermine the whole process. 

Even if I have done all of my proofing exercises and am careful to "bank" the early releases, the very driven and pushy dogs will eventually question their responsibilities and there will very likely be an erosion of performance at least in a competition setting.

I am not really interested in putting all of the time and energy into teaching a solid 2on/2off performance if I am going to have to loosen my criteria to be competitive, at this moment I am thinking I would rather put the time into teaching a running contact and be done with it.

Keep in mind, a running contact requires just as much, if not more training. A running contact is not an alternative to training the contacts.

I am in the process of trying to figure out exactly how I want to teach these running dog walks. I used stride regulators with Wally and I am very satisfied with stride regulators to train a running A-frame, but I am trying to establish a method that minimizes the use of visual props as much as possible.

I will certainly keep the blog updated with whatever I decide to do.