For someone who, for years, was very anti-running contacts, I have sure made an about turn. I am very honest about that. I believe that we should all be evolving in our training and just as importantly we need to admit our evolution and change heart or mind.
To me training is a process. A journey. We should always be observing and adjusting to maximise the potential, rather than try and force or package our dogs into little boxes.
Hex has started his contact journey. I am training it quite differently from all the recognised methods that I know about, while using aspects and snippets from many. I started off on a similar road to Volt but since I have amended, adjusted an evolved through experimentation and observation. I don't know where the journey will take us, but maybe one day I can use it to help others.
I am definitely sticking to teaching dual stopped and running contacts though. And I really do find equal enjoyment in both and especially teaching the understanding in differentiating between the two and performing both with enthusiasm.
With your running, are you sending to a toy? Looks really good!
ReplyDeleteThe reward system is having two toys, one in my hand and one ahead but never in line, always off set and always at varying positions and distances. The reward sometimes comes off my hand and sometimes ahead. I have since also started fading toy completely, so up to doing about 60% runs with no toy at the end. I have also started throwing in obstacles at the end... Still having a near 100% consistency rate, so we will see how it turns out :)
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