Run, run, run, run, run then JUMP????

ACK!!! I am worried about Spur's dog walk contacts. Now that he is going at good speed again I am getting a lot of jumping. So, I went back and started over. I trained him using the Sylvia Trkman running board method as a pup. But, he is SO bouncy. I read through her website and she does say that 2 out of 100 dogs might need a stride regulator at the top of the down side of the board. So, I played around with it yesterday. This video is without the stride regulator. Yikes! He just jumps the whole contact. **Notice the slight hesitation going into the tunnel? Yesterday he ran in there and stopped dead in his tracks. Zeus, my big barn cat was curled up asleep in there!!! :O

This one is with the stride regulator. Notice the small white bar on the plank? Looks pretty good. However, I did get some with him jumping even with the stride regulator. Damnit!!!!

And just to compare, here is Roscoe without any stride regulator. He just gets it! Yes, he has leaped off it before, but it is a rare even, he somehow, regardless of how high he holds his head, manages to run the whole board. I do wish he would not keep his head on me like that. I do have a loaded target for him to run to, but he knows I have the WHOLE BAG OF COOKIES. The target just has one tiny one. He just knows!

And just because maybe it makes me feel better here is another one of Spur running the contact with the stride regulator.

I may mess around with it some and see if I can get more success rate. The next option is to use a "Sand Box", named for Rachel Sanders A-frame box method and something I used when retraining the Pin Heads to running contacts and it worked pretty well. Gave them a definite for what behavior was needed at the contact. It is just risky because you can't use a box in a trial. Basically, it's a pvc box that covers the contact zone. I have used that for the A-Frame with pretty good success. I had hoped to train Spur using just Sylvia's running method. Which is essentially running the board, over and over and over and very slowly raising it. I thought it had worked pretty well with Spur, but now I see that I never had him at full speed before since he was having such a meltdown after his teeter issue. Now, with speed he jumps the contact zone.

Then to make me feel bummed again, here he is leaping off even with the stride regulator. Goodness!! What AM I going to do???? Yeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwww............