Working on 2On 2Off Contacts with Strider

Hello everyone!

This week, I am going a little back in time with my training and basically REtraining my contacts with Strider.  After a good lesson and very informative help from my awesome trainer, we decided that Strider definitely needed some work and reteaching with his two-on two-off contacts.  We found that when working with him, he really didn’t fully understand the concept of “touch” that I have been using for over a year now.  Instead of teaching him to touch a target with his foot for his two-on two-off, I am going to be training the drive that is needed for him to get down as quick as possible and hold the contact.

By training him in this new way, with a focus more on his drive, we are going to be taking a huge step backwards and training this contact from scratch.  This means we will be doing lots of foundation work before we advance to running a full dog walk or having him race over the A-frame.  I  invite you to follow these same steps and train your dog using these steps in order to perfect your contact and better your dog’s performance.

To begin, we will start with the downside of either the teeter or dog walk, and place a target at the end.  The point of this training is to not have the dog performing the entire obstacle, but rather just the contact portion of it.  With this being said, if you do not have a teeter or dog walk, feel free to use a 12 in wide plank that is raised up by a brick or a low pause table.  Now, with your dog on a leash, show him the tasty treat and hold him back as you place it on the target.  Now circle around the teeter and load your dog onto the end of it.  Pull back on the leash and create the necessary drive by providing tension and holding them back.  Release the dog using your cue word for the contact (mine is ‘touch’) and they should drive down the target and perform the two-on two-off behavior.  Practice this many times until your dog is comfortable and fully understands what you are asking him to do, then move on to step two.

For step two, you will still not be having the dog run the full ramp, but you will add some distance to your contact.  Have the dog go to the halfway point on the downside of the ramp and have him sit and stay.  Place a treat on your target and stand back with the dog and release him with the ‘touch’ cue (or whatever cue you want).  He ideally should drive into contact position with a two-on two-off.  

Continue these baby steps until your dog fully understands what is expected of him.  Once this is achieved, you can have him run the full length of the dog walk.

Happy training!

Hayley