[Lori-Anne Harker]

HI Tracy

Good to know re the mat stuff. We aren’t in any rush for a lot of stuff, she just figured out that she can in fact put all four feet in a box that is shorter than her normal stance – LOL! She is getting better about shaping for food (if the value of the food is high enough).

Really happy with the backing up. I’ve switched to the way I taught Rayven (sitting on the ground) after Beka started to get the idea of the first few steps and tried adding the mat (with ridges on it) which gave her a target to hit. got her up to 10′ in like three sessions, she just needs to work on form and straightness some.

I have as much as 3+ feet of snow in parts of the backyard (thankfully the snow fence helped but that has been overtopped in some places). It usually clears up decently early (mid to late march) up by the back of the house, enough to do a jump grid at least, but this year has been stupid. Lots of people in Winnipeg are running out of space in their yards to put it. As of Feb 20 we’ve had the 3rd highest snow total to that date on record (156cm/61″).

Looking forward to the next class even if we might not be able to manage eveything until after the course finishes.

Lori

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Lori-Anne Harker.

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

Not sure if you are still checking the forum but I am a bit stumped on something.

I moved doing the running contact foundation downstairs where we have more room to do it and she can run more but I can’t get her out of a trot in a way that isn’t adversely affecting her inteeraction with the mat (ie running across it).

The MM doesn’t seem to be enough to get her running at all and if I throw a toy (one that won’t roll) she is looking back at me too much and either misses the mat or, if she is running, she invariably looks back as she is hitting the mat when I would click – sigh.

I’ve tried changing my position and doing things like a treat toss back away from the mat then calling her back across it but that doesn’t seem to be really helping much either.

No recent video.

Any suggestions? Are we going to be working on this in the next course?

On the good news side of things – she is backing up almost 10′ to a mat. YAY!

thanks for a great course. Looking forward to the next one although I am going to have trouble with space I think so might not be able to do some things.

Lori

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

>>The other option is to reward with food then bring the toy out, so she doesn’t rehearse pushing the wings to get to the toy.<<

Will try this first I think as I haven’t retried the rocking horse with food yet but when I did the 360 with food and walking during the one online group session she did much better with not pushing the barrel out of the way.

>>Even when you didn’t drop the toy, she was pushing the barrel. So – on the left turn side, give her lots of room so she doesn’t feel any pressure from the environment and use food rewards. She is understanding the countermotion element, so we can really work on the ‘don’t touch the barrel’ element there too. I don’t think you did anything weird or different with the toy, so it was either a smaller space, a weaker side, or she was more stimulated so she pushed the barrel more – or all of the above LOL!<<

That side is actually the side with all the room on it and nothing on the floor to crowd her either, so it’s food for all barrel work for a bit and slow speed on my part. I do also think it is her weaker side as this seems to be the direction she is more likely to do the pushing.

Thanks

Lori

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

>>Do you meant at 2:35 (last rep)? I think that was more about the toy being offered to early in an exciting way: when she sees the toy come out early on as she gets to the barrel, she stops going around it and just goes to the toy (which might mean pushing the barrel). So try to mark quietly and hold the toy til she is past it, presenting it more calmly for now – it is definitely something to consider as she starts to learn jumping and using wings. You can also Toss the toy to the ‘landing’ spot to help her look forward and not drive through the barrel to you 🙂 and that will also help when you add more distance between you and the barrel.<<

Yes, that rep. Tried doing a little of this on the backside exits when she started doing the same thing, had some success but I was probably still off a bit. Forgot the suggestion to toss to the landing spot, will try that next time.

>>Yes, I agree – I am pretty sure you have a ton of snow on the ground, but do you have access to any of the indoor locations? The tunnel rocking horses are super fun but they are high speed and you will want to have plenty of room and great footing.<<

Yep, way too much snow but we need more given the drought we are basically in. Just the arena (you probably recall the footing there) to use but costs are up big time and have to find a time where things can be moved around as classes on now.

Week 12 – Simple Decel – DOR

Here is the other side of the decel work. She seems to come in straighter on this side to me. I need to toss the toy earlier on the lateral work as she started looking at me, a bit more on the second one.

