Training a good box turn has always been the most difficult challenge for most Flyball trainers, and I am no exception. So when someone asked me about Wall training I was eager to learn what I could. Since I didn’t know that much about this training, I posted something on the i-Flyball Facebook page and quickly had a few comments:
I have two bcs, one trained with the ‘traditional’ method, props and the whole shebang, box turn lovely but slow and wide. The second one trained ‘on the wall’, quick, tight and snappy turns, hardly any props except for striding. Love the method, will never look back. ~ Gosia Skowron
… Properly done, a wall turn should result in a quick, efficient and snappy box turn without the “hang” or “pause” that you see some dogs do on the box. It is very difficult for a dog to “pause” on a vertical surface, so very early on they learn that they can’t do that. ~ Stephanie Minnella
So my interest in this method was instantly peaked. I went off and tried to find as much information as I could. I can’t thank Stephanie Minnella enough for providing me with much of the information you will read about this method. Additionally, if you search on YouTube you can find some pretty good videos of dogs performing this method. However, be careful because they may not be executing the method properly.
One of the best reasons for training this method came from Stephanie herself:
A lot of the point of teaching a wall turn is not necessarily to teach the dog to TURN off of the wall, but to teach the concept of their back feet having to leave the ground in order to pull it off. If you think about it, a lot of box turn “issues” that you see in dogs stem from the dog’s butt being too low on the box. The wall teaches them very early on that their back feet have to leave the ground and go UP onto something, which then carries over to the box.
Training the Wall
As with most box training, it is best to use this method as the “foundation before the dog moves to actually turning on the box.” I’ve said this before in one of my other training post, but it has been my experience that once the dog starts turning on a box it is very difficult to retrain a proper turn, and this training method is no exception.
With that said, I will explain this method even though I have not trained any of my dogs this way. I have a young dog that I’m going to start working with just to get some experience with this, but she is already running and was trained on the box using the prop method. She has a pretty good turn but it tends to get sloppy when she gets tired. As I explained in the previous paragraph, I’m not expecting any great improvements in her turn but it will help me and I don’t think it will hurt her to learn it.
As with most dog training, the clicker is your best friend so you will start off teaching your dog to touch the end of a touch stick. They should be very excited about the stick and you should click and treat for a good long while with this. It’s also important that they be highly motivated to a tug or other such motivator. You can use the click and treat method for the tug too if they are not already motivated in this regard.
Once the dog is touch stick trained and has good motivator training, you are ready to begin. You will then use the stick to teach them to go over and back through a wide jump prop. However, you should take the prop away before going to the wall because the dog could get hurt if they fall on the jump.
Stephanie said that “it is important which hand you hold your stick in, how high you hold the stick, where you stand, how you step when you call your dog off the wall….”
Since my dog has already been trained on an adjustable chute (see the i-Flyball website for plans), I plan to start there. My dog turns right off of the box, so I’m going start on my dog’s right side when we are both facing the chute. I’m going to start this training with the chute in the full upright position which is very close to 90 degrees but has a slight slant. I’m going to hold my tug in my left hand and use touch stick and touch the top part of the chute and then when my dogs jumps up on the chute I’m going to quickly pull this stick off the chute and have my dog grab the tug that is in my left hand. I’m going to work on this for a while to get the right response from my dog before moving to the wall.
This may or may not be how most people teach this but hopefully people will comment with their experiences.
You will then want to place some tape on the wall as a mark as to how high your dog should be jumping. Stephanie has the best words to describe this:
The tape should go on the wall at the same level as the dog’s elbows when the dog is “standing up.” What I usually do is walk the dog up to the wall, take his front feet and place them up against the wall. Then I take note of where his elbows are and place the tape there. Don’t have the dog STRETCHING up; just a relaxed stand with its feet on the wall is fine.
I plan on continuing as I described above but instead of the chute I will use the wall and tape. I also plan to use some matting that I will attach to the wall or maybe plywood. I know my dog and she will know that without the matting it’s not the same. I will let you all know how things work out for us by posting comments in the future.
Other Methods
I have seen video of people using a target like a big X made from tape and stuck to a wall. I’m not sure how effective this method is since the dog can tend to go wide. Following the stick off the wall seems to me to be a better method but I would love to see comments on this.
One other method is to use a tug on the wall which does not seem like a very good method either, and Stephanie has some words on this too:
The problem with using a tug rather than that stick is that your arms are short (compared to how long your “arm” is when you are holding the stick). So when you use your arm to hold the tug on the wall, your dog is going to be quicker than you are, and you won’t be able to get your short arm far enough off the wall quickly enough to achieve the result that you want. Some people also affix a ball to the end of the stick. Personally I do not agree with that. Lots of clicker work and the dog will like the stick without any ball on it.
So this is a work in progress for me and I hope that others that have used this method will provide other comments.
