[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

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

>>She had one question here where she came to you an didn’t turn to the tunnel, at 2:21 – that was also the only rep where your motion was not as clear. you were moving away from the tunnel, pulling your shoulders away a bit – so it confused her.<<

Yep, that is the rep I thought maybe I wasn’t turned in enough.

Okie Dokie on the TnT with the Advanced level tunnel threadle work.

Week 9 – Reverse Retrieve

Did the first part of the Reverse Retrieve. I moved the phone after the first couple of reps since I kept ending up out of camera range. The session went quite well I thought. One rep she started to make a turn to the living room but I got her back. We haven’t used the bottle tugs for a while so she was more interested in that instead of the other tug. And she really isn’t ‘giving’ me the tug yet, I am still really just taking it as she gets close enough to me. Need to work on that separately but since it’s more of a shapped thing it’s a bit harder since it involves food mostly.

Have a couple of questions about the video for the ramped up reverse retrieve.
1 – shouldn’t we use ‘get it’ or whatever our command is to have them grab the toy all the time on this since we are leaving the toy, like we do in the first part? Otherwise, shouldn’t they ignore the toy and follow us?
2 – Are you wanting us to move off at a lateral angle from where we drop the toy, or more of back to where the dog is, or on the the same line we left the dog, or ‘all the angles’ so they get used to finishing a behaviour before coming to us how ever we move away??

Editted to add –

Week 9 – Tunnel Threadle – Advanced

This is not easy to do on a short tunnel and get the words in at the right time, I was mostly late calling her or saying the threadle command so some times when she went for the TnT were on me. Overall she did great on this. On the second last rep she started to turn to me out of the tunnel and then turned to the TnT, not sure why.

Thanks

Lori

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Lori-Anne Harker.

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

>>See if you can line her up and get to the release in 4 or 5 seconds – I bet the releases are snappier when you do that!<<

Too many things in my hands with adding the remote for the TnT, will have to make some adjustments for next time.

>>Which do you think she prefers: tugging or throwing as the reward? <<
>>I love that she was bringing it back to you rather than having a private party with it, and she didn’t need the 2nd toy to assist with the retrieve. That will make training mechanics MUCH easier in the future: great job getting her to that point!!!<<

Did a little tugging and some just throwing, I think she prefers just the throwing overall but that might be toy dependant. Have to try some more sessions with just one toy using other toys and see if I get the same response. It does help if I call her and I do have to watch where I set up. When I set up in the reverse to this when she comes back she sometimes heads into the living room where the one bed is, so I now set up closer to the spot she can turn off and call her a bit more to stop that.

Week 9 – Tunnel Threadle

Did the baby work on the tunnel threadle tonight. Went pretty well, but I did notice a couple of times I started to turn in a bit and once when I was using the threadle arm she kept looking at me and didn’t turn, I think maybe I wasn’t turned in quite enough for her and maybe the arm was harder to see.

Just standing still and using the words (me me me) and moving with the arm and words are in the same clip but I took a play break between them.

TnT worked a lot better tonight with the other wheel in it.

Question about the advanced work –

Debating using the TnT for that but even though I wouldn’t be triggering it on the first time through and I would call her name, I suspect she will head for it anyways. Just ignore it I assume?

Will use a toy also but figure a good chance to help her understand the TnT only gives her something when the tone happens. Not positive she actually gets that yet.

Thanks

Lori

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Lori-Anne Harker.

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

>>most of your body is between the uprights (which is very similar to the serps) and only the wrist and hand is showing threadle outside the upright – move your position over so at least half of your body is showing outside the upright to help her see it better.<<

Oops! I didn’t even notice that I was that far off in my position. I corrected that in the next videos.

>>change her start position to put her on a line facing the upright so that it is very very easy to get to the threadle side and very very hard to be wrong and go to the front of the jump. Her start position can be more in line with the 2 uprights, so she can see more of the threadle side and less of the front side, making the ‘in’ part of the in-then-out behavior easier and more successful.<<

I did this in the next session also.

Week 8 – Threadle Foundation – Baby

Here are the most recent sessions I did with her. Went much better than the earlier ones. Unfortunately on the second one the phone ran out of space and stopped before the last two reps. I also added the TnT in and it started having issues in the second one, turns out that I hadn’t changed the wheel to the one with the larger holes (UGH).

I added the ‘in in in’ it took a bit to get it to work and i don’t think it is quite there yet. I messed up when I used it relative to her release cue.

