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Okay, great!!! Have you tried any other type of treats to include chunks of chicken, bits of hamburger or liver? Something super high value?
So the example with teeter was just an example of a noise. You have to try to set up the noises. It is hard when they are unpredictable, but if you can think of some noises that sound or are similar. Does that make sense?
Yes, so you can run her at 4″ to take all the pressure off of her. I would like for you to be more aggressive without much distance. Quicker more dramatic movements. What I mean is point to every take-off point of the jump. You can do that laterally, but you need to address each obstacle before moving on to the next. You cue and leave. It is a fine line because you have to look for obstacle commitment from the dog. Cue, commit the dog, then leave. I will try to get you some video of the difference if this doesn’t make sense. Just let me know.
Great! If we do things that are too technical for a dog, they do tend to slow down (Premier can certainly fit this description). We want to be right, so the dog slows down to be right and we reward a clean run. We inadvertently reinforce slower behavior. If it is too hard then it kills the dog’s confidence. We will talk about shortening the course, you have to be willing to try a couple runs and NQ, but it is well worth it!
Good! So give me a list of 6 things Carlie really likes and order them from 1 (highest value) to 6 (sh likes it, but not her favorite). When you are working through noise sensitivity, you want to be sure your reinforcement comes before the noise (so you have to set it up to happen). Let’s take a teeter bang. I physically go to slam the teeter down and a second or two before it hits, I start feeding the dog their favorite cookies so that when the teeter hits, they are getting something super yummy. Make sense? There are many noises that are uncontrollable, but you have to be a bit creative when setting these things up.
Hi Kristin,
So glad you are here as a working spot!!! I like him! I think some of these games will be super helpful just based on what I am seeing. He is a bit distracted, but if he is coming back more focused and confident, I am anxious to see how he does. Also, when you go to the trial, forget the course and find a speed circle and run that. I have given another person the same exercise and will try to post a “modified course” when I get home Tuesday. Look forward to working with you!!!Yes! So remember that training is just a big behavior chain. We teach all the individual parts and string them together to make a large chain. What I would do is start making those tricks part of your routine. We have a tendency to trick then treat, then trick then treat, then startline, then course. If we vary the schedule of reinforcement, so trick then jump then treat and make that chain longer, then vary where the dog gets cookies, that’s when we can use the tricks at the startline and keep the fun up (that’s lesson 3 🙂 ) Let me know if you have questions. AND loads of reinforcement when you can go to those sorts of places and she is engaged with you.
YAY!!! It NEVER hurts to go back to those foundation games!!! I’m glad you don’t win 😉 That’s a great thing!!!
I thought those were good! I want you to move away from tossing treats in the beginning and start tugging in the beginning and tugging for your reward. He is to thoughtful with the food and I want more of the excitement you get with the toys. The first rep, you didn’t address the jump very well. If you go back and look at 1:10, you will see that as he is bypassing the jump your arm is completely dropped. The other two reps, you are much better. You are doing a great job moving aggressively through the course, but sometimes you’re flinging your arm. Remember that our arm should tell the dog where they are going on course. If you fling it, that is not very clear information. Make sense? We will talk about this more next week.
Okay, so some good stuff here. If she starts slower in the first go, you can always run her to start at 4″ the first round and get her more excited.
Now, I am going to pick apart the handling a bit :-). You are fast and you can move! You had plenty of time to get there and you did! The issue in the first video became at 0:24 you never addressed her take off spot on the jump. You rotated out of your front and kind of ran hoping she would take the jump. Did you play sports in school? I want you to be more aggressive. You are handling her very passively and “hoping” she takes the jumps. I want you to get in there and SHOW her what to do. This was my game changer with Pepper. To this day, I dictate the energy of the run just by how aggressively I handle. If I handle carefully, we my qualify, but we are slower. If I get in there and (pardon me) get shit done, we have amazing runs. I want you to drive to every obstacle!!! Look at 0:37 on your second video, you do a BEAUTIFUL job addressing that jump!!! That was perfect!Okay, so if I miss answering something, let me know.
For the dw behaviors: if you are at a trial and she misses, I would let it go. There is already a bit of stress associated with the trial itself and since she normally doesn’t miss, I would let it go. After the first of the year whe AKC allows the fix and go, I would try to fix it. If you are at home, I would say something like “let’s try again” in a happy voice and repeat it. Ensuring when she does have a nice hit that you jackpot the behavior. I would not put any type of negative marker on it. Pepper went through a period at trials where she would miss and I had to allow it. Once she got more confident, her hits where more solid (except she too missed one at EOTT and I can’t remember the last time that happened)!!! Does that make sense?
Do you know if the leaping comes when you are moving ahead of her, decelerating to see if she hits or maybe looking at her? Those are all different. I thought the hits on the video were very nice! I would practice this more often with equipment before and after the target mat. In the last video, you did stop (or decelerate) to see if she was going to hit the mat. I want you to try to stay moving. The more you decelerate, the more she is going to question what you want and by you looking at her, that adds pressure to the whole experience for her. Make sense?
I like your startline routine. I want this kind of energy before you run. What do you do to help yourself with the mental game before big events? What makes you nervous?That kind of hurt her feelings, huh? Try it a couple more times letting her win 3 out of 4 times and see if it improves. You did it right. You can try it in a straight line without any equipment and see if that works better, that way she is not associating the game with equipment if she continues not to like it.
