# Knocking bars. What do you do?



## KristiM

So I was training with a couple people that I haven't trained with before, I was running a few sequences with havoc and on the last sequence he knocked the last bar. He knocked the bar because I was throwing his toy as he was jumping (bad handler.) He was tired so I went to put him up for a break and they were both kinda like "uh your going to end it with rewarding him for knocking a bar??" I have honestly never really put much thought into it looking at it that way. I always just go by the philosophy of if my dog knocks a bar it's because my handling was off, or I need to do more jump training. I noticed when they ran their dogs, if a bar got knocked thy stopped picked up the bar and tried again (no correction, just whoops lets try again.) So what do you do when the bars come down? And what is the logic behind it?

I was a little put off at first because i really don't believe in "correcting" for knocked bars. Thinking about it now I am actually very glad that they brought it up though because I am TERRIBLE for throwing my reward as my dogs are jumping causing a knocked bar. I always just ignore it, but I AM rewarding a knocked bar probably more often than I am rewarding the jump staying up just because the timing of my throw sucks. Need to pay more attention to when I throw my reward!


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## x11

mebbe do some sessions with a much greater jump height than an agility jump height to slow the dog down and make him jump, do it from a walk or standing start?


just suggestions.


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## llombardo

I'm ending my second session of beginners agility next week and mine has the same issue. Of course its beginning and they let her get away with some things. Today she did three jumps or as I call them walks(she is not fond of the jumps at all). As we were doing the last set she knocked two out of three over I didn't correct her. Now if she bypasses one, then I start over from where she made the mistake. I'm guessing as we get further into it, they will not let her get away with it. The jumps today were about 45 minutes into the class and I think she would have done better if they were at the beginning and she wasn't getting tired. She also does better if we run a course, rarely any mistakes there. The first part of the class she learned the teeter..she loves this. She also likes the tunnel and the A frame...today she went up the A frame, hit the target, turned around and went back the other way, yep she did the A frame about 4 times every time we passed it(on her own as we are sitting there watching her go from one end to the other)...she adores the A frame.


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## KristiM

Sounds like your pup needs more reinforcement for jumping!!! Your dog should be just as obsessed with jumping as with the contacts people often forget to reinforce jumps. Agility courses are after all mostly jumps Havoc would get inside of a jump if he could


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## llombardo

KristiM said:


> Sounds like your pup needs more reinforcement for jumping!!! Your dog should be just as obsessed with jumping as with the contacts people often forget to reinforce jumps. Agility courses are after all mostly jumps Havoc would get inside of a jump if he could


How do I reinforce it? If she is doing a sequence that involves lets say a jump, jump, tunnel, jump, jump...she is fine. She just doesn't have an interest in practicing it. I think she gets bored?? She has learned everything on the first shot with no problems. The helper today described her as fearless. She is quicker then me and today I was of no good, because I have a foot injury that I thought was better, but in the middle of the class I must have turned wrong and now I'm in extreme pain I couldn't really do much when it came time for the jumps. So if you have any ideas how I can reinforce the jumping(mainly on the practice of the jumps), so its not walking over, I would be happy to try it!!


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## JakodaCD OA

Kristi I do agree that maybe you were rewarding for a knocked bar, but again, like you said, it's 'your timing' ..

When I was doing agility, the dog missed something, knocked a bar (which for my dogs I have to say was never much of a problem), I don't like saying "correct", because it isn't a correction, but a "redo'.(the word correction for me I coorelate with obedience

Set the bar, redo the jump (or short sequence) and reward ,, I usually say something like "oops, lets try that again"..same for a missed contact..

I normally ignore 'mistakes', just redo . End on a good note.

lombardo whats the jump height your doing with your dog?


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## wildo

I don't particularly end sessions on a knocked bar, but it has nothing to do with what I think I'm training my dog and everything to do with my pride in getting it "right." It sounds like you identified the problem- throwing the ball a bit too early. I do the same thing, and when I do it, I make a mental note, run the sequence again, and don't make the same mistake.

That said- one of my fellow students in class has a dog that she cannot stop and start over again. This act will completely shut the dog down (he's a very soft min-pin). So if they make a mistake, she keeps running. For that dog, there is no correction ever. No abrupt stopping.

So I think to some extent it does depend on the dog.


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## JakodaCD OA

willy your right If I stopped my aussie dead in her tracks for doing something 'wrong', she'd turn into a marshmellow Very soft, it was one of the frustrations I had doing agility with her..I was used to tougher dogs that could take my 'criticism' vs one the tends to get her feelings hurt.


