[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

First thing, I am confusing myself. Except for Casper, this summer, every time I have done grids like these I have used a placed toy. Every time. I assume this is to promote forward focus but that’s how Susan Salo teaches it and that’s how I’ve done it. I’m not sure why I didn’t this time. Maybe because we started this work as the end line of a sequence?

At any rate, while some people can throw toys and they magically appear over the dogs head and support forward focus, I am CLEARLY not one of those. Also, Casper is much more handler focused than previous dogs and I need to work on that.

So, here is the video with 12” jump and placed toy.

I think the wing and toy combo has resulted in forward focus. Finally. <grin> OTOH, he was jumping at least 16 and didn’t lower to 12 in these 7 trials.

Regards,
Barb

If you haven’t heard Terry Pratchett’s Guards, Guards — well, go get it. He is the best!

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

Casper did not remember his puppy cone work very much, so a lot of time/energy was spent trying to communicate that. I think we eventually got a series with him (mostly) focusing forward. He struggles with forward focus on almost everything and I think this will, eventually, help a lot. So thanks for the cone idea.

Here is the video. I think I followed your advice. Over the next few days, I will try to improve his driving to the cone. I cut most of my “cone work” out of the video but it was inserted in a lot of places. I don’t know if this helped or not but starting about 2:12, I repeated the video just isolating the jumping.

Thanks!
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

First, the distance on the exercise is 19 feet.

Yes, Casper has seen a drill similar to this one but not for months. I have used 7,7,7,15 then 16, 17, 18, until a stride is added. Then back down a foot at a time to 15.

Here is today’s drill. I used your distances (6,6,6, 12,then 15, 18, 21). I was surprised that he made no errors in the reading grid at all.

So I got excited and went out to the setup. He did it fine from a stop after the tunnel. And only made one mistake exiting the tunnel. I threw the toy anyway (an error) which proves it is a good thing I train with almost all positives, since errors just mean extra toys/cookies. <grin>

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Again,

Here is Enzo doing the hot topics for package 3. I’m hoping by doing the drills with Enzo, it will sink into my head that that there are more choices than I usually consider. <grin>

I wasn’t at all scared on the BC of the tunnel. But also, Enzo is much less likely to bash into me compared to previous dogs. My Malinois, Terry, had no shame about running his line as fast as he could and the devil take the hindmost.

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

Regarding the standard course #2, I think it went very well and your comments are spot on. My challenge, as I see it, is to try and find the “good line”/”good handling” on the first run.

I guess you must have thought we didn’t have enough to do — there are a lot of hot topics in package 3! Happily for me, my dogs “go on” really well, so that part doesn’t need too much work.

Here is the driving ahead part with Casper. He is perfectly willing to drive ahead but keeping him focused ahead is a different matter. My throwing is pretty terrible, so I did leave it out there sometimes. And, as you can see, he consistently drops the last bar. Maybe I should shove it out a few more feet, so he has to add another stride. Notice he added a stride when we started up close but left it out as soon as the tunnel was included. When he bounced the distance, he mostly dropped the bar. Advice?

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

I decided to try and apply your advice to running the second standard course, instead of re-running the first one. This course took a couple of tries, since my handling strategy didn’t make it. On the first run, I tried to get #10 from a long ways away. That didn’t work. But I decided that I could handle #7 from the takeoff side and then I would be well positioned for #10. In the second run, I did it that way and it worked well. I was really pleased to get 21 both times, I thought it was pretty tricky.

I am extremely pleased with the second run – I thought almost all of the cueing was timely and he ran a pretty nice path (too bad it wasn’t the first run…).

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Again,

Here is Enzo doing the first standard course from package 2. As I mentioned, I pulled the A-frame away from the #17 jump.

He ran clean on the first attempt –a record for us running your courses! Instead of relabeling and working on the second course, I decided to just leave it alone. I imagine you will have some ideas and it will be sitting there ready to go. <grin>

As I look at it, there was some lazy-ass handling there but the passes through the tunnel underneath the DW pretty much discourage one from handling with too much speed, since you would wind up going in and coming back out. At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

OH, one more thing. Here is Casper doing the beginning. Not sure why he dropped bar #1 but the rest was lovely. I did a forced front because his threadle IN is still a work in progress. Just for grins.

Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

Ah, you say “brake arm” and I say “early FC”; tomayto/tomahto…. The course was completely undisturbed, so we could play on it with some confidence about doing comparisons (although the camera angle is slightly different). All of the following discussion is for JWW Course #2.

First: the handling of 6-7-8. I didn’t think I could make a straight line with a BC or a post turn. What this video shows is the original handling, labeled A and B. Then today’s handling, one BC and one post turn labeled 1 and 2. I need your good eye. I almost convinced myself that today’s runs show him having to change leads to make the correct weave entrance. Maybe not. There is a striding difference.

Yes, I did give the “around” cue while he was still weaving. I am very confident that he can process a cue and not pop the weaves, so I do give the cue if it makes sense.

Also, I did want to try that far line and see if the bar is still hard for him. So, while doing the other things, I ran that a number of times. This video has the first video’s two runs, labeled A and B. Then today’s runs are 1, 2, 3 and 4. Apparently what his latent learning said was “add a stride”. It is a touch warmer today than when we ran before but I don’t think that made any difference.

Lastly, I looked at the 12-13-14-15 line a few different ways. There were the two dog paths but multiple ways to handle the wrap at #13. Also, it took me a moment to consider that I should just treat #14 as a backside slice (easy for us) instead of a Whiskey turn (hard for us).
1. Takeoff side wrap to slice: 7.8
2. Backside wrap to slice: 7.4
3. Original way slice/slice: 7.2
While I agree that option 1 was not very well executed (both turns wide), number 2 was about as tight as we do it. So, at least this time, the slices win.