Week 12 – Backside Exit Countermotion – Baby

She did pretty well in both directions but defintely more into pushing the barrel on the left turn. tried delaying the toy, holding the toy, setting her a bit closer. Didn’t want to get rid of my motion. A couple were better.

Week 12 – Backside Exit Countermotion – Advanced

I didn’t mean to pause quite as much as I did on the first rep and I also forgot to have my hand out from the beginning. Whenwe switched sides she was thinking about coming inside the barrel so I held position on that one to make sure she got it.

Had a question about the video for this game – at about 1:55 were Voodoo is doing the backside serp you have your offside arm up. Was wonderirng what that was for?

Thanks

Lori

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Lori-Anne Harker.

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

>>She also got bored with it pretty fast (her striding on the left turns was not as good mainly because she was looking around, checking her phone, etc LOL) so you can tug between each rep, or start her from a gentle collar hold instead of sit or stand. That can add enough spicy-ness to it to keep her more engaged 🙂<<

Something was defintiely catching her attention in the hallway area. When I switched sides she headed over there.

>>I would now change her position slightly so she is maybe 1 foot or so over closer to the center of the bar: and show her the threadle and the serpentine in the same session. That way, she doesn’t try to Threadle.All.The.Things. haha! The verbal makes the difference, as well as your position when you release (on the entry wing for threadles, almost at the exit wing for serps). The MM stays in the same place the whole time 🙂<<

Will do.

Week 9 – Reverse Retrieve

Had to show you this one, I was impressed, even though she lost it a bit when i switched sides she did awesome. I made it a fair bit easier on the lst one.

Week 12 – Lateral Leadout

Thise was two sessions. my video set up was super bad for the DOR side of it and couldn’t see the barrel or Beka so I redid it later. First session she had some trouble getting around the barrel so I moved her closer. By the time we did the second session she was good from a larger distance.

She did push the barrel out of the way a far bit on one of them. Will have to watch as if she keeps doing that we switch to wings correct?

Week 12 – Simple Decel

First time using a tossed toy for the reward in the basement since she took off on me during one of the very early games so I wasn’t sure how this would go, especially since we don’t use the bottle tug toy much. The one catch she did cracked me up.

Only did the one side as it didn’t feel like there was really much decel happening on her side of things so I wanted you to see before I do the other side in case I should adjust anything.

Not sure about doing the rocking horse game with the tunnel in the basement given the speed that could mean she gets into combined with the turns around the wing/barrel. Thoughts?

Thanks!

Lori

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

>>And keep tossing in a few ‘catch’ rewards too<<

I do that almost every rep, I just mostly cut them out of the video now to keep them shorter.

>>As you do add more motion, keep your shoulders/upper body frozen in serp position until after she has arrived at the MM so you don’t relax your upper body after the click. We don’t want to build the habit of the upper body turning forward at all, as that will pull her off the next serp line when she is on jumps.<<

This is goinig to be something I need to keep working on, I thought I did better on the threadle work today while we were doing it but after watching the video I still need to do it better.

>>You can definitely play with adding the threadles in too, but when you add the threadles be sure to use your wings – at least a wing on the entry side if not on both sides.<<

I like this idea and this is how we did the threadles today. Definitely helpful. Will use with the serps too.

Week 10 – Left/Right using Pool Noodles

Picked up some ~4″ diam pool noodles and tried taping them to the carpet with painters tape and also angled the jumps as you suggested.

I realized while watching the video that I likely should have treated this as a jump grid by either not sitting her at all or sitting her in a better position to start as she wasn’t getting consistent striding at times, but when she did it was pretty lovely. Will keep that in mind for next time we do this.

Also, my reward placement seemed better on the left turns over the right turns, probably because I am very right-handed and I just automatically gravitate to using the hand for a reward which got me turning on some of those.

Week 11 – Threadles with Motion on Wings

I thought the threadles went really well. The verbal seemed to work really well and we haven’t done threadles for a while. Don’t think I held my upper body positon well enough on these, surprisingly hard not to relax on clicking that little button!

Thanks!

Lori

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Lori-Anne Harker.

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

Well, I didn’t try the pool noodles today. Decided to try Serp with Motion instead and get some feedback before I try the Threadle version.

Week 11 – Serp with Motion.

I messed up on the first side, I should’ve done a stationary one as a review since we haven’t done this for a while. Other than that it went decently I think.