Larry
Addendum: Stephanie did stress the importance of finding a seminar for this training which I failed to mention in the original post. I do believe a seminar would be very beneficial and I would love to hear from anyone that could provide that service and would not mind traveling.
Is it time for NAFA to reform its Voting System?
I don’t normally guest-blog on someone else’s website but, Larry asked some provocative questions in Let the People Vote.
“Isn’t it past time that NAFA let the people vote?…..It doesn’t seem fair to me that, we the people, the ones who pay our tournament fees and participate in this sport have no voice……why should club owners, judges, and board members be the only ones that have a vote?”
To date, there are over 50 comments on this article and more web traffic to The Flyball Blog than at any other time or any other subject! And yet, no one has offered any compelling evidence why we should not change this system that we have right now. Commentators have offered their “opinions” as to why they oppose changing what we have but, they have been unable to provide any solid evidence that the current system is what’s “best” for NAFA.
The System is Broken
Larry has courageously reported that there may exist some voting “irregularities” in the most recent election for NAFA. In “The Hanging Chad of Flyball”, we are made aware that this year’s ballot was changed so that all a club’s votes were tabulated on one piece of paper. Did this change “confuse” voters or tabulators in any way causing an incorrect tabulation of the votes? Did anyone vote online thinking they were casting ALL their votes for one candidate but, in the final tabulations, perhaps only one vote counted? Were the paper ballots that were mailed in correctly tabulated?
Questions left unanswered are: “Did this ballot conform to our rulebook? “Delegate voting may be conducted by paper ballot, electronic balloting, or a combination of both.” Does a single ballot violate this rule since “a combination of both” could not be accomplished with a single ballot?”
The word from a Board member was that voting patterns over the last three elections showed that only a few clubs split their votes, so only a single sheet of paper was sent to each club to save money. Who would be against “saving money” as well as the hard work burdening our volunteers with mailing out all that paper? …on the other hand, are we so preoccupied with saving dollars that we fail to respect the “rights” of a minority to split their votes or cast their votes in a “combination of electronic and paper”? …and, if our volunteers who work to present us our ballots, mail them out and count the results to present at the AGM are “overburdened”, why aren’t we recruiting more volunteers to help with the task? Or, commission an outside Accounting or Law Firm to do this (as provided for in our By-Laws)?
The History of NAFA Voting
NAFA used to send a letter to Club owners with the start of each new racing year, requiring them to assign their earned delegate votes to individual delegates within their Club. When election time came, these assigned delegates each received their own unique ballot from NAFA. Each delegate could consult with their club in order to determine how they should cast their vote but, filling it out and mailing it in or registering their vote electronically was the sole responsibility of each individual delegate.
Around 2003, the NAFA Board of Directors enacted a change to assign all delegate votes
to the Club owner. This saved time and money because instead of mailing out all those ballots individually, the number of envelopes was reduced to the number of “active” clubs. But, it conferred upon “Club Owners” a super status of sorts. Instead of just one ballot, they held the power of ALL of a Club’s earned votes. For some, this is not a problem. They simply distributed those accumulated ballots among their club members until they ran out of ballots or members. Others discussed the votes among their members and maybe even sought out a consensus among them. Still, others who run their organizations in an autocratic fashion probably simply voted those ballots any way they saw fit.
The bottom line to all this is: For the purpose of saving “work” and “money”, NAFA reduced each club to a single “delegate” and whatever that delegate did with a club’s earned “vote(s)” was OK with NAFA. NAFA does not get involved in the internal structure or business of the individual clubs.
Weighted Voting
Why do clubs “earn” votes in the first place? This dates back to the basics on how NAFA organized and promoted the sport of Flyball.
Flyball didn’t develop in a vacuum. All kinds of dog sports have been organized for years and years prior to Flyball. They were all organized in some kind of “club” form. As an example, each breed recognized by the American Kennel Club (AKC) has its own “parent club” that dictates their unique “breed standard” to the AKC. There are also local kennel clubs that organized on a geographic basis that were interested in putting on “Dog Show” events and they sought “sanctioning” from either the AKC as an all-breed event or from a club organized around promoting one specific breed.
The AKC also sanctions dog obedience events and confers “titles” earned in these activities. These events are organized and hosted by clubs whose purpose for existing was promoting dog obedience training and competition.
Flyball “evolved” out of clubs who existed to promote training dogs and competing. So, first came the clubs and then came Flyball. …and then came NAFA. NAFA was founded by 8 dog obedience clubs who were able to enter 12 “teams” in demonstrations of Flyball at Horse Show events. By organizing “NAFA”, they were able to promote the sport beyond Detroit and the Toronto/Hamilton area of Ontario, Canada. And, they governed their affairs through the “delegate” system. The one dog obedience club that was able to field 4 teams of dogs and handlers enjoyed more influence in decision making since they were simply larger in size.
That is the “roots” of the # of delegates earned is pegged to the # of teams entered in NAFA events.
