Need Help With Two On Two Off

[Anneke]

Jinx has no rear end awareness what so ever! I am trying to teach her two on two off for the teeter and dogwalk in agility.
So far I have been stopping her at the bottom and rewarding for standing there with her hind legs still on it, but most of the time she keeps going untill all four are on the ground.
It doesn't seem to help if I put her back in position, it just doesn't sink in
I have put a target at the bottom, so she stops there to get a reward, but again, she walks all the way off, then turns back for the reward
So I tried free shaping with a board on the floor. But she either keeps getting up on it with her front paws, or she shuts down. She has no clue at all.
So I tried luring her to move her hind legs towards or on the board. But still she doesn't get it.
I am at a totall loss of what to do!!
I really want to improve her hitting the marked space, because now I have to stay close to her, to make sure she doesn't jump off half way down.
We can't build up speed and distance this way.
Anyone have any idea's of what to do?
I will be searching Youtube for some tutorials, but advice is very welcome!!!

 

[Mutt]

I think you should make her more aware of her hindpaws being on a other surface than the frontpaws. Seems like she doesn't get it because she isn't really aware of the fact that she has hindlegs and therefore what you want. If she becomes aware of this I think it will be much easier to teach 2on2off.

I find the following very effective to teach a dog this:
Take a box and let your jinx put all of his paws on it. Than lure her of with his frontpaws (hindpaws still on the box). Let her sit (frontlegs straigt, butt down). Then let her stand (all legs stretched, but hindlegs still on the box), you can do this by luring at later on only by saying stand. Further: teaching to back up on an object, only front paws in a box, all paws in a box etc.
Boef had no idea she even had backlegs (what are those, I don't have those ) I couldn't even let her back-up on a wooden plank because she didn't want to stand on it. So I started teaching her to put her front paws in boxes and such. Now she is doing much better
Mazzel is a cheater when it comes to this, he is a natural talent and I didn't even have to learn this

Hope this is something which you can work with.

 

[Anneke]

She knows the box thing. And she will get up on things, no problems there.
But when it comes to backing up on or in a box, she just won't.
As long as it is front paws first she will do it. So I can get her to step up on a box and get her to step off with her back legs still on it, sit or stand.
I can't get her to do the elephant trick(front paws up and walk around the box on back legs)
Sigh, I think I need to take a huge step back. I'll try to get her to lift her left back legs when I touch it, see if that will get me somewhere.
Who ever said training a dog is easy Well something to break my brains over...

 

[barnhill]

I have done all of my 2o2o training with Bokeh and now Tempest using a contact board. I sit with it in front of me and throw a treat on the otherside of the board. Then got him to walk back across the board to get another treat. I started small and clicked and treated for just one paw on the board when he came back to me, then I threw another treat and repeated. Once he got that down I repeated the process but didnt treat for one paw. I waited him out until he volunteered a second paw then clicked and treated and tossed another treat so he had to come off the board to get it.

I worked this process until he was standing all four paws on the board, once he understood that I stepped it up and made him come off the board with his front paws. Again starting with just one and then one he understood that I move to two and thats where I stay. This whole process is done across the short edge of the board and with no command associated yet.

Once he understood that I started working the length of the board while moving. If he didnt stop at the end I would step in front of him facing him which caused him to step back and as soon as his rear feet hit the board I would click and treat. Once he was stopping on his own, and understood what I wanted I added the command to it, I use "Feet".

Now I have a hard time training with Tempest cause he is jumping on the board before I can even set it down to work. LOL

His contacts are awesome and he will stop with both lateral and staright movement off and I always get compliments on how good his are. I have already started the same process with Tempest and she is getting it, not as fast as Bokeh did , but its working.

Sorry for the wordy reply, but I hope it helps!

 

[Anneke]

Thanks Barnhill! It's sort of what I wanted to do, but I got stuck.
I had some help from a friend tonight after agility class. We used a big square instead of a board and started all over. Just clicking for a look. And it was HARD to get even that! We ended up doing 10 minutes of waiting for her to finally touch it with one paw
I am just not used to my girl not getting this, she is usually so smart!
But I have to admit, my patience was a problem too Not giving her enough time to figure it out herself. I have problems with free shaping.
I'll post the vid of tonights session as soon as I get it done, so you can see what we did.

 

[Dogster]

How is Jinx doing now? Have her contacts improved?

 

[Anneke]

Pfff no, no improvement yet...But that is only because I haven't got the right equipment.
After training at the dogschool(I'll post that link in a minute) I tried this at home.
Put two boards on books, so they were about an inch and a half off the floor and started free shaping. Things were going well, untill Jinx stood upon the boards and one board tipped a little. That spooked her, so now she will only put her front paws on it, very carefully Stupid me!
I am now trying to find something to substitute the boards, something that won't tip or wobble.
Here is our first session, it's a long one, because it took her a while to figure out what she was supposed to do.

I filmed the second session, but I haven't run it through movie maker yet, as it takes forever and I haven't had the patience to do it yet.
I'm thinking of getting an aerobic step to do this, as it is adjustable in hight and not wobbly. Something like in the link below. Not this one though, because it is way to pricy. But I have seen one for about 20 euro(about 26 dollar) which is more in my range
http://www.aussiefitness.com.au/Commercial-Aerobic-Step.html

 

[648117]

That's awesome .

Holly started on a raised board too. She learn't two on two off in obedience class (we do some extra stuff not obedience), our trainer has these raised blanks they are about the width of a dog walk and maybe a meter or so long, both ends are raised up about 10cm, so it looks a lot like a wooden version of the aerobic step.
First we got the dogs to put all four feet on it then turn and walk from one end to the other without putting any feet down. So I gave Holly a treat at one end then walked to the other so she had to turn around and walk to that end without putting her feet down (this was very easy for Holly because she is little it took no effort at all for her to turn around without putting her feet down but I think it was harder for the bigger dogs in the class). Then we used hand targets to get the front feet on the ground at the ends of the board, then transitioned to target discs. Then raised one end of the "board" slightly by putting a brick under it and continued the 2on 2off using the target and then had some one hold her collar at the "high" end to add a bit of drive.
When that was really good we moved onto a low A-frame.

That's how a taught Holly, she found in pretty easy but I think she has good rare end awareness and her size made the board stuff easy and she is generally a very confident dog so even when the board slipped off the brick once she barely even noticed.

 

[DevonW]

Hehe Thor does the same thing, covering his face when he doesn't understand what I want him to do.

with 2o2o with Thor I use an overturned grocery bin like this:

(I also use it for him to get in his box). It's cheap, it's very sturdy after all Thor is 29.4kg

I don't use a clicker for shaping because I find it confuses the dog as to what they're really supposed to be doing they get a click for a behaviour but can also get a click for a totally different behaviour that will still accomplish the end result that you're actually looking for. So I only mark verbally and reward - making sure the placement of the reward is where I want the dog to be. I reserve the click for when they start getting closer to the actual behaviour.

I shaped Thor up onto the box and then I lured him down and clicked for his back feet still being up on the box. I repeated a few times and then I added the cue word "Target" So target now means his feet need to be up on an object and his front feet on the floor. I use a release word with Thor for pretty much everything so he doesn't come off the contact until I say "okay"

The first time we got to use a piece of equipment. I didn't even have to give him a cue to do the contacts he stopped dead and waited until I said okay to proceed because his was on an angle with his back feet higher than his front feet which he has associated with 2o20.