DOL

DOR

Week 5 – Retrieve

Thought I would add a little video of a retrieve session we did yesterday. It’s handheld so a crappy video, but it’s the first time using just one toy. Rayven starts to whine near the end so Beka gets a bit distracted.

thanks

Lori

[Lori-Anne Harker]

HI Tracy

>>at this point, on either side, you can drop the toy in on the landing side (where the barrel meets the bump) separately from your position. That will get her really looking at the bump and default to taking it, which in turn will allow you to start moving parallel to the bump (like a serp) and she will still come in and take the bump.<<

Oops, right toy reward near where the barrel meets the ‘bar’, I forgot. And will try to keep the tug in my hand, so not used to using tugs anymore, with Rayven I use a milker 99% of the time.

>>you can totally use a marker that means “stay in position and I am bringing it to you” – a student in an earlier edition of MaxPup used “pizza” because there was going to be a delivery haha!<<

Yep, think I will try to add this in to differentiate the two options. I like ‘pizza’ as the word, will try that – LOL!

>>As long as we are clear about which jump is the backside jump, then the bar dictates the exit. After all, we aren’t going to indicate the entry to the backside jump and expect the dog to go the other direction, away from the bar.<<

I was thinking of it more in the situation where you are well behind the dog heading to the jump and they need to know if they should go around the right or left side of the jump to get to the backside. Sounds like you would essentially rely on the side of you that they started on to indicate the side of the jump they should go around?

I’ll keep with the one verbal for now and if down the line (way down the line) it looks like it would be useful to differentiate I should be able to add it in.

Week 8 – Threadle Foundation – Baby

Sooo, we’ve done a couple of sessions of this DOR and DOL. The first session on each side was a real struggle for Beka. She just didn’t seem to get the idea of coming around the outside of the standard before going over the ‘bar’. I tried different setup angles and distances to try and sort it out and while I might get a rep ok the next with the same setup she would do the serp again, or a couple of times head for the treats.

Took big breaks after the first sessions and both sides went much better when we reattempted. I opted not to try to add the command in at all (in in in) even though she did multiple in a row correct to keep it simple. Will add it next time.

I assume the issue was primarily one of having patterned the serp enough and without necessarily having to physically touch the target to have her thinking we were doing the same thing.

The way i did the sessions was to do the two DOR and then the two DOL. the video below is only of the second session for each side.

DOR – session 2

DOL – session 2

When we get to trying the advanced work on this we do both the threadle and the serp but I am also wondering if generally, it would be a good idea to either always do that or if I do a serp only session do the next session as a threadle session so she doesn’t pattern too heavily to one or the other? At least until the understanding of it is more in place?

Thanks

Lori

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Lori-Anne Harker.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Lori-Anne Harker.

[Lori-Anne Harker]

HI Tracy

>>you mentioned it being tougher, did she have errors that aren’t on the clip?<<

No nothing else, this was the entire session. Just a little tougher to leave the toy versus the treats in the first session since the toys are more important than the treats.

In a way she is doing this every time we go play in the basement as the treats and toys are sitting openly in an area that is somewhat higher and off in a corner. She knows they are there as I go get them as needed from there but she never attempts to go get anything herself.

>>bearing in mind it is ‘just’ a game and not a lifestyle<<

So, when I finish working a session with her do you think I should do the ‘all done’ and go get something specific to either give her as a treat or play tug with? Even if we played tug or had a treat reward on the last thing we did?

Week 8 – Backside Slice Foundation – Baby

I did this today in two seesions, one DOL and then DOR. I messed up taping the DOR session and had to redo it but only the part where I was using my backside command.

DOL – Baby

Rewarding the sit once before doing the backside but took all of them after the first one out to shorten the video.

DOR – Baby

Only did the reps using the ‘bye’ command here.

I have a few questions that occurred to me while doing this game:

I suddenly started to wonder if it was better to generally reward the sit while I was moving away rather than doing it while I was beside her given that the majority of the time I would be leaving her. Thoughts?

Related is that I often give a treat right after they sit and if the above makes more sense should I bother doing that? Especially if the idea is to use a phrase telling her where to expect the treat (for me ‘take it’)? Usually for me those types of commands don’t require the dog to stay in position.

I don’t think you use different words for the backside slice based on the way the dog is turning, correct? Wouldn’t that make sense to do if you are possibly well behind and the dog would have a choice of sides? Basically, same logic as you use for normal turns on the jump where you use different.

thanks

Lori

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Lori-Anne Harker.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Lori-Anne Harker.

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

>>My only suggestion is to feed her the rewards lower: bend in to deliver the treats so her chin us parallel to the floor or pointed down a bit. She had to lift her head up, which changes the weight shift and makes the hind end movement harder.<<

Yep, will do that.

