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Blind Cross/Collection/Get It – 7/19/20
It’s a miniscule treat in the bowl, but he still takes a while to eat it so I find it hard to time when I start running and then do the blind cross. I admit I practiced this with Min first to sort out the mechanics after I did it without a dog. So then I just did the whole thing together the first time with Kaladin. (For me I realized I need to remember that the toy is in the hand on the side you start running on, then BC to the other to do the spin and throw the toy out of the original side hand)
Sit Stay with Nemo – 7/19/20
Did some of the sit-stay exercise cueing the sit and rewarding with cheese when walking in the huge and deserted park preserve this morning. (he was awesome). This is the other session where I used Nemo as his reward and threw in some driving ahead after he recalled to me. I plan to continue with revving him up more between reps.
Sit Stay – First 2 sessions – 7/18/20
I liked what I saw here. Only problem with using the larger space in the kitchen is that sometimes his sit slides in to a down due to the laminate floor. I felt like the paw movement on one of the sits in the kitchen was actually him trying to stay in the sit so I just ignored it. I don’t see paw movement from him on grass or carpet.
I’m going to do more with adding excitement next time and also see how the other sit stay game goes.
Drive Ahead to Nemo Ball – 7/17/20
So I didn’t realize this until I watched the video, but I think he is telling me I made it too hard/put too much pressure on him when he doesn’t drop Nemo quickly but trots around the yard with Nemo and avoiding me.
He sends beautifully when I toss Nemo ahead, restrain him and then release and follow him. He did this twice (I just cropped out the first one) But he has an extended party with Nemo which I didn’t register as a possible sign that this was getting harder for him. So then I placed Nemo in front of him, went back to Kaladin and released. He sent and grabbed Nemo (yay!) Longer party of one. I think I should have gone back to something easier or tossed Nemo to him to catch to see if he would drop it as a sign he wanted to keep training. Instead I decided to place Nemo in front of him again. Reminded myself not to lean over him, told him to get it and he lay down, twice. (Whoops! Stoopid Hoooman) I got him unstuck by using my arm and moving with him. I cropped out the end where I made it really easy by having him offer a sit and then releasing him to a tossed Nemo to chase.
So the weather sucks (heat index of 105 today), but when it gets cooler, I am planning on doing a session of sending to Nemo but ping-ponging the difficulty by varying the distance ahead or by tossing Nemo instead of placing him out there as more of a dead toy. When he’s happily sending to a dead Nemo and not being distracted by my movement with or behind him, should I try mixing up the toy reward? (Like do a short send to a tug toy and then reward him with an easier send to Nemo the next time.)
Drive to Handler with Nemo Ball – 7/17/20
Decided to experiment with using Nemo as the reward to drive to me. He seemed to find it rewarding – didn’t have extended parties of one with Nemo but dropped it right away even after I tossed it to him again. Can definitely see that he needs to see the decel in time to respond to it. (I need to remind myself that he’s much bigger than Min who practically turns on a dime) I did feel like he was anticipating blasting out of the spin with me to get Nemo though. Not sure if that is a problem.Drive Ahead – Nemo Ball & Cheese – 7/15 &7/16/20
Short session yesterday where I experimented with sending him ahead to his favorite (deflated) Finding Nemo ball. Sometimes he pulls up short when Nemo is a dead toy, but this time (Maybe due to tossing Nemo there right before?) he charged ahead and grabbed Nemo (yay!) Of course it’s a bit hard to have interactive play with Nemo. Usually he grabs Nemo and tosses the ball around a bit and then drops it for me to grab and start another game. This time he did proudly strut around the yard a bit with Nemo and then ran after me to play again.
Also wanted to experiment with cheese in a dish. Sent ahead confidently so I started a bit of motion walking along behind him. I noticed he looked askance at me the first time but went straight ahead the 2nd time.
Now we’ll take a break for a couple of days and let the latent learning kick in
Prop Send sideways & backwards – 7/14/20
Moved to the kitchen. Cap started sliding on the laminate floor so I put a yoga mat platform underneath it. In the middle he started getting pretty mouthy in his excitement so I paused a bit and let him settle.
