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Zig Zag
Gave this one another shot. He was a lot more into it with the quicker motion and snappier movement. I may have just been overthinking the exercise because this felt a lot smoother. Anything I should adjust with this one?Rocking Horse Turn Away
I think I did this one right? I tried not to do too much with him on this as turning away can be hard. I think he still needs some baby steps with turning away from me, as I can tell he’s not super confident with it just yet.Layering Foundations
I did this a little differently than you originally describe. I figured he would be very happy to focus forward and layer something with the manners minder out there, so I did a few reps with that out, and then switched to a toy. That seemed to be an easy transition for him, and he was quite successful with it. Almost too successful and I started to question if I was doing the exercise correctly! lol If I did do it right, is he ready to have the tunnel up properly, or should I adjust something else to change the difficulty up first?The Get Out
I tried this game again to get a better line. I think I did a better job? Not too difficult for him, but I want to make sure we have the basics before making it harder.Zig Zag
Honestly, I felt like I was going this wrong like…the whole time. This is such a simple game but I felt like the mechanics weren’t clear for me once I got out there to do it. At least Blast is used to these silly games we play, so he just went along with it. Too many free styling opportunities for me!A couple of quick videos from the last few days!
The Get Out
I thought he did very well here, but now that I’m reviewing the video, I can see I’m not really taking a straight line like I should be and I’m angled towards the jump. I’m guessing I should probably go back to this and try to keep my lines more consistent?Wind In Your Hair Transition
He was pretty up for this one! I didn’t push him too much, but he might be ready for more now that he’s showing decent commitment to the jumps. Thoughts? I’m not sure if he deflated towards the end because he knocked that bar or if he had just depleted his energy.Concept Transfer Rear Cross
I was really happy with his turns to the left, but as soon as I switched to turning to the right, it kinda fell apart. I guess it could be the set up, but I think I need to go back to a different exercise to solidify his understanding of rears. What should I look back on?Took a few of your notes into practice today, and pretty happy with what I saw.
Find The Jump
This time with a full video and first thing in the morning so I get some energy from him! I also made sure to include motion each time, which Blast has no complaints about. Next time, I should move the jump farther from the tunnel, right?Smiley Face Games
Tried out the racetrack version and I think he had a lot of fun with this one. I’m still keeping his sessions short to maintain his enthusiasm, but he really perks up when tunnels are involved. I hope I’m not cultivating a tunnel sucker here lol!Wrap Proofing for real, this time
He seemed a bit lack luster about this one, but it was a warm day, and he had done several smaller training sessions throughout the day with me. Oddly enough, he did the wrapping better than the tunnel, as you can see. I’m thinking the issues we had at the end are more related to lack of brain power at this time of the day versus a lack of learning. I’ll give this one a shot in the morning next time, but I still wanted feedback on my form and what I can do better the next time I set this up.I keep doing this amazing disappearing act, and some day I’ll quit it! But I am back with a bunch of condensed videos as we have been training a lot, just not getting to the point where I edit videos and then I decide, well, we’re going to do it over again, but this time better! And we do and then I don’t edit THAT video. So I may as well get back into it!
Set Point With Moving Target
Since he did so well with the first one, I figured this was a natural next step for him. Not much to comment on here, just wondering if there are any things I should improve on or change up.
Wrap Proofing
I thiiiiiink that’s what this video is of. At the time of me recording this video, I didn’t have my tunnel bags yet for the tunnel I borrowed, so I made do with the barrel. Now that I have a tunnel set up, I can go back on this, but since we already did the work and I had the video ready, I may as well as to see if there is anything I should tweak before doing it with a tunnel now.
Left/Right Verbals with Minny Pinny
Overall I was pretty happy with this one. He seems to have a general understanding of his lefts and rights, but I can’t tell right now if his lack of enthusiasm is the temperature getting warmer or him having little drive for handling drills. I guess I just need to hear that it’s normal for 9 month old puppies to not be super enthused when presented with yet another new handling drill lol.
Sends n’ Serps
He seems to really be into this one. He figured out pretty quickly that he needs to cut across the bar instead of sneaking his way around it. You can even see I moved both the MM and the wrapped jump wing out more part way through the video. This feels like a lot of reps, but I promise the unedited video was only 3:30! But I will say, comparing this video to the one I recorded a week before it, his enthusiasm definitely was much higher. Either he gets higher when his confidence is high, or I hit the sweet spot with the temperature here. He’s also a big worshipper of the Cult of Manners Minder, especially now that I found the right size food that doesn’t jam all the time.
Smiley Face Games
We got a tunnel! And I think he likes it. I am still really babysitting him here, but this was his second time doing this exercise. What can I improve on or change for the next time we do it?
Find The Jump!