Thanks

Lori

[Lori-Anne Harker]

HI Tracy

>>She was cracking me up – she is matching her stride pattern to your ri ri ri (or you were matching it to her footfalls) – either way, very rhythmic! And also can be very helpful on course because the rhythm and energy of your verbal can help her understand what the rhythm of her collection (or extension) should be.<<

OMG, I had to rewatch the video and yes, SOOO FUNNY, thinking I unconsciously matched to what she was doing – LOL!

>>do you have any stride regular/jump bump things/pool noodles to replace the towel bars? <<

>>and, in keeping with giving her something more salient to move over – you can change he angles of this a little so she doesn’t need to reach as much and fitting herself into the gap between each ‘bar’ is easier.<<

I have a couple of 6″ and 8″ jump bumps and even in the dead of winter it looks like I can get pool noodles locally. thinking the pool noodles might be a little safer than the jump bumps with the motion being on a curve given they will have a little give if she hits them rather than her sliding if she hits a jump bump? Will see what I can do to hold them in place. All the little sandbags I use on the jump wings when it is windy are frozen in the shed.

Agree with angling the 2 wings since she is trying to single at times with this set up. Having the angles on the jumps will be better as she won’t have to reach as far, reducing the risk of her hitting a bump/noodle.

>>Smoothing the mechanics will help her be super clean on the wing wraps: you can move at the designated time of your choosing (when she is halfway around, for example) and you don’t have to say ‘tug it’ til she has cleared the wing and is on the way to you. Your motion affirms her decision to move around the wing, and the ‘tug it’ marker reinforces the full behavior including the clean wrap.<<

Got it, separate my motion from the marker word, move first, marker once she rounds the wing, ideally cleanly.

>>Well, covering the barrels with a garbage bag is completely brilliant. I bow down to you! Love it!<<

I can’t claim that idea, it was Todd’s 🙂 It was just a bit too baggy over the barrels to be something I wanted to use long term but was awesome as a test.

>>attempted “tooth hugs” bites (not sure if you noticed those but they were clear on video)<<

Funny, I see those now, definitely missed those watching the video.

>>Now let’s geek out a little about this behavior:<<

OK, read everything you wrote and it all makes sense and seems to boil down to-
– rate of reinforcement for doing barrels is way too low on these compared to what she is used to so far, which, to date, is well above 90%+ 1 barrel means 1 reinforcement. So up that back up to every barrel for a few sessions and then slowly add in the odd 2 barrels, 3 barrels, etc (basically ping pong the # of barrels she gets reinforced for),
– treat/toy in hand ready to deliver the reinforcement,
– method of reinforcement being at my side/across my body to ensure connection with her on my part (could be same side if treats though or still cross body?),
– keep in motion towards the next barrel until she gets the reward so I don’t end up facing her,
– remember to use my marker to tell her to get the treat/toy so she knows when it is available to her cause eventually it won’t always be available.
– start back with a small set up that requires very little to no motion on my part.

Will try this a bit tomorrow and see how it goes.

Thanks so MUCH!

Lori

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

Week 10 – Left/Right Advanced Redo

Redid a quick session of this with the wings set up as you suggested (I hope), lengthening out the words some and tryng to get rid of the motion and the treat placement hopefully better.

>>Walk through these and use food. She is going to ramp up her own speed which is fine, but then we don’t need to also ramp up your speed and have the excitement of the toy. When she is consistently NOT pummeling the barrels, you can go faster and still use food. Then the toy can come back in when she is strong with your motion too.

Do you have opaque barrels? Not being able to see them might help.<<

I did a test with treats and walking and she did much better. I also tried covering a barrel with a garbage bag and again much more respectful of the barrel, so I went out and bought a couple of white ones and did some doodling around still using food.

This is what I got for video. She is still much more respectful of the barrels. Not 100% sure what is going on with the lookng to cut in, might be connection in some, especially the RS’s where I need to turn back sonner/faster but in others I look like I am pretty connected so maybe looking for the treats in my hand (they are fairly high value).

And the big question – what to do about the vocalizations? Stop when she does it? Ziva ‘grumbled’ at times when I was late on turns but this is turning into more than that. It’s sort of cute and funny but….

