Contact decisions...

Since making the decision to switch to running contacts, I have enlisted the help of a student of mine. Adrian has successfully taught her dog Panic to run his contacts, so I figure, why reinvent the wheel? I must say, it's an awesome feeling to have a student teach you! I can't fully claim Adrian as mine exclusively, but I'd like to think I at least taught her something, once! ;) 
 Anyway, we got together today to start the journey into running contacts. We decided to start Moxie, since she has a beautiful 2 on 2 off that she refuses to hold now in trials, so why not let her run them. At least then it sounds like it's MY idea and not HERS, right? We are using the Trkman method, so we started her with a ground board and sent her to a food bowl. The only criteria was stay on the board, and run. Moxie is a star, so of course she got it right away. We decided to take her on my lowered dogwalk and test her out. I put her halfway on the down ramp, and Adrian baited the food bowl. I gave her a "ready, set GO!" command and let her run. She did very well. I did find that restraining her made her come off the board weird, so I used a verbal "wait" instead. I think Moxie will transition nicely, and I noticed she started to really run after a few repetitions.
 Next up was Sally. I may as well work her like the rest of them. She unfortunately has no real contact behavior to speak of, and at the very least, this might speed her up on the boards. She was hilarious! We started her on the flat board, and she thought it was the best game EVER. Nobody ever gets to see Sally act as silly as she is, and I so wish we had a camcorder. She would get her treat, bounce around, offer behaviors and toss her food bowl around. She thought she was quite clever. We decide to take her outside. HA! The first few were okay but she was bailing high, then she decided she didn't want to play our game, thank you very much, she'd rather run around with a frisbee in her mouth and be silly. So her session ended with her pretty much IN the yellow, showing her the food in the bowl, letting her run to it and jackpotting her. I am telling you, red dogs are just different! ;)
Hustle was our last to go. After he got out of his crate, jumped up and jammed my finger and nearly gave me a concussion, I decided to make sure Adrian had health insurance before assisting me with him!
He is a blank slate, so we decided to just let him run the board. Except he ran around it! So we got boxes out to block him, and he then started running through the channel of boxes, to the board, to us with food! He still has a very short attention span, so we lost his interest pretty quickly, and decided to get one last run across and jack pot him too.
 All in all, good times and all the dogs did pretty well for round number one. Oh, and Hustle has his basic play retrieve down, in case anyone was doubting me! ;)
 I start my jogging plans tomorrow, so wish me luck! Tomorrows goal is a 15 minute jog. I will probably go to the YMCA and use the treadmill, because I can watch tv and focus on something else in the beginning. Plus I can do some weights for my upper body.
 To end, the shell of the building is now finished. We hope to have it fully insulated and the walls put up by next weekend, barring crazy weather or complications. Fingers crossed!