running contacts - The Moving Canine

How to get your dog from being reckless on the dog walk to running it with precision. SAFELY

As a dog agility enthusiast you probably already know that teaching your dog to run on the dog walk can take a while. Isn’t it a well known belief that training running contacts needs lots of repetitions?!

And it quickly becomes even more challenging and time consuming with dogs who are reckless, who misplace their paws off to the side, lose balance and even fall during the training sessions.

While we may see success stories like “Amazing! She got a competition ready running dog walk in just 2 months!” on social media, we rarely see the stories of dogs who are actually struggling with running on the dog walk. Yet they are out there. And if you are reading this, chances are that you also know of a dog (and maybe it’s your own dog) who tends to have a worrying amount of dog walk incidents…

Could this be the reason why your dog slows down on the dog walk?

On March 18, 2022

“My dog is really careful on the dog walk. In fact, she slows down when running the dog walk, so I’m not too worried about her safety”

Often when talking about the problems on the dog walk, it is easy to imagine the reckless dogs who misplace their paws and fall off, making your heart skip a beat. Because falling off the dog walk when running full speed is scary! And dangerous.

So it’s easy to think that a dog who is careful on the dog walk, even slowing down a bit, is far safer. And that slowing down may be even a good thing.

It is true that with a careful dog you don’t need to worry about the safety on the dog walk so much.

But what does make me worry is the reason behind their carefulness. Would a dog who was super comfortable slow down on the dog walk? I suspect not.

Slowing down and being careful is probably coming from a place that isn’t all happy. And maybe careful dogs would actually need help on the dog walk just like reckless dogs do?