Week 11 – Turn and Burn on a Wing

Think I might have left a little too quickly a few times once we got past the basic shaping part. Once she connected with the wing pretty significantly trying to get to me so the next one I waited longer on it.

Thanks

Lori

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Lori-Anne Harker.

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

To me Stripe is not ‘issue free’ as it kept my CC information recorded on file without my persmission or knowledge.

I just got Jeremy to get it removed as I only save that information online in situations where a monthly payment is involved.

So I am hoping that when I pay for the next max pup course it doesn’t get saved or I will need to contact Jeremy again.

I would really like a way to pay for courses without having to have a paypal account or save my CC information. Many other websites have options.

Thanks

Lori

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

>>it was fine to have the barrel ni the middle but now you can switch to a wing in the middle (ideally, 3 wings for this)/ That will help her learn how to approach a wing on this type of turn and also to not touch the wing <<

Unfortunately I only have the two wings in the basement and it’s not feasible to get to my other jumps. Unless I could use a jump upright instead? If that is ok where would it make the most sense to put it/them?

>>Being perfectly still for now (no foot movement) and having the placement cookie ready and in place before she gets to bar 3 will help her learn the behavior (the 3rd bar is the truest left or right on this setup). Also, if you have a reward marker for “cookie in hand” that will help her know where to look.<<

Just to be sure I get it – where should the hand with the cookie be exactly? I suspect it should be near my knee on the side of the set up that she entered to promote the turn over the last ‘jump’, but I might be wrong.

>> So, you can consider a slightly different delivery – elongate the vowels leeeleeeeleeeee riiii riiiiiiriiiiii because that will sound very different plus the slightly elongated deliver will match the physical cues that generally accompany these softer turns.<<

hmm, will try to remember that. I had been considering Brigitte’s Gee and Haw from sledding but I don’t have the background to just automatically know the correct one to use so thought modifying left and right might work better.

Week 10 – Rocking Horse 2

I moved the mats off the main area I use to get back to the berber carpet underneath to see if that would work better for faster stuff, especially the wraps. I had covered it up because Rumor and Ziva didn’t seem to do well on it wrapping jumps at full height so will ahve to see how it goes for a bit. I tested with Rayven, she slipped once around one barrel but she was crazy excited to be playing. If it seems to be ok we’ll relay everything and put the mats underneath for the extra cushioning.

Let me know what you think of how Beka is doing on it.

I also couldn’t remember where the ‘jumps bars’ are supposed to be on these so I didn’t add in any verbals as I wasn’t sure if they were back sides or fronts, although a RS can be used on both so likely not that big a deal.

Baby –

Sorry, I set the phone up a little wrong on this so my head is cut off for the most part.

She slipped the first time here but that might have been partly my bad send and she also seemed to adjust well after that. A couple of times she starts to cut in front on the way to the next barrel – not sure if that is me, her looking for the toy (she did seem focused on it here and there but overall did really well with it in my hand), or just the pattern she is used to with 2 barrels from prior games.

Advanced –

So, after all the crosses it is surprisingly hard to figure out how to do a simple post turn and end up doing a turn and burn on the right barrel in the right direction. I messed up the first couple of them.

And I might be in some trouble with this one on course – listen to her on the last one – LOL! Louder than Ziva when she would tell me I was late.

thanks

Lori

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

Finally did a little more of Week 10 today.

Week 10 – Left and Right – Baby

I only have one wing jump inside and only two barrels so I used the wings on the base of the set up and barrel for the middle. Do you think it makes any difference re understanding right now? As I space things out would it be better to have the wing on the middle ‘jump’?

I only did a really short session here since I was also hoping to do the advanced without a big break between and except the one time she cut in she seemed to understand it pretty decently.

Week 10 – Left and Right – Advanced

Did a quick play session and set up the advanced with our ‘towel poles’. I am still not sure about the whole idea of her bouncing the setup given her age even though it isn’t much of a jump compared to trying to keep her from jumping off furniture but there is also a turn on landing…

I never got to trying it with a toy as the reward as I didn’t want her rushing through it. Next time I work on it will do that and also try to space the pieces out a bit.

When I started adding the verbals she started speeding up on her own. I have decided on ‘ri ri ri’ for right and ‘le le le’ for left to get rid of the ‘t’ sound at the end.

