Counting strides on running dog walk

It all counts, not just the contact.

I've attempted to train Samurai with a running contact, picking up tips from Dana Pike and Daisy Peel in my very limited, but very pivotal (at least to me and Sam) contacts with them.

It's really a very complex subject to really do more than touch on, since this part of agility training seems to be one of those things that the more you think you know, the more you don't know: Particularly as your dog begins to develop a true, galloping contact.

Now, I can't say we have truly or consistently reached this prized pinnacle of contact training achievement, but I have been in the range, and know it is within some realm of possibility with Samurai.

But, like some sort of mythic prize, just as soon as you seem to be within reach of the jackpot, the game suddenly changes.

In our case, I noticed a couple of instances in the spring where Samurai hit the dogwalk at a particularly high rate of speed at trials. I could see him simultaneously accelerating, lengthening and extending -- starting in the approach to the dogwalk. In the two "mystery" cases I'm am attempting to describe here, he caught air over the first apex and then continued to accelerate and extend, lowering his body as he came over the second apex and into the contact.

Being a toy dog and only 4 pounds, by the time he was into the contact zone, it was hard to see daylight between him and the contact, and with the speed, he was basically a white blur.

In the video I have of this, I cannot see for sure what is happening in the contact because of the blurring and the closeness he is traveling to the contact surface. I do remember in both instances hearing the foot pattern that I usually associate with him hitting the contact.

However, in both instances, I see in the video the judges staring, then reconsidering and shaking their heads as if befuddled by what they just saw. Then they call a fault.

I thought about these situations for a long time and considered even slowing Samurai down or even pausing him after the contact...something to make the performance easier for the judge to "see".

However in the process of training this, I also have found (at least in Samurai's case), that once the running pattern is set into motion -- and if it is a true galloping situation (i.e. not a collected canter or trot) -- that trying to manipulate what happens at the end of the contact is pointless.

Kind of like trying to unwhip cream or stop a plane that is already in flight. Basically once initiated, once the approach/acceleration is committed to, it's kind of a done deal. Set in stone. Whatever.

So I've been studying the approach and the striding to see what I can tell about what types of striding will tend to be successful and which ones will be destined for a fault. Because, really, if it's a true running contact, you want it to be something, ideally, that the dog will fall naturally into, without a lot of fussing and attempts at manipulation.

Long story short, I found this video that Sylvia Trkman made to share with her distance students. People who presumably, from the subject matter, were having some of the same questions I'm having.

True to running contact form, the video both answers questions while raising more. It breaks down via slow motion footage, the striding count and captures what I have seen with Samurai...that tendency to take air over the first apex and extend low, long and accelerating into the contact zone.

It raises some: the separation of the rear legs, was that trained or a natural adaptation? What is the significance, if any, of the variation in the number of strides?

Because Samurai is a toy breed dog, only 9.75" tall, how do the observations translate to the shorter striding pattern? By theory it would "seem" to make the contact a "bigger" target for the smaller dog, and yet, the speed and extension of the true running situation leave plenty of room for questions.

At any rate, I've found watching these sorts of things helps train my eyes for what I need to watch for and reward. Thanks to Sylvia from Samurai and I for sharing her experience with the rest of us exploring this method of training.