This one bums me out because I had several amazing reps with him and when I went to stop the video, I had an alarm going off on my phone and it only recorded the first 30 seconds, which was mostly me realizing I had the wrong toy for this type of game. Boo! So here is a very low energy, quick look at him doing each position in slow mo. I’ll try to do this one again tomorrow and get a video before he gets tired!
Phew! I kept each video short and to the point, so hopefully that makes it easy to go through all of them!
No video, but a quick question for you.
I’ve been going back and just touching down on some of the earlier exercises to make sure they’re all solid before I start checking skills off my list. One thing I did this morning was take the long Cato board and attach it to the apparatus that makes it into a small teeter. I don’t feel like Blast is going through a fear period right now, he has always found the wobble board a bit disconcerting, so I figured this was a good piece of equipment to start him out with. He made a lot of progress in the one session, and while he wasn’t going up and tipping down, he was happy to go over to the raised end and slam that down with his front paws, and got to where he was putting 3 feet on without hesitation. I stopped doing that and later took out the plank (not the Cato board, I have a 4 foot contact plank), and I saw some hesitation to it, likely because we had tone the tipping plank lately. How would you recommend I work these two pieces of equipment? I feel like he was worried about the plank moving, but he worked through it and I got him easily running over to it and putting all 4 feet on and doing spins on it. Maybe since he was successful I just put the plank away for a bit while we work on his confidence with moving stuff? Just wanted some thoughts on this.
Rocking Horse Game
Went back to this game and made adjustments like you suggested. I made sure to try and keep connection and not fling my arm out so quickly and that garnered much better results. Really happy with how this session went.Threadle Wrap: Barrel Game
Same as above, went back and made some adjustments and kept my feet forward and made a concerted effort to make connection on his way back. This felt a lot better and like he knew what he was doing. 🙂Turn and Burn Game
I wanted to revist this one as it has a lot of motion and I feel like that’s something Blast needed right now as a lot of the stuff we have been working on lately has been me stationary and him having to give all the effort. One thing I wanted to talk about is that I naturally am saying “let’s go!” which I also say when running my other dogs when I’m ahead of them to encourage them to speed up and catch me (not that they really need it). BUT that’s the cue we discussed using as the remote reinforcement cue. I’m no stranger to dog’s being able to understand context, but would you say this is a problem? Is it OK to continue using the “let’s go” cue even though I naturally blurt it out in other contexts?
Another observation is I tend to look ahead to where I am going, likely because the yard isn’t THAT big and I want to make sure I don’t run into the fence. I was pretty good about looking over my shoulder at him in the beginning, but that seemed to fade away as I kept going with the exercise. Something for me to keep an eye on?
> Asking for a moving heel at the end of an agility run might be hard, with all that adrenaline and with him likely to be ahead of you. A more general marker will be easier for you both!
Oh, no, I was only talking about a moving heel for obedience! Hence why I wanted to use separate cues there because I want them to be very clear to Blast what I am asking him to do.
> Ha! Yes, motivator levels are decided by the recipient LOL!!!! My dogs also think Charlee Bears are stoooooopid. LOL!
Up until recently, he hasn’t really been picky about treats. He’s an “eat now, ask questions later” kind of dog, so it had never really dawned on me that he would work harder for different treats. His half-brother that I have is happy to work for pocket lint, so it wasn’t really something I was thinking of. I repeated a few exercises with cheese this morning and got much more favorable results. But one of those was the barrel game and I hadn’t gotten your feedback yet, so I’ll save you some time and repeat that later with my feet in a better position. 🙂
Parallel Path
This was one of the exercises I did yesterday and got lackluster results. Now, through the power of cheese, I have much better connection and a quick moving dog. I think we did well with this one. Should I be aiming for the cheese to land on his line or on mine so that he has to move away from me to take the jump as we turn around and set up for the next rep?Alternate Rear Cross
We revisited this exercise with our new cheese friend. He was much quicker to eat and move on, which I liked. Made me feel like he wanted to do this and not just go through the motions. Is there anything else we should be doing with this game or revisit this every so often as we work on handling?> At this point, you might want to consider a marker that you will use at the end of the run. “Dish” is perfect for the dish, but might not be what you use at the end of the run. That also means you can use other things – cookies from a bag, or a toy. The end-of-run marker can be for any of that because the bigger meaning is that he exits with you to get the reward.
So, I was struggling with this because I tend to use “heel” for finding heel position as well as the action of heeling in motion, and I told myself I would use something like “let’s go” as a cue for a moving heel for future dogs to try and make things more clear. But…dogs are a lot smarter than we give them credit for and the context can matter, but I was worried I would be in the obedience ring and say “let’s go” and my dog would shoot off to our set up for cookies lol. But let’s be honest, I don’t do obedience enough for that to matter, and “let’s go” is a very natural cue to incorporate for my end of run routine, so I should just stick with that. I’ll figure something else out for obedience since I seldom trial there anyway.