>>You can also try to straddle the balance pad, putting your feet on either side of it, to make it a smaller playing field.<<

Will try, not the easiest to do – LOL!

Week “7” – Remote Reinforcement

Did the first bit of the remote reinforcement work. First with some cheese so a decently high value treat and then with a tug toy. When I was doing the tug toy I added in a couple of ‘tricks’ (not that she really has any tricks yet).

Food – She didn’t find this difficult but going back she was definitely thinking that a treat was going to end up on the floor.

Toy and Tricks – This was somewaht tougher and more exciting to go back to the toy. The second trick we ended up off camera but we did a hand touch.

Thanks

Lori

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Lori-Anne Harker.

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

>>You might want to do a session or two of rapid rewards for getting on the perch so she jumps up on it and is ready for more. She was kind of like “what am I doing up here” in this clip LOL! <<

LOL! That is how she is with most things that are shaping with food, but it is actually better than it was. She is not one (so far) to be demanding to do it like Rayven (in spades) and Ziva are.

It might also be a little bit of this being at the end of a session that I tried a couple of different blocks to try to get something that was a good fit size wise for her.

>>Do you have anything shorter? And the bigger block would be fine if it is shorter – it won’t tip and her weight will be more on her front for this, and it is a good training challenge to teach her it is front feet only and not all 4<<

About the only thing I have would be a balance pad, but those are big and super easy for her to put all four feet on and sit on, which is something that I will want for conditioning work, so was sort of avoiding using them. Will try them out though and then transfer to something else later.

Editted to add –

Tried it with the balance pad this afternoon to see how it would go –

Week 8 – Perch work

Thanks

Lori

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Lori-Anne Harker.

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

Will try food in the bowl the next time we do the serp work and then move onto toys.

Week 8 – Perch Work

Did a little perch work today. Haven’t really done it with her at all yet. this is part of the second try at it using a cork yoga block.

The first time I messed up the video and didn’t record it, but in that one she tipped the block a couple of times anyways.

this session I actually started with a bigger block that I have always used for perch work, but Beka kept trying to get all 4 on it and sit so I switched back to the yoga block so this clip is pretty short but this time she didn’t tip it.

We have a fair bit of work to do on this one. From the earlier try she seems to move to her right more easily than the left but was already improving here.

Thanks

Lori

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy

Week 6 – Serp on jump – Advanced

Sorry, on the videos she is sitting out of frame on positions 1 and 3. I editted out the majority of the set up time between each rep.

I tried this with a treat bowl as our next step moving up to toys. She did really well, one time she didn’t come between the standards. She never went straight for the bowl at all, even when she was sitting pretty close to it on the position 3 angles.

I used the sit as you suggested and rewarded every other rep with a treat tossed back to her. She only left the sit twice, both in the first video. At the very end after the last rep I wanted to reinforce one more sit and of course I sort of screwed up and said ‘OK’ and then tossed the treat, she did get up on the ok. Then I did the proper reward for the sit.

Hopefully I did a better job of separating getting into position and waiting a beat or two before releasing her.

Left turn –

Right turn –

Thanks

Lori

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi!

No limit on the registrations for the ‘Working’ spots, correct?

Thanks

Lori

[Lori-Anne Harker]

Hi Tracy!

Rocking horse first video –

>>When you are doing a single wrap, finish your rotation fully so you are not facing her when you are presenting the toy, which probably means start rotating as soon as she is arriving at the barrel.<<

I did notice that I did that, partly trying to do the cross body reward and not doing a good job given the short toy and partly concentrating too much on the toy part of this. I will be going to a longer toy but I should be rewarding from the cross body arm, correct?

>>She didn’t go to the 2nd barrel at 1:02, I think it was because you were a little early and your arm was too high (bearing in mind that she is a puppy) so she didn’t commit. Compare that to the next rep at 1:19 – slower transition and lower arm and she was lovely! So strange as it sounds – as long as you keep moving, you don’t need to be fast 🙂<<

I thought that she was mostly focused on the toy in my hand but the arm swing through was definitely an issue also as it looks like she followed that.

>>At 1:46 she exited a wrap and was looking around, towards the camera. I don’t think she was looking for a thrown reward, I think it is possible that you were blocking line to 2nd barrel so she was looking around to see where to go. Puppies are every literal LOL!<<

LOL! Based on previous work with the barrel, when she makes a lot of contact with it she seems to think it’s trying to bite her (or something) and will look at it or go back to it and bop it. Only does it when there is a significant amount of contact.

