[Cindi Delany]

Doing outdoor game first would be great if it works for your planned flow. I have daylight until about 5 PM these days. I do have outdoor lights that I can set up this week (if needed) and can use in future weeks. I’ll plan to have both an indoor and outdoor camera option tonight just in case and to really test my tech skills (and my country wifi 🤣).

[Cindi Delany]

Thanks for feedback on that last post. We did some more turn and burn on trees at a show (away from the action) and worked on speed in. He did well there and the longer toy continued to work. No video of that.

Here’s some stuff from last night – prop games – counter motion and rear crosses and then the send, blind, Decel, turn and send sequence. Really tough in this small space but he’s definitely trying. I’m late on the blind a few times and not always able to fit in a smooth Decel. Also, he’s not swallowing the treats on the send and turn so I ended up fading them out.

P.S. I have space and lights on my front lawn. Wondering if any of tonight’s class exercises would be better with a little more space. Let me know what you think. I’d like to try using that outdoor option for anything where it might be nice. Our barrel work seems to go more smoothly with some space. I could also just move some dog beds out of the way to give just a little more space indoors. Thoughts?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Cindi Delany. Reason: Added PS

[Cindi Delany]

We did some more turn and burn. I wa trying to stay closer but I think I’m farther from the barrel than you wanted watching the video back now. I used a longer toy to drag and keep his head lower to try to get him less “hoppy.” 😁

We also did some rear crosses on the prop. Watching that back I see I’m not doing any ready dance or jazzing him up. I didn’t see that in your video showing this but was thinking a little of that might help him drive ahead. I had a bit of a hard time in this space so might take this outside next time.

[Cindi Delany]

Okay, fun class this week. 😁

Here’s some Turn N Burn from this morning. He has less consistent commitment when I send him from my left (which we also saw in his prop games). But, he does seem to be catching on that I want him to do the thing I indicated even if my path is changing while he’s doing it. Without adding more distance it’s hard to actually turn and get out of there after sending to the obstacle and letting him get past me and still have the front cross completed before he gets to the obstacle. I’m happy to add more distance if you think he’s ready for that.

[Cindi Delany]

Sorry we haven’t been posting in this class. All our time and cookie budget has been going to our MaxPup class and using this class’s reinforcement concepts there. 😁

I do want to dive back into these specific exercises.

We did some early remote reinforcement stuff here. We haven’t really worked on this specifically in a training context yet. I do have cookie jars holding kibble throughout the house and I’ll say “cookies” and go get some when a dog does something nice throughout the day (like going to a mat when Amazon arrives or when play gets too rough and I ask them to be more gentle). Here I’m going with “Let’s go get your…” cookies or toy in the future. I know it’s kind of long but I feel I’m most likely to actually use it in a training or show context vs just saying “cookies.”

This is pretty unedited with a couple of mistakes and a rep where I asked for too many behaviors in a row without reinforcement and got his nose coming up near my face instead of an elevated hand touch. That’s usually a sign of frustration, so I tried to increase the ROR at that point.

[Cindi Delany]

Another day out hiking yesterday, only 7 miles, so he’s not as tired today.

We started a new object for the sends since the tote bag was slipping too much (and lacked some clarity with handles and empty space). This is a non-slip silicone type potholder. So we just shaped the front foot touch to it, then added a forward send, then side send, then backward send.

We also did a bit of backup to wobble board and tried using a treat bowl to get his focus and head/neck lower.

[Cindi Delany]

I took Rip out to train this morning and realized he was pretty tired after a big day yesterday (my Fitbit says I walked 22K steps/10 miles on our hike yesterday and he was off leash with my older BC and easily ran twice as far as I walked with check-ins and exploring).

So, we started with a couple of minutes of 360 turns on dog walk middle plank, saw he was pretty exhausted and then put him down for a nap. 😁

I’ll let him rest up today and we’ll do something more fun tomorrow.

