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Thank you for answering my questions! And for all the detailed feedback:)
This afternoon I tried doing wraps on a jump stand with a toy. I had very low expectations, but I think he did pretty awesome! I have tried this in the past and he literally was either stuck in a sit staring at my face about to explode in anticipation (like could not think st all) or chomping me to get the toy. He did do one rep with a small chomp, but didn’t completely devolve into a shark. He was outing the toy nicely and playing cooperatively (I cut most of this out for time). What do you think? (Also note, I had no food on me or in the room, otherwise I think he wouldn’t have been as interested in toy).
Also worked on the serp game again, and hopefully I better timed the Ready Treat click. Let me know!
Yes, I am so used to reving up my Ridgeback (without crossing over into scary mommy territory lol), so it’s totally second nature to want to inject the energy into my training. It’s funny because many people told me I was going to have be really animated and energetic in my training when they found out I was getting a whippet – I think these kind of whippets bring their own party though haha! Not that I can’t be fun, but exactly what you said, I have to be more strategic about when I turn that on.
Thanks for the note about the timing of the Ready Treat click on the serp game. I will try again and delay the click until he is turning towards it.
So for the Rocking Horse game, sometimes he doesn’t look directly at my eyes, so it’s hard to get that really connected eye contact with him. Is that okay?
We worked on the Get Out game, I’m using “away” for my verbal, since I worry “get out” sounds too much like my “get it.” This was hard for me and I had to practice it without him a couple times before I felt ready. My feet want to point at the prop lol! This is super different from how I handle my RR, but I can absolutely see why this is better than using the dog-side arm to cue lateral distance towards an obstacle. Can you explain exactly when I will use this cue? Like in the example video of you running your black dog – what if that jump weren’t so far off the line you are on? Would you use your dog side arm to cue the jump? He is turning around on the prop sometimes when he hits it – kind of like the rear crosses lol – is this okay? or should I do something to keep him moving ahead and not circling back?
A few posts back you asked me if he had a stay or could stay on a station. He does not. It’s a case of “there are so many things to teach a puppy and I haven’t gotten to it” 😉 Lately I have been working more on stationing and that is slowly coming along.
Our food-toy switching is really going south lol. If he even thinks there is a chance of getting a treat, he will not engage with the toy at all. I’ve tried keeping the toys in a container on a shelf at one end of the room and playing with the toy on the other end. Also, putting the treats in another room and playing with the toy and then going in the other room to get a treat, and then going back to playing in the other room. If there are treats at stake, he only wants the food. The ONE exception seems to be the flirt pole. He seems to be fine with eating a treat and going back to flirt pole. I’m not sure what to do, as switching from food back to toy seems to be getting harder and harder for him.
We did work on the Rocking Horse Game with a toy in my hand, and there was a little bit of struggle. I’ve never cued the wrap with a toy in my dog-side hand so that was new for him. But overall, I think he did well. No chomping!
Hi Tracy! We went camping (with dogs!) for a few days so I’m getting back into training now. Lazlo missed training so much lol! I didn’t train him at all while we were camping and when we came home he was so desperate for it haha! I took him into our training room and he couldn’t help but make this funny little “woo woo” bark. I’ve never seen a dog miss training like this!
We worked on more Turn and Burn – you can see if I try to leave too early, he doesn’t make it all the way around, so I need to make sure to support the “obstacle” and then move away and be more gradual about leaving sooner.
We also did the serp game with the Ready Treat. Let me know how you think this went!
And we also tried the Rocking Horse game. This was second time we did it and I think some latent learning happened. He was understanding it a lot better this time.
I’m a little behind on the games so hoping to catch up this week!
I am completely overwhelmed by verbals! I only use one with my adult dog, besides obstacle names, and that’s a backside cue, though I am almost always supporting it with handling. I rely a lot on my motion and position as cues, but I know with Lazlo I won’t be able to stay ahead as much as with my Ridgeback LOL. Obviously using motion and position doesn’t really require nearly as much training as verbals, which is probably why I’ve avoided them. Which couple verbals do you think will be the most valuable to have with a fast pointy dog?
I moved the prop as you suggested and the lap and tandem turns went much better! Let me know what you think!
We tried the serp game again too. I tried to not move my shoulders when I rewarded in the bowl, but it was hard! I’ll have to try again with the Ready Treat. I moved onto the advanced step like you said and he really is doing great! I’m proud of him!