I’ll keep moving this around to other places, but a few questions:
– Should I be standing up more when I engage him in the ready game? (he seems to have no problems with me leaning down to him though)
– What kind of distance should I be working towards?
– Are my sideways and backwards movements too exaggerated or is that good for this stage?
Drive ahead to Toy…sort of – 7/14/20
Cooler tonight (70s, but still a big muggy). What do you make of this? I tossed the whole long toy so he wouldn’t grab the part 2ft away and he just continued to stare at it and then lay down…twice. Distance too far maybe? So I did a recall to the toy to get him moving more and then he does a deliberate send out to the toy. I cropped out some of the extended playing between the tosses and also the warm up game where he was tugging well…right before he decided to stare at the toy and lie down.Blind Cross -7/14/20
Did the sit stay to the toy tonight. I had cropped some of the tugging back to the start out of the previous video to shorten it up, but I tried to play more out there before tugging him back. I thought the 2nd one was pretty late and not clear to him. 3rd one was better.For comparison, I have some drive to handler videos in a thread from July 12 (5pm-ish)
Drive Ahead – The Long Toy backfires
Tied 2 fleece tugs to his favorite fluffy octopus-like tug and released him before it hit the ground but he decided it was more efficient to grab the fleece 2 ft ahead instead of the end of the “real” toy. Did it when I shortened the throw too. (Goofball!)
Supposed to be cooler tomorrow (70s) so will try with 1 fleece tug on the toy and a shorter thrown assuming it doesn’t rain all dayBlind Cross Drill -2 sessions -7/13/20
Did a short session at noon after he had slept all morning after the before-work walk. Used the strip of grass by the road since there isn’t much traffic even not during a pandemic. This way I had more space to throw the cookie but he could still run on grass. Drove to the toy better than Saturday afternoon when the session was after others.
Then tried again before dinner (about the same temp but sun had started to go down) – I think he’s faster chasing me for cheese (esp the 2nd time I used cheese). Then it got super-windy and he veered off to chase a blowing leaf so I think I’ll go back to the fenced yard for safety’s sake next time. (he did come back when I called but I can’t count on a car not coming around the bend quickly)
What do you think of the ones where I recalled from a sit-stay?Oh – and not only is he a black dog – he has a HUGE coat for a puppy – he’s 15.5in and 20lbs -he’s very skinny but the coat puffs out and makes him look huge.
Wing Wrapping #2
OK- this time he got in to the rhythm very quickly. I got the PNU a bit more than a foot away before he cut inside it going to the left. I did let him “fail” twice before starting to moving it closer since he was so engaged earlier. I ended up moving it in pretty close before he started going out and around it again to the left and the overall session was longer than I normally do, but I felt like he was engaged enough to work through the puzzle. (the cooler basement location helped too!) We ended with it about 10in away from me again.
And those treats I’m using are rather small – just a deliberate chewer this one – on furniture too…
After this session, he played with a tug in the basement so he successfully went back to a toy after all the food.
More Advanced Prop Send
Once again I managed to cut off my head in the video, but I promise I was looking at his bright beady eyes. I think I need to lose the clicker for this one – it’s just too much for me to coordinate.
Kept it close but he was send sideways and backwards.
Blind Cross Game
I think camp tired my puppy out! His recalls are looking a bit lazy here. The mechanics of this one felt awkward to me but maybe that was partly due to my puppy taking forever to eat his treat. I may have to try this one with a sit stay just to keep the pace moving along. (or maybe a bigger piece of cheese so it’s easy to find, but then he will also take longer to eat it…)Wing Wrapping
Tried this first thing this morning with food and he never really established a good back and forth rhythm. Watched my videos and figured out I was probably dropping the next treat in too soon and before he had processed that he should look to other food dish. (He’s a thinker, this one!)
Tried it again this afternoon with 2 toys just for kicks. He would tug with either one, but was slow to give up the one and notice the other was available so I went back to food in this 3rd session which I posted below. Much better with the rhythm this time (Latent learning maybe?) I love how he got stalled out and then the lightbulb went on and he figured out he need to go to the other bowl. And the treats are tiny, he’s just a deliberate chewer…still.