[Cindi Delany]

Great feedback to my last post. I’m on my iPad hanging out with the pup at a show so won’t quote and respond to each point but all things I’ll incorporate. I’ve used a nose target with my big dogs for a long time and do like it so think I’ll just go back to that for my teeter 2o2o. If Nancy fusses at me I’ll survive 😁

This morning before heading to the show we did some quick backup stuff. He’s seen this intermittently over the past few months but we haven’t done tons of it with super specific criteria as far as speed, distance or straightness.

Here we did backup to his Cato board flat, then to his wobble board with the edge propped on a low step then to his wobble board at a steeper angle. Just using clicker and kibble as treats (no toy play this session) since the older BC is right there and I didn’t want her to get all worked up. I do plan to do more polite taking turns in arousal but today is not the day. 😝

[Cindi Delany]

I totally feel this pain! But yes… I recommend 2 separate backside send verbals – the push is for the slice or any similar exit. And a separate cue for the complete circle wrap (360 degrees around the entry wing). This is especially important with the bigger dogs, because the approach to the entry wing is completely different fr a slice versus a wrap on the backside.

Okay, sounds reasonable. Now I just have to come up with the words. So, in context is it a compound cue with “push” and the backside left or right wing wrap verbal – like “push” + 1 of those 2 or is the new cue all inclusive, meaning, go to the backside of the indicated jump and continue in a wing wrap and chase me down the line?

…all of the puppy training practice has embedded it into my soggy brain LOL!!! So it turns out to be not as hard as I thought it would be, because by the time they are running courses, I have been practicing for about 18 months.

Here’s to hoping. Got my fingers tightly crossed I can get this stuff deeply embedded into the right neurons so it comes out when I need it.

And I remember congratulating myself for being able to run full courses silently hahahaha oh my, how times have changed!

Yep, we used to play that game too, can your dog just follow the handling with no verbals. On the other end we did enough NADAC when it was first a thing that we played with just standing still and giving the verbals for a whole course or most of it. Now you’ve got to have it all, right – verbals, handler motion, distance, plus be able to run like heck. 🤣

I think you can shape the grip by having it dangle until he is opening his mouth to reach for it, then bring your other hand over to help get the strong grip, tug a bit, back to one hand, etc. So basically the will learn to come in hot for the dangled toy (which is a really useful reinforcement procedure) but also get a really strong satisfying grip on the toy for a good game of tug 🙂 It will take quick mechanics and connection to see what he is doing – but based on what I have already seen you do, this is going to be easy for you, you have great mechanics.

Hmm…I think you overestimate me. We will definitely keep working on this. I am also trying to convince him the udder tugger is amazing since he’s able to get a bit of a better grip on the first try without me presenting it with 2 hands (and I find it easier to carry in my cargo style scrub pockets). I’ve been pulling it out more often when we train, including today’s training session, and I think it’s working and he’s starting to feel it has value.

So now the next step is to be stationary (or fade your movement if he has trouble with you standing still) and let him offer moving the board.

We did a little of this today before starting on better tug form and plank games. He’s fine with it, I just need to let him know what he’s being CT’ed for. That’s mostly on me since I didn’t really have any concrete criteria in my head when I tossed the board down, so he was offering some various positions and movement.

You can get the toy even lower, elbow height for him, so he really leans back. A game I play is the “I’m gonna pull you off” game where I gently and slow increase my pull on the toy – if the dog leans back enough on the wobble board, then I will let him win the toy. If he moves forward off the board, I win the toy 🙂

I have been trying to reinforce more weight shift back lean back tug with him since he’s pretty happy to do a more passive, head up tug or a shoulder/neck killing (for both of us) thrash. We worked on this on the wobble today and it went well. He does have the weirdness of not really wanting to “win” the toy so instead for the most part I just continued the tug game with him if he stayed on when I tried to pull him off (which is what he seems to want) vs becoming more passive and or moving the toy away when he came off the board. He caught on quickly and started getting himself back on the board and we got more and more nice, weight shift back steady tugging. Yay!

And if you are not already doing this – you can add in cued position changes on the wobble board (stand to sit, stand to down, sit to stand) because they are great for balance and also a bit of turning around (not too fast though, it is too hard to balance when they spin really fast.

