The project contines...the AF commences

Yipee - Marc's practical skills have been used well today and he has completed the rubberisation of the DW :-) so will be able to start using it in a few days. Whilst this was going on I thought best try and introduce the concept of the running a-f. And bugger me - despite Rivi not having been on one since prestbury park and the fact it was on its lowest height she still 'froze' the blasted agility gremlin of a 'stutter' was still there. I tried to 'play' around with it but I felt I was in danger of losing all the progress made with the DW - yikes - not good at all

So no free a-f for me...how can I eliminate/terminate/suppress this a-f gremlin??!! I dug out our 'baby' af plank that Rivi always liked, and she went over it, but not mirroring the new behaviour learnt on the DW. So I needed her to think of running and still make definite contact with the contact zone too. So I came up with the following way to do it.



The key is for me is:

• it resulted in success in terms of achieving my initial goal for training a running AF i.e movement
• it provides me with a foundation to build on
• and as said before the ultimate for me is always that my Rivi is a happyoli
• that I enjoy and get a really sense of satisfaction in being constructive and creative in training - or just having sheer luck that it worked :-)

Its early days I know and who knows if it right or not but at the moment it working for us - we have had 3 great sessions and even if I move the 'send around' cone Rivi absolutely achieves the behaviour :-)

Inspiration and rubberisation

Had the grand plan to rubberise the dog walk whislt the dogs and us have our christmas break - only for Marc to find the wood had rottened. So not only does it need rubberising, we have had to replace the bit the dogs run on (planks) which of course requires priming,  painting, drying and then it can be rubberised. We are using Contact A Coat but not putting slats on. Having watched a huge number of contact videos (running and 2o2o) I am unsure about slats and the impact on dogs paws. Do they need to be more minimal like a ripple rather than a ridge? So that will be another learning curve for 2012 as I learn about rubber contacts.

With short day light hours and winter weather - training is a bit on hold. I am hopeful in about 2 weeks I should be able to dash outside when I get home and do some and get the project back on track. 

Since undertaking this retraining project with Rivi I think it has really enhanced our relationship,  working together to overcome our agility 'gremlin'. 

But to keep me going some brilliant motivation from Silva Trkman - just look at this video. Totally brill :-)