I’ve been working on switching from toy to treat with the hand touch and we are struggling. You can see in this video that we get one good rep and rhen in rhe second, he isn’t into the toy. That’s what keeps happening. Arghh, this toy stuff is proving so hard! He’s great when we are just playing with the toys, he brings them back, he’s very engaged and cooperative. But if we are trying to train or there is food, it gets rough.
Hello 🙂 So I worked on the strike a pose with the bowl on the ground to place the treat. He did so well with that! So then later in the day I inserted that into the serp game. It went much better this time around. Let me know what you think!
Thank you for the feedback on the lap turns with the prop. I’ll redo that tomorrow with better setup.
Here is another rear cross session – still struggling on the left turns, but he had 2 good reps at the end. I did try to cross early enough on the left turns, and I *think* I did, but let me know!
We also did 2 more sessions of Turn and Burn, the first we reviewed the wraps and then went into the game. And on the second, we went straight into Turn and Burn. He isn’t entering the turn with much speed, but maybe that’s okay at this stage. He definitely comes out of it with more enthusiasm.
We also worked on the lap turns again, and I used your tip on changing my hand so it’s not a fist. I took a video of that, but now I can’t find it anywhere! I might have accidently deleted it, but you can see my hand in this video, where we are trying to do the turns with the prop. It feels so clunky and weird – any advice? Do I need to move the prop?
We also worked on the concept transfer serp game, and he did pretty well, but he wasn’t making contact with my hand, he would come in close and then continue on for the reward. I decided to just review touching the card in my hand, and he did that great, but then once I tried the serp game again, he wouldn’t touch it all the way. My treat tosses were also really bad and the treats blended into the carpet too much, so I need to redo it, hence no video LOL! I’ll clean up what I can and then see what you think 😉
Very helpful, thank you!
I did the wraps with us facing the same direction and he was totally getting it!
And I redid the lap turns hopefully with better timing on the step backwards. Let me know!
I tried doing the turns with the prop and it felt so weird and he wasn’t getting it. I think my prop placement was off, so I’ll try those again.
>> Alrighty then! A different approach: what is perhaps the easiest thing he knows how to do, or his favorite thing? We can use that as the toy-treat-behavior-toy process 🙂 It is more about helping him modulate arousal when the toy is present, so the actual behavior is not that important
A hand touch is probably the easiest thing for him. Let me know how to insert it into the treat-toy chain!
Unfortunately my phone wasn’t actually filming, but we did a couple more of the bx-turn-go! and he did really well with it! But then I was thinking that it is actually a nice switch from eating the tossed treat to chasing and playing with the thrown toy!
We worked on the rear crosses again with the bowls. I ended up keeping them there the whole time because he went back to spinning on the left turns lol. He did eventually get it though!
He did great with wrapping the container and the jump stand with me about a foot away. We’ll move onto the Week 4 game 🙂
And here are the lap and tandem turns – I don’t do either of these with my Ridgeback so tell me if I’m doing these right lol! Felt a tad bit funny, but he did well I think 🙂
Edit: we did the turn and Burn game, he was a little confused I think because usually he is facing me for the wraps, and with this he is looking the same way as me. Let me know what you think!
>> Question about the toy play first: will he still jump up for the toy if you immediately throw a treat and then walk past the jump? Or, did you try to get some tugging then do a ‘party’ with several treats? Just curious, for planning 🙂 Teaching youngsters to return to ‘work’ after tugging is a puzzle but fun to figure out 🙂
I tugged, threw one treat and then tried to start the parallel path, but he still jumped for the toy.
Here is Strike a Pose game with the toy, just one rep 🙂 We also did more with treats, and he did great, I won’t post the video since it was just like the last one.
We also tried the rear cross with the prop using bowls as you suggested. It worked! He is still VERY focused on getting his feet on his prop lol, but I think the bowls helped him understand the turn a bit more. Let me know what you think!
We tried the wing wrap using toys and it didn’t go so well. He just wasn’t that interested in playing with the toys. My thought is that the setup implied treats, since all our wing wrap work has been with food.
We’ve been working more on the start line stays, he’s doing awesome! I’ve started working on holding my arms out to the side gradually so he gets used to holding the stay with my body doing different things.
Edit: I forgot to post this one, we worked on the tunnel verbal again. I used less energy for it and he did much better!
Another edit: More training this afternoon!
I tried one rep of the blind cross + turn + go! from week 2 (I think?) It went pretty well!
We also worked on wrapping the jump stand with my standing and rewarding closer to my body. How do you think he did?