Why do NAFA Board members, Regional Directors and Head Judges have a vote above and beyond their Club’s vote?
The short answer is that NAFA always allowed person’s with a “special interest in Flyball” the right to vote in its elections. The reason needs some explanation.
Owning a team or being a team captain is always fraught with risk of losing team members or their cooperation. Becoming a Head Judge for NAFA didn’t require you remain active with a club or dog. Same goes for RD or Board member. Why should you lose your right to vote in NAFA affairs if you are working for NAFA as a volunteer but, your team leaves you? The Board decided that NAFA volunteers working as Judges or RDs, BoD’s should be considered “delegates” separate from affiliation with any unique club.
The end result of years of accumulation of “votes” by a club is this: Some clubs recognized that they could increase their influence in NAFA affairs by stuffing the ballot box in all kinds of creative ways. You earn one vote up to two votes for hosting a tournament so, make sure you host one event on Saturday and a second on Sunday and that equals two votes for your club. Make sure you enter enough teams/events to earn 6 votes; now 2 + 6 = 8 votes. Someone wants to be a Judge? Great, add another vote for your club! Want to host more events than just two? Register another club in your name just for hosting events and you can get 2 more votes.
I am not making fun of the many, many clubs out there who enjoy Flyball and work hard to put on events for all of us to enjoy. Not at ALL! What I am pointing out is how the system has been worked by some people/clubs to gain an advantage, perhaps within a Region, that probably has skewed the tabulations several times. Is this “fair” to the clubs who have fewer resources than these “Super” clubs?
The Problem for NAFA
As long as my club’s delegate/team owner was willing to provide a unique ballot to as many of our club’s members as NAFA would calculate we had earned so that we each, individually, could vote them as we saw fit, I thought that was “fair”. …but, NAFA added an extra burden to this year’s election cycle that I think very few people are aware of.
This year, we shifted from voting our ballots earned in racing year 2008 to include racing year 2009! My team owner and I attended the Board meeting in Detroit where implementation of these voting calculations were discussed. The logistical problems facing the Technology and Election Committees were enormous. Before earned delegates for each active club could be tabulated, all racing results from all sanctioned events had to be in NAFA’s possession. The racing year ended 09/30/2009. Any event that experienced a delay in reporting their results for any reason would delay these tabulations for all of NAFA. Compounded by the fact that a clause was included that required that the delegates were to be tabulated from BOTH 2008 or 2009 racing years and a club would be given the ‘greater’ number of votes for whichever timeframe. This was done so that a club who may have earned fewer delegates in 2009 than they did in 2008 would not lose an earned delegate vote before they had the opportunity to vote it.
The change was made so newer clubs would not have to wait two years before casting their votes but, I don’t think the NAFA BoD really understood the amount of work involved in making this change.
What we need to understand is that these logistical problems that NAFA has taken on will not go away. Next year, the same potential for delays in preparing ballots for the election will occur. That is because the Election Committee will not know how many ballots to prepare or how many each club earned until all of the racing results are in. Then, and only then, can the ballots be laid out, printed up, coded and mailed.
That’s why the AGM was moved back to mid-January.
The Solution
1. It is vital to the future of NAFA to cut the amount of work we expect our volunteers to do in order to accomplish our elections.
2. It is highly desirable to cut costs and save our organization money.
3. We need to maintain an elective process; no matter what “form” that process takes.
4. We need to adopt a process that treats everybody as an “equal”.
5. We need to be able to demonstrate clear benefits to all of us by adopting change.
Why ‘One Person, One Vote’?
1. Moving from a “weighted” vote to a “one person, one vote” system simplifies things and does away with the need to calculate anything. This relieves an already overburdened Election Committee of any need to wait for racing results to be reported.
2. If we shift to all-electronic voting, we will totally eliminate the need for postage, the need for printing ballots, the need to place each ballot in an envelope. This will result in significant savings.
3. Instead of expecting NAFA to deliver “ballots” to people for participating in NAFA, I propose that people ask for a ballot by registering with NAFA and providing an active CRN as proof of participating in Flyball. We register to vote in governmental elections to either prove residency or other eligibility to vote. Not everyone who is eligible actually registers but, if you cannot provide basic information that proves you have an interest in the outcome of an election, can we trust you to vote for “what is best”?
4. Registration saves unnecessary work for NAFA by limiting any ballot preparation to just those interested in voting. It will also save any unnecessary expenditure for the same reason.
5. One person, one vote treats everybody equally without regard to number of dogs owned, number of events entered or amount of fees paid to NAFA.
Saving money and volunteers’ time and efforts is clearly a benefit. Treating everybody as an equal is vital to the future of NAFA so that we can demonstrate to anybody with doubts that no one can carve out an “unfair advantage” for themselves or their club, or their Region or their dogs, etc.
JMHO,
…..Chris
