My FIL is here and he's an engineer!

He is on a mission to build me a contact trainer. An electric contact training like the ball launcher thing I posted here a while back. He is retired and enjoying this project. It kind of has him stumped a bit, but it is fun listening to him bat around his thoughts and ideas. Using blue tooth technology and touch pad sensors and stuff. Very cool, if he can figure it out. I am sure the technology will be there in the not so distant future, but for now all we seem to have is the "Hit-It Board" by nosetouch.com

I am using that now for Spur. It's a SLOW process. He is getting it ever so slowly. Trouble is we rewarded him for not thinking about the contacts for so long, just running as fast as he could go, rewarding speed always. Maybe that wasn't the right thing. He has that memory. AND he isn't all that pumped up about food like the Pin Heads. It's OK to him, but what REALLY means something is the ball. But, the ball is what I used to get speed. Now I am using food to get accuracy and understanding of the contact zone being a place for paws. LOL! He's getting it, but we do have failures sometimes and I try like heck to just bring him back around and try again.

This morning's session NO failures, YAY! This afternoon with FIL filming us, we had a couple failures. Perhaps the stress of me chatting with my FIL that broke his focus? I don't know, but we tried to stop when it was a good hit.

Some hits were back feet only, some hits were one front foot and some were both front and back. I would love consistency, but I don't seem to be getting that. Oi, this is one of the hardest training projects I have ever encountered....

Both front and back -


Just back -


Just back -


Just one front foot -


It really is a tough training project!! I am dedicated to making it work and doing what I need to do to make this work. He seems happy enough with the work, so we keep plugging along.