[agilitywawa]

I have not shown you any of the GOAT game. And I see it’s going to be progressing this week. Here’s the first level.

I have been working on wing wrap foundation to get a system for rewarding. We use bowls for a couple of reps and then reward with the toy. She has been happy going back and forth and taking the cookies, but I try not to let it go too long before the toy comes out. And I’m letting her win the toy and playing a little differently. For the sake of time, a lot of the play is edited out. I’m thinking this would be a good place to use the hollee roller for chasing. I may try that next session.

[agilitywawa]

“Keep working the shaped wing wrap because the foundation ends up being wicked strong, particularly in terms of being able to commit to doing the thing even when cookies/toys/distractions are right there.”

I tried a little experiment – grilled chicken and bowls. It went well for a few reps before she lost interest. Then I switched to toys. From all of the toy work we have done I am noticing that this game is causing her some frustration. When we do tugging, she likes to win, so I try very hard to do short tugs and let her win more than 50% of this time (also to encourage the return to hand, which is really hard for her and still a work in progress. I do a lot with 2 toys and then she willingly comes back and drops the first one because the desire to chase is so high). Here, although she gets to tug a lot, she does not get to possess the toy and that is frustrating for her. I know because there is a lot of regripping the toys and with regripping usually comes biting my hand on the regrip – a big tell. So I feel like I am undoing some of our toy work since I am not abiding by the rules we have set for certain things. And Dellin is pretty serious about her rules and more of an old soul (unlike her brother), so I don’t want to erode the trust we have built up.

At one point she sat at looked at me, like there were just a lot of questions, so I did another little experiment of adding a cone for some context since she is familiar with it. That did seem to help and she went back and forth more easily with the cone there (dumb luck? maybe). So wondering if it’s ok to keep the cone there? I was right up against it – no space.

Prop with food and toy:
“You can do a couple more short sessions like this on the prop and on any thing you would normally shape with food. You can also add in a bit of the sending to the prop, I think she would enjoy the action! But still use the food-then-toy procedure.”

I tried this out too and did a couple of the little sends – she did think it was great fun. And she is so sneaky – takes the cookie and appears to have eaten it and her mouth even opens, but then it falls out with the toy.

This morning I also tried starting the session with frisbee, then going inside for work, then back out for frisbee. Too early to tell anything. It was warm this morning, so this option may not always be available in the dead of winter.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Joan

[agilitywawa]

“Focus forward:
She thought that this perhaps is the BEST GAME EVER.”

Yes – anything that involves chasing is the highest value – more than tugging. I have taken a couple of rounds of an online toy class with her and she is interesting. She has definite feelings about how things should be.
Today was the an unusually warm day, so took the next step of focus forward outside. In retrospect, my choice of toy was not good – the small blue/green orbee balls are are hard to see and she overran them a couple of times. But going ahead of me was not an issue!

Drive to Handler. I added in a cookie, a pivot and a toy reward. I tried to talk to her too. She did pretty well with all of this. She has had previous exposure to this type of game. I find that leaving her in a stay gets much more drive to go. A cookie toss would not get the same enthusiasm to chase me.

Wing wrap – I will continue to work on that. She does already know how to wrap a cone/wing, but I will work on this method.

Here’s the first step of the Blind Cross foundation. I had to cut out a few reps where I totally did it wrong. I have a real problem with being coordinated while standing still!! So the toy delivery may look a little spastic.

Here are a return to the prop pregame and nose touch pregame using the treat and then the toy. I think there has been a huge improvement in energy and attitude.

Prop (she got me once, then I’m watching closely for the swallow):

Nose touch (I should time how long it takes to chew 1 Zuke. lol)

In response to the food questions – she does now reliably eat her meals and does so pretty quickly. This has improved dramatically in the last 4 months. Now she eats all of her meals (she used to skip some meals or leave food). If we do a “treats with friends” type game where other dogs are out getting cookies, then she looks like a normal dog -all about the cookies. I used to train her before her breakfast and it did not really make a noticeable difference in her attitude towards cookies. Now I train her after her breakfast and she actually does better. I have been in a pattern that first we would do what I wanted to do (i.e., some obedience type training or foundations), then we would get to do what Dellin wanted to do (i.e., go outside for frisbee). The frisbees are the highest value objects (chase) and she’s quite skilled at catching them.
My other dogs are such savages, I don’t know if they could watch. LOL. Maybe I could borrow Burst for that.

Question about the GOAT game. Dellin is older and basically full grown, so won’t fit on a lot of things anymore that you recommend. As a young puppy, she did lots of empowerment type games, walking on surfaces and climbing on props (at home and in her in person puppy class). She now stands on unstable surfaces (fitbones) too. What do you suggest I do with respect to this game?

Sorry for the long post – the nice weather and time in between meetings let me do several short sessions. And I can’t watch the zoom live – I have agility class with the adults tonight.

[agilitywawa]

Thanks for the new loop for the prop – I tried that tonight – gave her the cookie while her paw was on the bag and then tossed a hollee roller. She got me couple of times – cookie came flying out when she went for the toy, so then I watched the chewing (it’s very slow, so easy to see. lol). But, overall, this was much better and I really liked how it looked. I’ll do another couple of sessions and then show you a video. I did not retry the nose target yet – that’s how she is generally – gentle. Until the toys come out.

I did try out the baby steps of 3 games that I could do with toys.

Here’s Focus Forward:

Drive to Handler (I was not sure if I had the toy positioned correctly):

First steps of wing wrap with toy – she has a word to drop one toy and take another, but I did not use it. The 2 toys are identical. She preferred being on my right side. Which makes some sense – to go back to my left hand, she would be “circling” in her less preferred way. From herding I have learned that she strongly prefers to go clockwise. This felt a bit clunky to me. I though about trying it with bowls and treats, but I suspect she would wander off.

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