[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

[Barb VanEseltine]

Happy Tuesday,

Another ridiculously hot training session — I didn’t insist on a clean run for the second JWW course. We got all the parts and had a pretty good plan, so I’m calling that a win.

The whole running time of this session was only 6 minutes and 39 seconds; so I’m moving in the correct direction. Of course, the temperature was 85 degrees in bright sun.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with how this went; there was some shouting LEFT, LEFT when I wanted RIGHT (and vice versa) but mostly I communicated what I wanted.

Here’s where this course got me:
– Enzo read the line 5-6-7 as 5-6-23; I did a little zoom there and my motion clearly sent him to 23
– I had trouble with the turn from 10 to 11; I didn’t want to run and decel, so I was stuck with an (often late) verbal.
– For #18, I knew I could do it as a push from the landing side but I wondered about doing it as a call and send. Eventually, I managed to make that work.
As you will clearly see, my handling is getting less motion based and more verbal. I haven’t shown my dog since March (we have our only local trial this weekend—hurray!), so I’m not sure what my handling will look like when I get back to it on a routine basis.

Then on the final run we didn’t get 11, 12, 13 which is usually an easy skill for us. After video review, the handler failed to support the turn away to the weaves. <grin>

Fun courses!!

Thanks, Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Again,

Well it certainly looks nice and I do wish I didn’t have to deal with mowing. It’s not that I mind the mowing part, I mind the mow and move everything and mow some more part.

Thanks for explaining!
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Good morning, Tracy!

We had a hellacious thunderstorm last night and we’re all a tad short on sleep. Then, the training yard was covered with 12 to 18 inch bits of trees which blew in from the neighbor’s place. And, naturally, the course I built yesterday needed some repair. So we didn’t get off to the start I hoped. It is hot out, that’s the one thing I knew was going to happen. So we ran the first course and now we’re enjoying the A/C. Second course later.

Here is Enzo running the first JWW course. I think his biggest problem was his handler not remembering the course. And there were a couple of surprises.
– I didn’t appreciate that #7 would require an IN
– For some reason, my body wanted to insert a FC between 8 and 9; this is NOT a good plan but it took 3 tries to get rid of it
– I thought the BC between 14 and 15 would be hard but it wasn’t (how nice).

We are TRYING to adopt the less is more philosophy, so we only ran it 3 times. Not coincidentally, it took 3 tries to have a clean run. <grin>

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Denise,

Your dog looked great to me but my eyes got trapped by the surface! What are you are running on? How does it work for you?

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

First, thank you for acknowledging that every dog doesn’t need to sit with laser focus on the first jump! I think Casper might be willing to do that (eventually) but Enzo never has. He still knows where it is and how to take it.

I think my VIDEO strategy for this summer is going to be: let Casper do anything he CAN do with reasonable success. Let Enzo take over. At home, I’ll probably work both on both, within reason. <grin>

Also, thanks for the 5 minutes per day instead of per lesson or per week.

Here is Casper working on some of the Lead Out Hot Topic. Both Enzo and Casper have seen this before and are reasonably good at it. As you will see, Casper has lots of other issues (bars, way wide, loves tunnels) but he is pretty good at this.

I was pretty careless about running the course you designed; I bungled #1 and maybe another one. Oops, sorry. In my defense, I was focusing on the object of the lesson. <grin>

The only one I had lead-out trouble with was Sequence 4. When I led out too close to #3, he looked over the wrong shoulder (so I couldn’t direct him properly to the jump). I fixed that by moving him to a shallower position (“slicier”).

Thanks,
Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

I forgot to mention: a million thanks for posting the courses on Sunday mornings. This makes a big difference to me as far as course building.

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

I think the best thing to say is that I’m glad you have a much sharper eye than I do. I’ll try to get in some more training tomorrow and see if I can follow your advice!

Barb

[Barb VanEseltine]

Hi Tracy,

I haven’t taught either the 180 RC or the treadle wrap with connection. I usually teach them as a specific behavior with a cue.

But I’m up to try it. As you can see I wasn’t wildly successful.
This video is too long, I just couldn’t figure out how to cut it and still show you what happened. Maybe glance through and pick places to help me. Sorry.

Barb

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