If you are looking at something like Milwaukee, Wisconsin to London, Ontario, then you’ll practically go through my yard. If it is more like Eau Claire, Wisconsin to Sudbury, Ontario, you’ll probably go the northern route through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. If you choose the southern route, you’re more than welcome to drop in.

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

Here is Enzo, doing what he does. <grin>

Jumpers 1:
For reasons which can only be guessed at (or laughed at), when I walked this course I thought I could get a blind between 13 and 14. That proved to be wrong and made a mess out of the first run. I gave it some thought and we re-ran the ending and then the whole thing. Much nicer.
On paper, I wondered about slicing 14 but IRL, that seemed unlikely to be anything but a mess.

Jumpers2:
I didn’t spend a lot of time working on the dog path on paper for this run. As a result, the dog path is what looked best on the ground. I feel very confident about my choices at 2, 6, and 9. The choice at 6 might depend on exactly how it is built; in my yard, the left wrap seemed the only sensible choice.
Now the way to go around 13 and 14 could be debated but I feel pretty good about the way I went. Certainly, he came out of the #12 tunnel heading to the #13 backside on the R to L slice and from there the choice on 14 seemed obvious. It turned out to be “un-obvious” to Enzo, who struggled to find that one backside. Lazy handling, I guess. On the second run, he dropped #11. I included a close up and still don’t see what I might have done – he took off very early.

(If you are driving through MI with time to spare, I am in Kalamazoo, just off I-94, the major east-west route. I have an air-conditioned pole barn if you want to pop in and train a bit. Also, I have a huge, fenced yard for other adventures, training or just playing.)

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Ah, Tracy, “Let me know what you think!” is a pretty dangerous thing to ask of me right now.

(I can’t drive so I am missing all my seminars and summer trials; I am not in a great place right now. OTOH, I’m not in any hurry with Casper: he doesn’t even begin to understand the DW or A-frame and he has yet to Q on a simple novice JWW course in my yard.)

One more thing: on the previous video, you wrote that he showed signs of fatigue at about 2:25. In “real time”, that was much more; closer to 14 or 15 minutes.

So here is Casper’s complete 5 minutes on this same skill set. I am using a different physical setup because I built the JWW course for Enzo.

Here is the plan:
1. Set up some jumps to train on; find an egg timer
2. Use a toy with a rope, so that little time is wasted on “failure to recall/retrieve”
3. Work the German turn from both sides; drop toy along the line
If that doesn’t cause 5 minutes to be up:
4. Work threadle wrap from both sides; again, drop toy on the line

Here is what happened:
1. Have to buy an egg timer; used the iPhone
2. Set it for 6 minutes to take beginning/ending into account
3. Wasn’t very good at the “drop toy on the line” although pre-placing it was even worse.

And because I am struggling, here’s what happened in the few minutes after that:

Then we went inside.

I can’t begin to tell you how much your kindness and attention has meant to me this summer.

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

Enzo pretty much knows these, so Casper and I played with the hot topic skills for package 2 today. We had fun and maybe learned a bit but this is pretty far over his head. In particular, the German turn was very difficult when coming from the open angle. Kind of surprised me, I would have guessed it would be easier from that angle. At the end, I just worked him around the clock and took note of where it begins to fail. He drops a lot of bars but I think that is more mental than physical – when he is confident in what’s happening, the bars tend to stay up. When he loses confidence, he tries to look at me and then the bars go flying. At least, that’s what I think I’ve noticed. Maybe you have a different insight.

Thanks,
Barb

Ps: I think about your training in 3 to 5 minutes advice all the time (because it makes me crazy). How would you be effective in only 3 minutes? This was more like two 15-minute sessions which I cut down.

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

Regarding standard course 1, I redid the opening both ways around #2.

I also used ONFORM to do the comparison and it was MORE than a second faster to do it your way. I was shocked: https://link.getonform.com/view?id=aWzAzEn7CzSJA6uGHfSb

I am just starting to learn this software. A couple of things:
o I advanced the run by hand, that’s why it looks choppy
o Even though it was not running “real time”, the timer is true to what really happened.

The result of MORE than a second was quite shocking to me. I generally try to avoid German turns, since I feel like I will be in my dog’s way (even though Enzo understands them beautifully and I have plenty of time). When I see a video of Enzo & me doing one, I am always surprised by how well they work.

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

HI Again,

We also ran course 2. I thought this was easier and we didn’t have much trouble with the course (although there was a bars issue). There was a major meltdown on the running DW and we stopped to work on that in the middle. It was my intention to wrap #18 both times but he did the slice the first time and I just saved it.

ON the second (final) run, I sent him to #18 with “GO!” so I have no one to complain to when he did, indeed, take off.

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

After studying the A-frame/tunnel discrimination, I decided to leave that tunnel at 15’ and change the straight tunnel to 10 feet. I gave serious consideration to having a 20’ straight tunnel (wheeeee!) but I think that might distort the objective of that part of the course.

I found this to be a very interesting standard course. On paper, I wanted to go to the far wing of #2 for the backside but when I saw the course on the ground, I took the nearside. The angry interruption was when Enzo decided he was finished after #10 and left off to grab his toy: surprisingly bad behavior. Oh well.

I was a bit lazy on the turn from 14 to 15 and he turned the wrong way. Then he did one of our many errors on the 18,19,20 line.

Second run was clean through 18. I started over at the weaves (twice!) and eventually managed to get that portion to run cleanly.

Thanks,
Barb

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