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Thank you, that’s a ton of good info to ponder!
Another morning session…we remembered how to tunnel lol! And added the verbal without confusion.
Do you think I shouldn’t train at all for a day or two because it was tough for her yesterday? Or just move onto other things and try again on yesterday’s items in a day or two?
I off-leash walk her in nature 6 or 7 days a week, so she gets time to run and zoom and sniff. She loves it! And we also play just for fun several times a day too. I think she’s getting sufficient exercise outside of training.
I’m also amazed by how much she sleeps lol! She sleeps at least 9 hours at night. Then she’ll be up for an hour or two and then sleep for 4 to 5 hours. Wild! Then she’ll be up for 2 to 3 hours and want to nap again. That’s the life lol.
I usually do her training in the late afternoon/evening. Maybe I’ll try a morning session and see how that goes for her.
I’m back lol. I tried a short morning training time and she did great! I took the “less is more” mantra with me. Started with Parallel Path, increasing my lateral distance. On the rep she bypassed the prop I almost turned back but then remembered you said to just keep going, turn around and try the next pass.
Then I did one rep on each side of turn and Burn with the verbals. I tried to give the verbals with her in the stand and then after add in my motion cues. I think it was pretty clean, but let me know. And then we did one rep on each side of blind crosses with me walking more quickly than past sessions.
This is the first morning training I’ve ever done with her, usually we just play for fun, so I’ll have to test it out some more to see if it’s a consistently good or better time for her compared to late afternoon or evening. I can see that her developing brain might be toast by evening time.
Ok I’m back again! She really seemed like she wanted to do something this evening so we gave the parallel path concept transfer a try. I made a DIY jump bump by cutting a wrapping paper cardboard roll. Good news, we seem to have a brain today! I think she did great! After our toy break she was a bit riled up, so I did a scatter and that seemed to help bring her back down. I added a little lateral distance but not much. I’m not sure if my marker timing was good so let me know. We ended with another playtime with these small fuzzy balls from Clean Run. She loves to play retrieve with those.
Our first stab at stay using the “catch” method. Initially, I was a little sloppy, but towards the end I think we were getting it together. Where the video cuts, we took play breaks.
Started this session thinking I’d add the tunnel verbal, but we’ve forgotten how to tunnel. She was such a rockstar with it yesterday so not sure what happened. Let me know what I should do!
Tried one more session this evening after her nap, but we are still on the struggle bus today lol. Maybe her mouth is really hurting today from teething? This was another exercise where the first time she did it, it was easy, and then we revisited it and she really found it hard to not go to the prop immediately. In hindsight, I think I should have positioned myself closer to her, rather than sorta even with the prop. I decided to see if she could come to my outside hand, and then got one good rep of her coming to my inside hand and ended there.
Also is there an alternative to a collar hold when adding the verbal cues? From past training, the collar hold seems to confuse her, rather than help kind of propel her ahead. Could I have her sit, give the verbal, then give the physical cues?
Ack, I forgot the collar hold! I rewatched the videos and everything. Will try that for our next session.
Thank you!
Here is the handling combo with added verbal. My “choo choo” was a little distracting to her on one rep lol.
Here is Turn and Burn. I started with the preplaced bowl for left turns, but I feel like she’s got it now and the bowl seemed to be in the way, so I removed it. What do you think? I even tried with a toy and it went well! Then I did right turns with the toy. She did well not bumping the box.
And we finally started tunnel shaping. She has gone through the tunnel in my basement a million times just playing around with her toys, so she likes it. I set the bowl out initially, but again felt like she didn’t need it so I pulled it pretty quickly. I was especially thrilled with how well she did with the toy! Just a few days ago she was having a hard time doing anything with the toy in my hand, and now she’s offering the tunnel, which involves quite a bit of movement away from me!
Thanks for the reminder to take a day off! There are so many games, some I haven’t even started so it’s easy to feel like we are behind.
Today we went to a location that’s new to Vesper, a field at a school.
We did some games that she knows, as the new location added plenty of distractions: people in the distance, goose poop, trash, birds flying, etc.
First we did the blind cross/decel/go game, then a short sniffy walk and then worked on the handling combo exercise with a fx and preplaced toy. I think she did really well! I didn’t include it for time’s sake, but she had no problem leaving the toy on the ground and walking to the box.
Then we did another little sniffy walk to take a break. I put her back in the car and brought Lazlo out to do a little training. A few min later I got her back out. I was prepared to be done with training and just give her another walk, but she was offering tons of engagement, so we did a bit of parallel path and then just 2 reps of rear crossing.
Here are lap turns with a prop:
And Strike a Pose with a toy!
From your last reply:
“Since she loves the toy and was not really retrieving it quickly, you can trade for a cookie pretty quickly so she brings it right back.”
Can you explain this a bit more? At what point do I give her the treat? And how? I’m just sure the order of events for giving a treat to get her to bring the toy back.
Here are wraps with the bowl:
Here is Turn and Burn with me walking away and then marking and running:
Strike a pose, baby level:
I wanted to do this one outside but she napped so long that it was dark by the time she woke lol. Oh well, sleep is important! Our new Clean Run toys arrived too and she loves all of them!
Some of my blinds were still late, argh!Here is our first stab at Handling Combos with a toy. I was honestly amazed we could do this!
And then here is what you suggested to help with getting stuck when a toy is in my hand. Nose target rewarded with toy.
Here is my attempt at delaying the “chase” marker for Turn and Burn though it looks like she’s still hitting the box even without my voice. She’s still struggling with sending around from my right side. Do you think she’ll get better with more practice or should I change something to help her?
And here is parallel path. She’s so cute, I can’t handle it!
Here is Turn and Burn. I loved how she offered the wrap right away on the side she previously was struggling with! I started with the toy, then tried with food. She seemed a bit confused with the food. Not sure if it was just too many reps or if starting with toy made it harder for her. I don’t think I’ve ever started with toy first.
Here is the baby level of the blind/decel game. We need more space, but the weather is terrible to try at the park, but I’ll revisit it this week again when we can do it outside.
Here are the prop sends with Countermotion. Sometimes she isn’t going quite all the way to the prop. We also tried it with a toy, and it was definitely hard for her to think about moving away from me with the toy out!
Rear crosses. I think she did amazing with this. I took all your advice and it really helped!
And here’s Backing Up:
And yes, having the kids around provided lots of good learning opportunities! She really impressed me with how confident, yet gentle she was in her interactions with them. And her crating skills were put to the test with all the kid energy and noise. She did amazing crating quietly!
She still hardly pulls back at all on the tug toys – is this something I should try to work on?
We hosted my sister’s family (with 3 little kids) and it was pure chaos lol. I tried to do some training but always got interrupted, so we are finally back into things for reals today.
Parallel Path with more distance:
Rear cross:
Turn and Burn. I used a toy for my right side and a bowl initially for my left. That seemed to really help!
We are using the big box for Turn and Burn. This was very interesting because she’s shown a preference for being on my left, but with this game she really wanted to be on my right. After a couple reps on my right I tried my left again and she definitely had a harder time. Where the video breaks, we did a play break and then I tried one more rep and she did pretty well. I think with some time to process it, she will understand better the next time.
The prop sends with countermotion went better than expected!!!
And here is parallel path. I started rewarding on the prop like we did with the prop sends, then shifted to tossed treats.