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## wildo

To the owner's credit, she has become a master at modifying the course such that when a mistake is made, she adds a couple jumps so that it positions her to try the failed portion again. Modifying the course on the fly so you can try the same part twice. A neat skill! :rofl:


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## KristiM

@ llombardo - jump, reward, jump, reward, jump, reward. You just need to create more value for jumping like you have for contact equipment. 

Neither dogs are soft, stopping wont shut them down at all but do they "get" that I stopped because thy knocked a bar and to try harder next time? And how do you possibly maintain criteria if the bar being knocked was a handler error? You can't really tell the dog okay this time it was my fault so we won't stop and fix it, this time was your fault so we stop and fix the bar. My dogs are smart but that might be a stretch lol. Plus I feel I would have to maintain that at a trial, dog knocks bar - I stop in the middle of the run, replace bar and redo. Or again I feel like I wouldn't be maintaining my criteria. 

I will definitely from now on be watching my timing on throws so that I am only rewarding when the bar stays up. But I am still unsure of what an appropriate response if the bar comes down in the middle of a course. An how the heck do I ensure that my dog understands why I am doing what I am doing?


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## Liesje

Also depends on where the dog is at in training. Before Pan left we were just starting to learn jumps and doing some grids, jump chutes, and a little 3-jump pinwheel for fun. He knocked bars like crazy! Now I know this dog can jump because he retrieves over 1m in SchH. His bar knocking was also very inconsistent, like he'd knock the first bar, then the last bar, then the first and the middle bar..... as much as it pained me to do so I basically ignored it because he was so new to agility and gaining confidence with the obstacle and having more "freedom" to make choices and follow my handling in a more indirect way than he was used to with Schutzhund obedience. I noticed that with the few sessions we had, towards the end he would get cleaner, turns tighter, more efficient strides between jumps, etc so that was more important to me than correcting/repeating every knocked bar. Our goal at that level was to help him learn to use his own body and gain confidence doing more than one obstacle at a time. 

I could not ever throw rewards for him, and I wanted to avoid him always coming directly back to me after a sequence, so what I found worked OK for him was placing the tug after the last jump, showing him, then setting him up and running the sequence. For whatever reason he wasn't jumping flat for the reward like he would when I would throw it at the last obstacle.


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## wildo

KristiM said:


> And how do you possibly maintain criteria if the bar being knocked was a handler error? You can't really tell the dog okay this time it was my fault so we won't stop and fix it, this time was your fault so we stop and fix the bar. My dogs are smart but that might be a stretch lol.


Ha! I think it'd be a stretch for most dogs. One jump work comes to mind as a way to _train_ the dog that knocking the bar is a bad thing where reinforcement is withheld. But overall, I doubt many people take it to that level. If the bar came down, just try again. Not really a big deal in my book. I think most dogs, and I'm including yours, probably get the "game" of agility that the goal is to jump OVER the bar. That's pretty fundamental to the game. Mistakes happen- both from the dog and owner. So like I say, just reset and try again. No big deal really...


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## KristiM

Odin has been competing for about a year now, I really think with him that he is an "honest" bar knocker. He generally only knocks bars when my timing is slightly off, whether the jump is 10" or 26". He had no problems with a 1m jump in schutzhund but he will knock quite a bit in agility, like I said if I am just a hair off! Havoc is more of a problem (he really just needs more grid work) but he really doesn't care when he knocks bars, he for the most part runs through a course like a bulldozer on meth! Just like with Pan, placing toys is a huge help with him, but when the courses get a little more complicated and I am training by myself sometimes I have to throw.


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## KristiM

wildo said:


> Ha! I think it'd be a stretch for most dogs. One jump work comes to mind as a way to _train_ the dog that knocking the bar is a bad thing where reinforcement is withheld. But overall, I doubt many people take it to that level. If the bar came down, just try again. Not really a big deal in my book. I think most dogs, and I'm including yours, probably get the "game" of agility that the goal is to jump OVER the bar. That's pretty fundamental to the game. Mistakes happen- both from the dog and owner. So like I say, just reset and try again. No big deal really...


Do you stop and reset no matter the reason the bar was knocked? My philosophy so far has been more or less, "well sometimes bars come down, I'll just keep going." But now that I am completely obsessed with agility I want me and my dogs to be doing the best that we can!


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## wildo

Personally, with a dog like that (and I don't speak from experience, Pimg was quite easy to train) I would revisit BOTH grid work AND one jump work. The one jump is very important because it teaches him how to read you. It teaches him that your timing can be off and it doesn't matter. It allows him to see different pictures of the same move (FC, RC, etc) in a small, controlled environment. I would think such training would be equally as important, if not more so, than grid work.