One thing I learned today is that Charlee Bears are garbage treats. To me, they’re great: cheap, easily available, a good weight to throw, and they show up on my grass and mulch yard. Blast thinks they’re uninteresting and make training boring as all hell. I had a tough time today with a very unenthusiastic dog that was barely moving and just going through the motions. Once I switched to cheese and some Bil-Jac treats I found, it was like I had downloaded a new dog. You’ll see in the first few videos he’s far more sluggish than I expect from him, so I’m hoping I see a different dog in future videos.
Wind Wrap Foundations- Rocking Horse Game
I have done a few sessions with this game before, even before this class started. So the first few reps are the first step, followed by the more advanced steps. Something I have noted is that he tends to lag when I am sending him with my right arm/to the left side of my body. In fact, I did the tight turn exercises with my other two dogs last night and noted a 100% success rate when sending with my left hand and the only errors I had with them were on my right. Maybe it’s coincidence or maybe it’s so slight I’m not seeing it, but please let me know if I am doing something different between my right and my left.Because clearly all my dogs have the same feelings about it!
Threadle Wrap- Barrel Games
So not only was I still trying to brute force my way through training with Charlee Bears at this point, but I forgot to hit record during my original session! I just did two reps on each side for you to get an idea of my mechanics here. I’ll likely repeat this exercise with better treats and any tips you have for me.Prop Game- ‘Get Out’ Cue
Now, this is more like it! I know he didn’t hit the hat often, but I liked the effort and enthusiasm to reward and keep the chain going. I’m not sure how accurate I should be asking him to be, or if I should simply step in closer to help him on the next rep. To be honest, I didn’t realize how far off he was on some of those, but something to note for later.Tight Turns- Leading With the Head (Backsides)
Using a wingless jump/stanchion was the perfect fix. I cleaned up his approach too and this all helped a lot. Just a quick session towards the end of the day, but this felt like it went much more smoothly.
I’ve actually been good about doing the exercises (just haven’t gotten the energy to get them uploaded and into the forum)! But between the holidays and being sick, it’s been limited to stuff that can be done in small spaces. But I am back with a collection of videos that feels like a bit of a hodgepodge, but I’ve made a spreadsheet recently to help me track more easily what stuff I have done and what skills I need to put more thought into.
I’ll start with the easy stuff, and keep my comments brief since there’s a few videos here.
Remote reinforcement. Not much to really see here, he has the basic concept down. Are my mechanics good/do you feel he has an understanding of this to where it can be combined in other training? Or are there other steps before that?
Parallel Path Commitment. He had a few bumbles here, but overall he picked it up quickly. I was working in more of a narrow space to start with, so I didn’t really push the distance too far there, which was for the best as it was his first session. I assume the next step is to slowly add more distance?
Get Out Cue. This felt pretty good overall. He’s built some nice value for the prop and it made it easy to get him to go out to it. Nothing too big right now as it was dark out. Before I take it outside and add a bit more distance, is there anything I should adjust or think more about?
Threadle Wrap Foundations. This video is actually just some quick snippets of each step (turning in a circle at your side, making a u-turn at your side, making a u-turn with motion, making a circle with you in motion). As amazing as I think my puppy is, I did do several sessions of each step, I just never got around to uploading the videos for it, hence the quick run through of them. If there’s anything to adjust, I’m ready!
Backing Up. I actually struggled with this one for several sessions and got so frustrated with it that I kept giving up and moving onto something else. Blast just had zero concept that he should back up and instead would wrap his whole body around to get back into position. It finally dawned on me to give him less freedom in the exercise and narrow down his choices, so I put two jump wings out to let him have the chance to get the idea and it took only a few reps of that before I could remove them and his body did the rest. I’ll probably do another quick session with this in the morning, but assuming he has retained the information, should I move him onto part 2 of backing up?
Alternate Rear Cross. I liked this game on paper. It felt intuitive for me and the dog. But, I didn’t feel like he was connected with me at all. Maybe it was the day, he was hungry, he was tired, or Mercury was in retrograde. But Blast just didn’t seem to feel this one. He spent so much time focused on the tossed cookie, it was like that extinguished the behavior and he shut off his brain. Just a lot of waiting and idling while he munches and considers his next move. Maybe he just needs a few more reps, but I wanted some feedback on it before I did more.
Tight Turns. Here I feel like we are struggling. It just doesn’t seem to flow and a bit part of it I feel is that he’s seeing my hand and looking for a tossed cookie, which would not be an unreasonable expectation! But I feel like his focus on my hand and anticipation for the cookie isn’t allowing him to really learn what it is I’m trying to teach him. Did I miss a step, should I break things down/slow something down?
