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Okay, some training at the trial today during a class and then off leash during a course change just outside the ring.
We did a few different things:
1. Backup to some stacked dog beds
2. Backup to an elevated dog bed with the front feet off and angled against a chair
3. Pattern game 15 feet from the ring then <10 feet from the ring
4. Turn and burn around a big traffic cone
5. Some hand touch stuff
6. Voluntary collar grabHe had lots of fun and we also played with his tug toys in various places around the ring and outside in the grass yards.
We also signed up for some kind of little puppy training thing tomorrow and Ginger and her new puppy will be there too I think. 😁
Training at a Trial
Thanks for yesterday’s feedback. Super helpful (and wonderfully supportive) as always. 😊
We’re getting there – slowly but surely – with understanding his reinforcement procedure preferences and helping him move more fluently through arousal states. I suspect in the not too distant future I’ll laugh at needing to work to increase his arousal.
So, this AM we did a short session before we hit the road to let Ripley play at a NADAC show (main goal for him is a nose smush behavior at the end of a high arousal run instead of going to his leash and grabbing it to prepare for UKI Invitational where there’s chaos and unpredictability at the ring exit where leashes should be +/- dogs lunging at their toys near Rip’s valued tug leash – we won’t be using a tug leash there). 🤣
So, we worked on some toy related LSMs – grab it, drop it, tug. Interspersed that with pattern games (Rip’s infamous cheese ball ping pong minus the cheeseballs). Fun, easy session, and we’ll see what fun stuff we can do at the show today (any suggestions if you see this before we’re done there?).
Tug LSMs and Baby CU Pattern Game
Okay, I swear to god I’m not ignoring your feedback on cleaner LSMs and cues for switching reinforcement. You are 100% correct and I know this stuff, it’s just not yet showing up cleanly in our training. I’m going into our sessions without as clear a plan as I normally have with Ripley because I don’t know where our toy drive and food/toy switching will be day to day with Vibe.
BUT, this week I’m seeing a lot more consistency and ability to switch effectively and figuring out which toys work for what (which is a bit of a moving target still with teething but getting better).
So, I got your great feedback from yesterday’s session after I trained him this AM so I’m not fully following your recs but I will be going forward. Some of it did show up but not super cleanly YET.
I love LSMs and the clarity they provide so I’ll get my sh@t together very soon.
Today we worked on the handling sandwich and it went pretty well – he was perfect – I just need to give him the clarity we’ve been talking about going forward (also I read the instructions days ago and could have followed them better). I’m going to start reviewing videos and field guides last thing the night before so that when we do our early morning training I’ve got my act together.
Another milestone that might or might not be visible in the video, but we’ve got “ears up” this week – they’re big and adorable.
Toy Play – Toy/Food/Toy Switching – Sandwich Stuff
Okay, thanks for the feedback and suggestions on yesterday’s stuff. We’re still working on fluent arousal mobility. He tends to be very focused and serious when we train so it’s still hard to get him to go from “work” to toy play, but getting better.
Today we worked on prop sends – parallel and countermotion. I interspersed more toy play before, between reps, and after and he is getting closer to what I expect we’ll end up with as far as fluency in switching and using toys as actual reinforcers.
Prop – Parallel and Countermotion
Yeah, the body awareness continues to be unusual for his age especially with how fast he’s growing and how hard it must be to keep adjusting to his new daddy long legs.
Thanks for suggestions on next steps. I tend to revisit skills with progressions with a few days off in between so I made a list of those steps.
We worked on a straight send and go on barrels at a show this weekend so I went ahead and did the full 360 style this AM to start with something more arousing to also work on tug play. I’ve modified our AM routine a bit to minimize Ripley’s frustration since we had some build-up leakage this weekend at the UKI Festival. So, Vibe gets his kibble in his giggle ball while I train Ripley, then Ripley gets his pickle with peanut butter/squeeze cheese while I train Vibe starting with toys.
I feel like it’s a better routine for both of them so far.
Turn and Burn
Okay, we haven’t posted for about a week – work was crazy and so we spent more time on toy play, dog dog play with brother Ripley, trick training, and off leash decompression walks (mostly to manage my stress levels, but good for the boys too).