Grid work should teach how to jump while one jump work teaches how to read the handler during a jump. If the problem is handler induced, I'd be revisiting one jump work.


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## wildo

No, I finish the sequence, reset, and try again. If I keep having an issue with only one small portion, then I'd stop doing the sequence and work that portion. Then I'd run the sequence again until I got it clean.


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## KristiM

wildo said:


> No, I finish the sequence, reset, and try again. If I keep having an issue with only one small portion, then I'd stop doing the sequence and work that portion. Then I'd run the sequence again until I got it clean.


Ok I see what your saying, that makes more sense.

I think with Havoc, he needs more grid work! He knocks a lot of bars just because he miscalculates his stride and doesn't care. The fastest way is the best way! (whether he leaves the course intact or not lol) Most of our training right now is one or two jump work but I am doing it with no bars, trying to get him to learn to wrap around the post, figure out what my different positions mean etc. I should probably just dedicate the rest of our work to grids for the time being. (Even though thet are so BORING!!)

Maybe doing more one jump stuff with Odin at 26", sort of proofing the jumping against my handling is the way to go for him. The ladies that I trained with yesterday did agree that the only bars that came down were because I was in the wrong position, but its not like I'm grossly off, just a little and the bar comes down.


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## MaggieRoseLee

JakodaCD OA said:


> Set the bar, *redo the jump* and reward ,, I usually say something like "oops, lets try that again"..same for a missed contact..
> 
> I normally ignore 'mistakes', just redo . End on a good note.


If I want to mark the knocked bar, I don't do any type of sequence before the bar (unless it's a technical type thing like sometimes the problem is tunnel TO the jump or vice versa so issue was the obstacle prior... but even then I may lower the bar during the training session until they get the technical part). So, as long as I don't have a green dog so all agility is new and a knocked bar isn't an issue (yet) AND my dog is enthusiastic so won't slow/shut down by thinking she's been a BAD DOG :wild: .... then I just 'oops' to mark, reset the bar then have the dog take it again and reward.

BTW, all of us have incidents of poor timing and unintentionally rewarding one thing when we think we are rewarding something else. As long as we pay attention and do it right then next time(s) our dogs figure it out.

:wub:


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## llombardo

JakodaCD OA said:


> lombardo whats the jump height your doing with your dog?


 
She is still at a pretty low mark, maybe 3 to 4 notches from the bottom??? What would that be, like 8 or 10? How much is each notch?


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## wildo

llombardo said:


> She is still at a pretty low mark, maybe 3 to 4 notches from the bottom??? What would that be, like 8 or 10? How much is each notch?


To my knowledge, jump cups usually start at 4". Jump heights are 4, 8, 12, 16, etc. Though some bar jumps may have cups at off-heights like 6, 10, and 14- I'm not sure. (I think the plastic clip & go jump cup strips may have cups on 2" intervals)


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## KristiM

MaggieRoseLee said:


> If I want to mark the knocked bar, I don't do any type of sequence before the bar (unless it's a technical type thing like sometimes the problem is tunnel TO the jump or vice versa so issue was the obstacle prior... but even then I may lower the bar during the training session until they get the technical part). So, as long as I don't have a green dog so all agility is new and a knocked bar isn't an issue (yet) AND my dog is enthusiastic so won't slow/shut down by thinking she's been a BAD DOG :wild: .... then I just 'oops' to mark, reset the bar then have the dog take it again and reward.
> 
> BTW, all of us have incidents of poor timing and unintentionally rewarding one thing when we think we are rewarding something else. As long as we pay attention and do it right then next time(s) our dogs figure it out.
> 
> :wub:


So if you were doing a jump grid and the dog knocks a bar do you mark and withhold reward? (This is kind of tough since the dog is always driving to a placed reward, do you call them off the reward, or just tell the to out asap?)

Its a good thing our dogs are smart and can figure things out sometimes in spite of us


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## MaggieRoseLee

Kristin, if I am doing a jump grid, I'll try not to reward the dog on a if a bar gets knocked but timing is everything with this. Jump grids are a bit different from a course cause I should have the bars low anyways for skills being taught. Amazing how my dogs can even knock an 8 inch bar when learning.

BTW, if anyone is in the east Susan Salo will be giving a 2 day seminar in Nj that is really worth it if you can afford it. At MaryLou Hanlon's place. The DVDs are good but nothing like Salo's eye and comments on other dogs as well as your own.


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## wildo

I wish she'd come a little further west. I'd sure like to attend a Salo seminar.


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