Fenzi Dog Sports Academy - AG245: You've Been Framed: Running A-frame Training

Course Details

This class is for building a clear and confident running aframe performance. Regardless of your skill level, this class is for building a clear and confident running aframe performance. Regardless of your dog’s aframe experience, you will have the step-by-step process for teaching your dog how to adjust their strides and hit the contact-area consistently. Right from the start, you will add distractions and proofing layers to the behavior, ensuring that your dog can maintain their criteria no matter what the handler is doing.

In this class, we will use a PVC box as a target. Focusing on the dog's ability to maintain criteria in a variety of situations before going to the aframe will allow for a smoother transition to the actual obstacle, with a higher success rate. Students may also use a mat for the target. There is a slight difference in striding patterns when using a box vs a mat that can be discussed as needed.

Teaching Approach

Lectures are released in one chunk at the beginning of the week. Lectures include written instructions, diagrams, and short demonstration videos. Demonstration videos are of actual training sessions, so sometimes things don’t go according to the script. It is important for students to be able to take the lecture assignments, along with trouble shooting tips, and make adjustments in their training that their individual team needs, since every scenario cannot be covered in lecture or demo material. Megan is direct in her feedback. “Keep doing this. Change this. Give this a try.” This training process is very step-by-step and should be followed pretty closely by each team, only making slight adjustments as needed. Steps shouldn’t be skipped as they all serve a specific purpose in the program.

This class will have a Teacher's Assistant (TA) available in the Facebook study group to help the bronze and silver students! Directions for joining that Facebook group will be in the classroom after you register.

Instructor: Megan Foster

Megan (she/her) has been involved in the dog sport world nearly her entire life. Though her family did compete in obedience, agility was Megan’s passion right from the start. With over 20 years experience, she has competed with a variety of dogs...(Click here for full bio and to view Megan's upcoming courses)

Syllabus

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With this syallabus, students will have two different training paths depending on how much access they have to an A-frame. You can get started on the aframe as early as Week 3, but have enough flatwork things to work on so that access is not needed until Week 5.

Before Class: Overview of method & Equipment needed
Before Class: Reinforcer Skills
Before Class: Stays & Wing Wraps

Weeks 1 & 2: Phases 1-8

Clean Loops

Responding to Errors

Value for Target Behavior

Naming the Behavior

Testing the Verbal Cue

Changing Handler Position

Changing the Reinforcement Strategy

Adding Handler Motion

Weeks 3, 4, & 5: Phases 9-13

Half Grid, Full Grid, and Aframe Skills:
No Motion
Motion
Obstacles & Handling Before
Obstacles & Handling After

Week 6: Phase 14
Your Path to Full Height
Sequencing & Reducing Reinforcement
Fading the Target/Props

Prerequisites & Supplies

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Equipment:

You will need a target of some type. A PVC “box” that is 30” x 36” is recommended. A mat (carpet, yoga mat, etc) is also acceptable.

You will need a wing jump, one wingless jump, and a tunnel for some of the exercises.

You will need at most, a 60X30 space to complete the longer sequences.

For the second half of the class, you will need access to an aframe that adjusts from 4’6” to 5’6”high. The aframe is scheduled for week 5, but if students are cooking along, could be as early as week 4!

Appropriate Age of Dog:

The nature of a Gold Spot is that you'll be doing some training several times a week, maybe even every day. Your dog should be old enough to physically handle that amount of training.

I recommend that Gold Spots should be at least 15 months old. I recommend Silver Spots to dogs younger, as you can get feedback on the basic training and then transfer to the actual aframe once your dog is a bit older.

My own dogs begin this process when they are young, but probably only train this specific skill once a week, and I do wait until the dog is finished growing to apply the flatwork to an actual aframe, because the process can go quickly with a solid understanding of the target behavior.

Sample Lecture

Adding Handler Motion to the Full Grid

You know what to do! From each of the 3 starting positions, make sure your dog is comfortable with you walking, jogging, and running.

Remember that you can change up your reinforcement strategy to help your dog be successful:
- tossed reward
- empty dish
- robot
- loaded dish
- food toys
- toys

I am starting even with my dog on the station, so somewhere between the left and middle handlers in the image above. I am rewarding from my hand, since the loaded bowl was too much, but she was struggling to find the tossed treats in the grass.

Here is Donia & Fen again, working on adding movement to the grid. Donia does a lovely job changing things up and keeping the success rate high!

Bonus Grid Exercise: If your dog is struggling with the grid from a stay, you can place a wing or cone at the same level as the first jump.

If your dog is acing the gridwork from a stay with some distance, you can use a cone/wing wrap start *instead* of a stay: so the dog will be moving into the grid. Still, keep the distances short so that collection is easy and desirable for them!