We were at a UKI Festival trial over the weekend and got lots of distraction proofing (plus just Vibe getting to see his fan club). 🥰 One benefit of all of our “get measured” training was that he wanted to beeline for the podium every time we walked by it. 🤣
This morning we worked on backup. I first shaped this about a month ago when he was 11 weeks old and he learned it faster than any dog I’ve trained to do it before. We revisit it periodically because he likes it a lot but I haven’t yet started to stand up. I’m thinking that’s a good next step for us?
Here are his first 2 sessions from about a month ago and his session this AM. I like to use the jump bumps (or a wall) to help them stay straight at first and then fade them.
January 11th and 12th first shaping sessions
Today – 2/9/26
More fun with Vibe.
Last night dealing with my longer work days to finish the impact report he said “If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em” when I was working late. So, now he treadmills. My wife caught it on camera so I let him offer it this morning to see if he decided it had been a bad or good thing. I’m gonna have to dig out the dog treadmill and set it up next to me as he gets older. 😊
Vibe Treadmill Fun
You asked if he had a single paw raise behavior and he didn’t, so I decided to start working on that. When I was looking for target sticks to help I found this cute extendable plastic fist target that I’d forgotten about so decided to teach him a fist bump for fun. It’s gonna be a fun trick that will help us get our “real” single paw raises in the future.
Paw Raise/Bump Trick
We ended our pre-breakfast (for me/actual breakfast for him) training session today with some bigger boy style tug (thanks to Ripley’s assist with this through the week). So, more of a cued “grab it” on a presented part of the toy and the more low row back and forth “tug” on that cue.
Bigger Boy Style Tug
Yeah, the Swissy is silent, Rip does a deep grunty growl and the little growls are Vibe’s. Rip is used to “fake” tugging with the Swissy where he holds and pretends to tug but kind of isn’t because if the Swissy releases it’s a lot of work for Rip to put the toy back in the Swissy’s mouth. That’s great for the pup at this stage because when he needs to regrip the tug is still right there.
There’s a point in Plankrobatics clip where Vibe is kind of stacked and you can see his current build a bit.
We did Toy Races and some Plankrobatics on his Galican wobble as well as some conditioning style position changes. Saw some issues with my position on mechanics when I reviewed that I’ll work on. We’ll also move this stuff back to his Cato plank and some little sit sized platforms my wife made for me.
Toy Races
Plankrobatics
Thank you for all of that feedback. I agree his affect was a little subdued. Suspect the pressure of the leaning over him and the concept, plus not as much “fun” as our other sessions contributed. I’m also under a ton of work stress (annual impact report due for my program’s funder and setting up for our next ask to continue our program) not to mention the country has gone to hell 😟 and couldn’t sleep so got up at 2 AM and this session was at 4 AM when my wife got up. I suspect this puppy will end up an empath like Rip (and most border collies I’ve had) so just gonna need more mental management on my end so real world stress I feel doesn’t impact them. Plus shorter sessions for this type of stuff and more play breaks like you suggest.
Anywho, this AM I tried to keep my sh*t together and not leak any emotions onto him. FYP a bit of Ripley training the puppy for me, a peak into what I suspect his stride will be, toy, cookie, toy switches, and then my somewhat craptastic attempt at cone wraps with SSC. I’m going to leave this exercise here for now (we have tried both directions). His knowledge of the concept of cone wraps is interfering a bit and my mechanics are not great but I feel like he got the benefit out of this we were aiming for and like you mention in the content and others’ feedback we don’t want to do a ton or tight wraps at this age.
Whoops – forgot, we did some position changes too.
Smorgasbord Session
No single paw lifts yet, but easy to get with props.
This morning for his breakfast training session we worked on collar/harness stuff. We also started the next folding in SSC. Need to edit and will add when ready.
Sorry this is a bit longer. I ended up doing the full kind of desensitization, offer, add cue, add collar pressure following, and harness empowerment stuff I like to try to do with puppies. Also a bit of side lineup and some offered stillness in here since you mentioned it.
Harness and Collar Games
Adding the second video for today or 2 toy play and retrieve. I need to redo the SSC game. I am struggling with the concept of holding with dog side arm and indicating with off arm and off leg. My body wants to indicate with dog side arm and leg. Also struggling because he’s offering the cone wrap and I like that and I keep forgetting it’s not about that, it’s about the SSC. The session today I ended up reinforcing and then naming and then standing to show the 2 wraps and forgot it was about passing the treat bowl or toy, not getting the actual behavior. 🧐
2 Toy Play and Retrieve
Yes, I feel you on the “adolescence is coming.” Even without microplastics I do suspect this pup will hit it earlier than expected. I anticipate some of our amazing puppy positives could morph into adolescent challenges. 😝 We’ll face it when it happens.