And we also did the wraps with another object – I used a large storage container. I think he did pretty great 🙂
Should I be trying to switch up my training location more? This is the biggest empty space in my house so I tend to do a lot of my training here, but I should probably work on some of the smaller space things in other rooms. My yard is unfortunately very sloped, but I do have a deck I could use too.
We tried doing the parallel path jump with some toy play. The first time, he was jumping up to get the toy after a couple reps of rewarding with cookies. I think starting with toy play got him too much in toy mode. So the second time, I didn’t start with toy play, we just got right into the session with treats, then I rewarded with toy play after a few reps. Unfortunately someone called me and so my phone stopped filming, but I tried to end the last rep with a thrown toy and he had no interest in it. Is how I dragged the toy on the ground okay, instead of throwing it?
The wing wraps while standing and rewarding from hand went great! I did two sessions, and I’m linking my second session here. I love that he totally got this right away!!!
We did another session with the tunnel, this time putting him between me and the tunnel. This went pretty well! I’m also happy with how well he is leaving the Ready Treat – we have worked on leaving it before, but it was a while back so I’m pleased he isn’t showing much conflict there. It was all going great until I started using the “tunnel tunnel” verbal LOL. Look at his face! Sometimes I make silly noises to get him to come over to me, so maybe he thought he was supposed to orient to me? I’m not sure! It was silly, but I also don’t like seeing him confused. How can I introduce the verbal in a better way for him?
I finally got around to the strike a pose game. My feet were embarrassingly uncooperative. I literally practiced it first without him and it was no problem, but as soon as he was in the picture, I felt so weird hahahahaha! I think he did well and I could see him orient to the reward placement quickly after just a couple reps.
Yes, he will be 6 months old next week, so still a little guy 🙂 And yes, I’ve had male dogs and they definitely take longer to mature than the girls 😉
>> The rear cross session went well – it think he is just so locked into the targeting behavior that he doesn’t always process the rear cross cue – he almost looks surprised to look up and find you on the other side LOL!
YES! I loled when I read this because it’s exactly what is happening! I silently chuckle during this game because he truly looks surprised to see me on the other side haha! We did another session of this before I saw your feedback and he did the exact same thing. I will try using the bowls and see what that does for him.
We finally got back to the wing wrap game. He did so well!
We also did the wing wrap with another object (a big storage container lid).
And we did another tunnel session – I won’t post because it was similar to the last one just with more angles. He did great!
Thanks! We will work on the parallel path jump with a toy. And get in some more sessions with the tunnel!
Here is another session with the blind cross
Again, he does well when we turned right, but spun around on the left turns. I was trying to cross sooner, but let me know how I did!Edit: we did another rear cross session and it looked exactly the same as the video I posted here lol.
We also worked on the parallel path while holding the toy. I’m so surprised at how well he did! Genius step for us to do, thank you! Not only did he function just fine while I had the toy, but I was able to het even more lateral distance from the jump!
We tried the rear crosses again, giving more space before we hit the prop like you said. He turned the correct way when we turned right, but to the left he still spun around. Any advice there?
We also worked on the tunnel shaping game. He has raced through our tunnel many times – I left it out when he was a little guy more as an enrichment type thing, but never rewarded him for doing it. Just praised him and told him he was great. I thought he was going to have no problem with it, but once it became a training thing, it was a disaster lol! I won’t include the first 2 sessions, but as soon as I marked or clicked, he would U turn and come out the end he went in and go around to get the food. Or at the last second he would dodge the tunnel and go get the food without going through it. I tried shortening it way up and still he wouldn’t go through it (you can see in the video it’s scrunched up so it only needs 2 tunnel bags). So I got out my Ready Treat – it’s not as convenient as the Manners Minder in your video because I have to reload it each time, but it gave him something to drive to and got him in the tunnel lol! Where should we go from here?
I’m thrilled with how he did with the parallel path with the jump. Concept transfer success!
Thanks, Tracy! We are having so much fun with this class so far 🙂 Perfect games for youngsters!
Here is more work on parallel path. I did what you suggested, to test his understanding. At first, I was thinking, hmm…I’m not sure he gets it, but I stuck with it, and he really surprised me with the last 2 reps! I was happy to see him deliberately change his path toward the prop! I ended after those 2 great reps since he had worked hard.
Here is another session on prop sends with opposing motion. I think he’s doing well with this!
We brought him with us to a friend’s house yesterday and he did some great toy play in their house and yard. And we worked on the blind crosses and the start line stay game. No video, but he was nailing it!
For the Week 2 game, that incorporates the blind cross and the turn and then the race to the thrown toy, do you think we should try that even though our toy skills have some issues?