>>So I think that means that the rocking horses need to go to better footing now – I am sure you have snow on the ground, so maybe at the arena or if you have a grippy carpeted area?<<

That might be tough right now, there is berber carpet under the mats and in behind where I am working this but not sure it will be grippier but will give it a try. With the way omicron is going locally right now not sure the arena is an option for the next bit.

Rotated rocking horses –

>> “Yes” and other praise should not be the toy marker – I think your marker is tug it (you used it on the last rep) – so when you unfurl the toy, just say ‘tug it’ which serves the dual-purpose of marking the behavior and telling her to get the toy. I think that clarification will make these even smoother for her!<<

OK, drop the yes and just use the correct reward marker for the situation. Hard to break habits!

Running contacts:

>>For running contacts, training the exits with verbals (not handling) becomes a really critical piece. There are some folks out there that say you can do it all with just handling… but the vast majority of the agility world recognizes the need for trained exits and distance work with the RDW.<<

I agree totally, all that needs to be on verbals but I also worry about how hard turns (like the typical into the tunnel under the contact) might be on the dogs body, especially on the AF. I also worry about the running AF period given the number of dogs I watch on videos that are seriously inverting their spines over the top because they haven’t been trained really well or are trying to get over the top way too fast, and these are high level dogs and handlers in so many cases.

>>So think I would have to teach both running and stopped.

>> I like to teach the RDW foundation to puppies because it is great hind end awareness, and it is also great training for us humans: we learn how to watch striding/footwork, clean mechanics, etc. So even if you don’t teach a RDW, training the foundation is very useful!<<

We’ll work through the beginning stuff for sure, just really have to think about the final behaviour for both the AF and DW.

>>She did well here! Try to stand still more and toss the treat with the hand closest to where she is going (rather than the arm across your body) so there is a quick delivery an she looks up at you less.<<

Going to move this to the basement so I am not as constrained by the furniture and wall which will help and so that treats are less likely to end up somewhere she can’t get at them.

>>At this point, fold over the dog blanket so it is a little elevated and more salient from the other blankets/rugs under it. That way she will have to step up a little and then you can really isolate the clicks for back-feet only. The clicks here had some good back feet clicks but also some front feet clicks, so now you can move to back feet only (2nd back foot, ideally).<<

Lengthwise so it is still long enough to get a stride on it, correct?

Get out:

>>So you can change the setup by using a stay before each rep – she is in a stay, you start moving up your line, then cue the out as the release (or a release if you don’t want the out on that rep).<<

I thought about using a stay since I did it on the baby, but thought my motion might be a bit much for her. Will try next time and will swap out to cheese if I use a toss. I had a variety of different treats in use so not sure which one she might have been having an issue with.

Serps –

>>two general things: you can use a longer jump “bar” now (two rolled up towels laid end to end would work!).<<

Will roll it in the other direction, that will lengthen it a lot too.

>>For the angles – keep using a sit. I think she loses interest when there is a tossed cookie and a hand-delivered cookie. And that ends up being a TON of food rewards in all of these sessions over the day.<<

that might be it with the tossed treats, she definitely gets more focused on the floor when I toss treats for her and it doesn’t really matter what the game is.

>>So, watch her until you release – then as she starts moving, shift your eyes down to the target. That way you can see what she is doing in the sit. And you can also reward a lot of sits! And be sure that you do not release at the same time as you put the target hand in. On a couple of stays in the second video, you perfect about putting the target hand in, waiting for a second or two, then releasing. But there were also several reps where you were releasing at the same time as putting the target hand in position, so she might be associating the hand movement with the release which is why she was releasing before the verbal.<<

Yep, that all makes sense.

>>She was not touching because she has figured out the entire behavior. Yay! So no – she no longer needs to touch it, she just needs complete the in and out.<<

OK, so no worries about the lack of a nose touch now. I knew we would fade it but wasn’t sure if this was too soon.

>>So for your next session, keep the stays going and also you can use a toy as the reward! And if she is happy with that, you can work the toy to the ground (might need to start by dangling it first) or work to the MM being there on the ground too.<<

Will definitely use a toy, it is harder for her to ignore the toy and go to the target, will probably try food in a bowl on the floor before that.

Remote reinforcement:

>>the word basically means “you are finished, let’s proceed to the reinforcement”.<<
>>So I use the RR marker from anywhere on course to mean that we are now going to get that reinforcement (there is also an implied element of dog & handler going together).<<

Ok, think I get it better now. I would use “all done” for this I think. It basically means the game is over and I will usually play tug or something with them at that point but not always.

Thanks!

Lori

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