Assignment

Add your movement to the grid. Keep your dog's starting position close (within 5 feet) of the first jump. Because this mimics a flat aframe, I do not let me dogs approach this with any more speed than they can pick up with a 5 foot lead in.

Testimonials & Reviews

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A sampling of what prior students have said about this course ...

I can't believe how much progress Huxley made in this 6 week class especially with how little reps were done on the aframe. Each lesson was broken down into such specific morsels that it made it easy to find time to train, keep pace and see valuable results with just 5-10 minutes of training daily and that's coming from someone who works 15 hour shifts and is definitely a member of the PJs dog training club! Megan has an amazing eye and ability to communicate individual tweaks and isn't afraid to say that isn't working for your dog let's try something else. This class also had the most diversity of breeds, sizes and experience levels of any class I have taken but yet everyone made significant progress towards their Running Aframe and many of us accumulated several other handy skills while doing this class too!

Due to an unexpected injury with my main competitive agility dog, I took this course with my other dog who does not have much agility background. I was blown away with Megan's patience and encouragement. I know my dog was not the epitome of speed and drive that we have come to expect from agility dogs, but she still provided thoughtful feedback to all of my videos and responded to questions and concerns AS IF my dog was destined to be just as competitive as any other gold-level dog. Megan is fantastic at meeting the dog where he/she is and instructing the owner to do the next right thing. In summary, this course is not just for future podium dogs. Teams with slower dogs can still have a ton of fun with this class. It's for anybody who wants to geek out about best practices for running A-frame training that minimizes rehearsal of error and isn't overly taxing for the dog's body. I would sign up for a running dogwalk class from Megan in a heartbeat!

This was an absolutely fantastic class. I retrained our (very scary) Aframe performance from the ground up. The step by step approach created a solid foundation and then manageable increments. Megan's kind, insightful feedback was very specific to my dog and her tweaks were so effective. We worked hard- practicing multiple sessions weekly applying Megan's recommendations and it has payed off. At the end I am absolutely THRILLED with my dog's emerging Aframe performance and I have a path forward to build it into course work. My only wish would be a couple more weeks to have Megan's feedback while adding handling. Would highly recommend! Thank you so much Megan!

My dog and I LOVED this class. All the steps were laid out clearly and it was very comprehensive and Megan took into account all the little pieces of A frame performance and put them into the training. I loved the reliance on loopy training and I can see so much improvement in my abilities as a trainer after taking this class. My sensitive dog is really happy and pushing me to train his A frame skills so I know it was all broken down perfectly for his needs. We still have work to do but I expect our A frame is going to be one of our best agility skills yet!

I absolutely loved this course and the approach for the running A-frame. Going into the class my dog previously had a lot of education on foot targeting a mat for his running dog walk. This took those skills and just modified them slightly for the A-frame. I greatly enjoyed Megan's attention to detail and the ability to split behaviors. Thanks you Megan!!!

This is the first class I have taken at gold with Megan. This is also the first time that I have seen every gold student stay engaged for the duration of the course. Megan was excellent and systematic about providing the framework for the class. She expertly spotted the need for and recommended modifications for each member of the class (with a wide distribution of sizes/breeds) to enable their success. Megan was committed to her forums and provided a learning structure that allowed students to work more frequently and incrementally which helped me personally and I imagine all the students. As a side note, there was some support training required for the class which I personally dreaded, given that we had plateaued a long time ago and now needed it for class. Within one session with Megan's advice we had broken a two year plateau! So while this course was geared for a very specific behavior, I find myself thinking WWMD (what would Megan do) in my everyday more general training scenarios. Excellent class! Thank you.

Registration

There are no scheduled sessions for this class at this time. We update our schedule frequently, so please subscribe to our mailing list for notifications.

Registration opens at 9:30am Pacific Time.

AG245 Subscriptions

	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Tuition	$ 260.00	$ 130.00	$ 65.00
Enrollment Limits	12	25	Unlimited
Access all course lectures and materials	✔	✔	✔
Access to discussion and homework forums	✔	✔	✔
Read all posted questions and answers	✔	✔	✔
Watch all posted videos	✔	✔	✔
Post general questions to Discussion forum	✔	✔	✖
Submit written assignments	✔	✖	✖
Post dog specific questions	✔	With video only	✖
Post videos	✔	Up to 2	✖
Receive instructor feedback on	Questions All videos	Questions All videos	✖

Find more details, refund policies and answers to common questions in the Help center.

AG245: You've Been Framed: Running A-frame Training

Course Details

Teaching Approach

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Silver

Bronze