OMG, I’m in the race to be your trouble student! lol
Here’s the updated link and proper video. The problem with trying to batch upload videos.
I’ll be going through your feedback and recording new videos while we wait for you to review this one. 🙂
I’m back with another video dump! I’ll definitely give the turn and burn game another go with your tips later.
I think Blast should get extra points for his resiliency walk at the tree farm and the first thing he encounters walking in the gate is a 7 foot tall tree walking right towards him! That certainly made him jump, but he shook that off quickly and enjoyed all the smells and finding all the popcorn little kids dropped around the farm. He met some goats and sheep and thought they were weird, but warmed up to them after a few minutes.
Worked his lap turns and that was an easy little brain game for him. Follow the cookie, easy enough!
A few hours later, I tried it with the prop. Blast is a big fan of the prop games. He quite enjoys smacking that hat with his paws now. Except he likes it so much that he had eyes only for it at first and didn’t even acknowledge the magical cookie hand. I worked through my mechanics a bit and ultimately ended up with this.
I gave the tandem turn a try, just the luring part as we were maxing out on braincells by this point. My mechanics need…a lot of work. Anything you can pinpoint is appreciated.
Strike a pose! I feel like he did this very well. But maybe I was doing something wrong haha. I always feel like I’ve messed something up if it feels too easy for us.
Lastly, here’s a small video of playing around with the stays game. He’s never done a cue with a cookie tossed at him, so I think that was a bit of a surprise for him. Some obvious pressure from his brother lurking in the background, but that didn’t seem to push him away at all.
Sometimes my YouTube account does that and I have no idea why! I uploaded all three of them at the same time, but I guess my failures on the turn and burn game need to be super secret lol.
They should be fixed now.
Kept working on the prop game, but I realized in the moment that while he was still on his parallel line, he wasn’t hitting the prop itself sometimes. But then I started questioning if I should reward it or not because the point isn’t so much the foot target as it is the staying on his line, right? So I just rewarded the effort, but let me know how I should be doing this so I can do it right next time!
So, doing the turn and burn game, this time with a weave pole on the floor to mark when he passes a certain point, he did the right turn really well! Video of that below.
We then spent probably way more time than we should have doing the left side. It was like his brain had reset from the beginning with this one. After some failed attempts I moved way up on it, but it still required a lot of hand holding (paw holding?). I’m befuddled by why he struggled with this side when there was almost no hesitation to do it the other day, but also he did the right side so easily!. I don’t want to drill him, but I wanted to get some amount of understanding and progress out of him.
I appreciate the offer to cut out the editing, but I’ll push through! My other dog is back to normal, which he really doesn’t need to be right now as he still heals, but there’s much less care involved for now.
>Is Blast related to your older boy? We do often find genetic similarities in responses to arousal or frustration.
All of my dogs are related! Bones (main biter) is a littermate to the sire of Bucky (likes to bite at the end of runs, but that’s manageable) and Blast. They all give me their all, and sometimes that means their arousal is a little higher than ideal. Bones I give the benefit of the doubt because he is my first agility dog, so I have made every mistake in the book on him. Needless to say, he has endured a lot. His biting got a lot better when my handling improved, but sometimes it still leaks out. I’ll spend some time on the stealth control exercises in the near future.
>His resilience walk/exploration of the tables/chairs/cafe area was great. The goal is to let him watch the world and process it, exposing him to a variety of new things. You can let him explore for longer without getting food involved
Oh we spent probably 2-3 minutes before the video just wandering around the outdoor cafe taking it in, I just didn’t think you needed to watch all that lol. I spend a lot of time at trials with him just having him sit and watch with the no expectations besides him not bothering dogs as they pass by. He adapts to new and busy environments very well: his first big trip after coming home was to the UKI West Coast Open when he was 9 weeks old. He’s a pro at the agility trial environment now!
>One thing I notice here is that he appears to be leaving the stay before you call him on a lot of reps
I noticed that too, but I also didn’t want to lump things either. He has a really good stay on his Cato board, can I use that for exercises like this where I need to intentionally create distance?
We had a ton of fun with the turn and burn game! He advanced well through this one, and we had very few errors during our sessions this afternoon. It’s amazing how much time can elapse with just a handful of reps. After I cut out all the tugging and resetting, my 6.5 minute video turned into a little over a minute of content. I’m hopeful we will see more confidence and speed next time around.
The prop game with parallel lines was less successful. It still went very well, but I’m not seeing those “lightbulb” moments with him. He seems to have the idea, but his hits don’t feel as intentional. What should I adjust here? This was his first time doing it outside, but I wanted the extra room to move.