I wasn’t shocked he was able to work at the trial only because he’s had this weird tune out the background focus on training since the day I picked him up. He is super social and loves meeting ALL the people and (puppy friendly) dogs and so it was fun to see even with a ton of “go say hi” experiences he wasn’t into breaking out of training even when some of his best-loved human and dog friends were walking by or standing at the ring. We have also done classical conditioning to the loud “ready” voice over the past few weeks (hear the thing at a distance, cookies appear, then closer to where the speakers are. We’ve also been doing that for teeter bangs when we are walking by and a dog hits it on course (cookies appear). Pavlov is definitely on my shoulder all the time. 😁
This morning we worked on movement and noise. It’s been baked in a bit already, But I just want to go through all of the MaxPup content purposefully. We started indoors and then moved out onto our front porch for a hard surface. It’s cold here (for CA) but I know it’s worse in many parts of the country right now so I’m not really complaining. But we did fast track that part of the session using mostly kibble so we could get back in the warm house.
He did really well, so I did turn it into a little bit of a sends and commitment game. Pretty much the same thing we did at the trial with his mat sends to a crate. Since he’s getting that concept pretty nicely I figure we might as well start to show him that picture in a variety of different settings and with different props that aren’t yet important Agility things. And yes, he apparently does think he’s in the flyball training class instead of the Agility class. 🤣
We also did some quick plank robotics. He’s also been kind of seeing that in our other stuff so far, but I went ahead and did a few minutes of it just to see how he was doing with his new spider legs that he’s growing.😆. We’ve continued to work on “get measured” – he loves it – and he was about 15” with an official measure device yesterday.
Movement and Noise
Plankrobatics
So weird – went to YouTube and it said unlisted but was still “processing” after 13 hrs. I think it just glitched. It’s there for real now (and unlisted). 😊
Thanks for that feedback. We’ll definitely clean LSMs for this stuff up soon. I think I was keeping it a little messy to avoid him overthinking.
He had a great time today – made so many need friends -human and dog. We’ve been working on getting measured (he definitely loves it) and measured at about 15” today.
We did lots of easy training ringside – mostly go to mat, go kennel, some back up, and then did some shaped wrapping. We started back at step 1 and quickly got back to where he left off in our training at home.
P.S. the loose stray dog in the video was very dog social, and trying to interact with Vibe in a very gentle way, he just fearful of people. After this we were able to contain him for the animal shelter to come pick him up (just so you don’t worry Vibe was at risk when he sniffed him while I was holding him).
Mat and Kennel Ringside
Shaped Wrap Review Ringside
🥳 Party at my house!!!🎉🍾🥂
We got toy, work, treat (kibble) switching today. Doing a happy dance. 😁
We’ll be at a trial the next 2 days so will take stuff on the road. I’ll try to get some video (for class but also I just like reviewing things after in case I missed anything in the moment).
Yes, we’ll start adding some neutral distractions (we’ve already got plenty of not neutral ones given the regular chaos 🤣).
Today was a little less training and more just getting out and about. We have 5 acres and he’s been in our dog front yard, dog backyard, agility field and from the house to my car (plus into our little mini shelter to play with a foster puppy we have).
He hadn’t yet been to our property behind the mini shelter where our livestock (camels, draft horse, mini donkeys) are. So, when I took him out there on leash today I did film as a decompression walk. I am literally not able to not speak to him when we walk on leash so apologies.
He was mostly interested in sniffing a bit and then getting attention from my wife. I felt like he had a pretty nice balanced reaction to the huge animals and only seemed to need/want a little support and then only briefly. I did give cookies when anything that could be scary happened, like when the draft horse snorted right after he turned away. I just try to cushion stuff like that with cookies to try to protect his CER.
I do also tend to say “hi friends” when we approach dogs (or other animals) he doesn’t know. It’s a holdover from Rip’s adolescence when he started to worry about other dogs a bit. So over time I bake in a +CER for that phrase, “hi friends,” as well as “what is that,” so they become cues that cookies are coming or at least something positive and not worrisome.
It’s a longer video so feel free to just fast forward to anything you feel is worth watching.
Decompression Walk/Camels, Draft Horse, Mini Donkey Exposure