Thanks

Lori

[Lori-Anne Harker]

HI Tracy

>>And, since I am neurotic, I would like to see less splay – try this with a bigger toy that she can just scoop up on the move, like a big hollee roller or something similar.<<

I have a hollee roller. I used that toy as that is one we have been doing retrieves with and I wanted to change as little of our pattern as possible. I suspect she is still going to slide in some but we will give it a shot.

>>She was not totally comfy tugging while on leash, so that is good to continue to add. And keep building value for the simple tricks – you can probably replace some conditioning foundation with trick training, especially because tricks often become part of the conditioning work.<<

Agree, she isn’t completely used to tugging on leash. We started playing with that at the end of sessions in the basement last week as the leash was starting to become ‘an end of fun’ marker for her. She goes on leash to do the basement stairs, whether down or up to make sure she only walks.

Like I mentioned before tricks are a challenge because food makes it so much easier to teach them plus I am just awful thinking of tricks that work for stuff like this. She finally seems to have figured out shake a paw. We’ll work on a proper spin and through the legs as options.

>>I think that was a good choice on her part – she was basically saying “yes, I am ready, here is my sit stay”.<<

Ok, so some reason I thought we didn’t want them to just offer that response. She is pretty good at defaulting into a sit or a relax/settle in most situations. Will reward some of those.

>>Great job here. If she is in a group class, bring a little porridge heating to it so you can see what helps her in different situations! Or, any time you are out somewhere, place with this a little and see how it goes <<

Unfortunately, her group puppy/life skills class is over and nothing new is up with that instructor given covid here right now. Puppy agility won’t be until May when Brigitte is back outdoors. Looking for another option for an in person class to get her around more dogs when working as a distraction for her.

thanks

Lori

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

Week 9 – Reverse Retrieve – Ramped Up

After the first one I switched from ‘ok’ to ‘get it’ to release her to the toy to get into the habit. Not much room to rum away upstairs but was able to do some in the basement when we went down there.

Week 10 – Porridge Heating

think this went fairly well. She doesn’t really have much in the way of tricks and the spins we attempted must have looked more like the motion I have been doing when I reset her during the conditioning foundation work we have started as she was thinking I was tossing a treat.

Week 10 – Porridge Heating with Prop

Funny, when I asked for a hand touch (I need to add a word to this) she pretty obviously thought I was doing a sideways send to the prop. Overall, I thought it went well though, the couple of times she automatically sat when I was going to do the assessment I opted to just do another trick and try again.

Thanks

Lori

[Lori-Anne Harker]

HI Tracy

>>One little tiny detail is to call her once (Beka!) and be quiet, mainly so you can breathe and also so the extended name call (Bekaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!) doesn’t become the cue – because breathing needs to happen LOL You might not even have noticed your were holding her name call as long as you did 🙂 it was cracking me up – lungs of steel!<<

LOL! I didn’t realize that I was doing that. She does respond really well to me calling her with a higher voice and strectching it out though so she has propbably shpaed me to do that when I really want her to come to me.

>>they recognize the context of the game. We are dangling the toy, making it salient, using a release verbal if they are in a stay – so the context of the game means they can get it. I know that a lot of people like to proof that, but that sets the dog up for failure and dampens the excitement of the game. I mean, in what other context would we use this setup and NOT want the pup to get the toy? <<

Ok, but what about later on in games we’ve done in the past where we have had a toy out on the ground near a jump in a tempting position but they are supposed to do the handling and then get sent to the toy as the reward. You don’t see not telling them to get it here to be an issue later on for those games?

>>I think having the TnT in the picture made things much harder – she had too many questions about it, she wasn’t sure where to look and that made the timing harder too – so take it out and use a toy for now. Eventually you can add in a ‘go’ verbal on tunnel exits to cue the drive to the tnT but for now, it muddies the waters (too many errors) and we don’t want to reduce the value of the TnT by calling her off it a lot for now.<<

OK, can easily take the TnT out for now – she does REALLY like it. I am hesistant to go to a toy only situation because of needing to call her out of the tunnel to get it both from the perspective of not wanting her to default that way and she is still a growing baby so don’t want a lot of tighter turns. I could end each session with a few straight runs through the tunnel to the TnT to rebalance, plus I won’t play with this very much because of her age.

Thanks!

Lori

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