There is a story...

About a dog named AMPie
She is crazy and runs around like a bunny
we practice running dogwalks because were bored
thanks to Silvia they are getting better
It was a bit scary when we started
Her mom was lost and a little unsure
But now we get them a little better
Were making progress thank goodness :)

Alright poems were never really my thing if you couldn't get that :/ But that is kinda of our story of running contacts :)

Finding Silvia's site and being able to have her answer my questions has been seriously a life saver! Then when we attended the running contact seminar yesterday I learned a bit more :) The BIGGEST thing I realized and then thing that was really setting me back was that I was WAY to strict...wow I was asking for SO much it was kinda silly now that I think about it. I basically thinking that I had to get where all four feet her in the yellow or front feet at least. That really isn't the case after watching some people start yesterday at the beginning there were certain times that Silvia said she would still reward and I would of never rewarded that!! She mentioned that in the beginning it has to be rewarding and if you aren't getting enough good ones you are not having enough tries to reinforce for them to understand what you are looking for. makes complete sense :) Silvia even said that she prefers that if they hit with only there back feet in the yellow and their hind feet are not together and staggered that is still good :D YAY something a bit easier to look for and understand. She really stressed the hind feet being staggered which makes sense.

Other thing is experiment! Don't be afraid to try things and see what will work and can get you what you are looking for! Which again is right...dogs are not robots and don't function the same way-what works for one will not always work for the other! such a simply concept yet so easily forgotten.

I of course learned more then just this, but these some things that really stuck out for me. it was also really nice since I did get to talk to Silvia for a bit one on one. I had AMP out and she came up to me and asked about how her contacts were going :) SO contain my want to bombard her with like a gazillion questions I just kinda explained what I was doing and to see what she thought about that. At this point it basically sounds like I am a little stuck because I don't have a lot of space and can't use a full board which doesn't really able me to raise it up :/ f*ing winter :( But it might be okay since I can just really get AMP'D focused on running the board well and being okay with that :)

It isn't going to be a speedy process, but that's okay there is really no rush at all :)