Yes, we’ve done a bit of this position change stuff.

I also like wobble board road trips where I move it to different surfaces so there are difference noises – tile, concrete, wood, mats, etc.

We have done some of this gradually at first but he never showed any worry so we pretty quickly went to pretty loud front porch tile with him slamming the board around. I can do and video more of this to post if you want.

One note on the mini teeter, looking ahead to the future:
If you are targeting at the end with the 2o2o, I would put in a target for him to move (depending on how you trained the position initially) to so he is not locking onto your feet or the stopping of your motion. Eventually you’ll want to be able to run by the end of the contact while he stops (like a 2o2o on a teeter) so we put that concept in as soon as the dog is asked for the stop, so it is always completely independent of your position.

So far we’ve just been using a 2 front feet off the object behavior with the cue “feet” without an actual physical target involved. In the past I used a nose touch target for 2o2o but in his current puppy pre-agility she’s having us not use a physical target for the teeter and we’re working on running for dog walk and a-frame. So far for teeter we’ve just been doing bang game in class and some very early up plank stuff at home (some of that is in what we did today for planks). Until growth plates are closed I’m not rushing to get the board moving a lot or very far.

Today’s sessions we did some wobble board, some tug on wobble and lots of planks – mini plank, middle of dog walk on the ground, middle of dog walk about 18″ off the ground and then just teeter up with no tilt.

[Cindi Delany]

I think this one (from backing up game) is set to private:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YATrf1–SRg

And this one maybe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-NvLZ6jsug

And also the Nacho one – all from that same lecture.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by Cindi Delany.

[Cindi Delany]

Sounds great! So the next verbal wrap to choose is the backside circle wrap verbal – soooo many words LOL!

So, I’ll use my older dog’s “push” for backside in general. Would I use “push” “check check” for push to the back side and then wrap the wing circling to your right and “push” “dig dig” for backside with wing wrap to his left? OR – God Forbid – do I need even more words? First of all I’m seriously running out of clever/natural/easy to remember verbals. I literally have a “Ripley Glossary” in my Notion with 70 words (everything from behavior cues, to LSMs to agility verbals). 😲 Second of all, I seriously worry that in the moment I’ll pick the wrong one (even if I walk the course saying the words to myself, what if something changes and suddenly he’s going a different direction or something unexpected). So much to think about vs the good old days when we used to just run in straight lines until a tunnel turned us around for the most part. 🤣

He will LOVE cued wraps. I know from the times I’ve aimed a foot at a thing and he’s wrapped it. Hopefully we can do that next session.

My only mechanics suggestion is to leave the toy in the hand it starts in – that heartbeat of switching it delays the blind a little and also rehearses an unwanted mechanics habit. You did leave it in the same hand like at 1:04 but your other hand really wanted to get involved so sometimes it ended up 2-handed, which can block the new connection a bit.

So, on this. I’ve noticed that with this toy (and it is his favorite) he can sometimes have a hard time getting a satisfying grip on it when I just let it dangle in mid air. Sometimes I’ll drop the hollee roller part down on the ground as I’m going and that makes it easier for him. Sometimes when he’s really coming in hot and I don’t want him to have to deflate on the toy grab I’ll hold it with both hands leaving a central place for him to grab and then let go of 1 end when he’s firmly on it. He likes this a lot when we’re doing stuff with more movement. I bet I could do that but keep the onside hand/arm really low, offside arm up higher but really rotated across and get a safe, clean grab without losing the connection. What do you think?

This morning we just did some wobble/teeter board stuff for our goat games with motion and noise. This is NOT his first time on these objects and has been doing at least some of this since he was little or I would not let the objects have this much movement and noise this quickly. I let this session go just a couple of minutes longer than I might normally since I needed to tire him out a bit before hopping into a Zoom work call (so about 2-3 minutes on each of the 2 props instead of just 1-2 minutes each).

[Cindi Delany]

Sorry to be spamming you with posts today. I just got behind on getting stuff edited and up here so am trying to catch up.

Yes, for deciding what verbals to use on wraps. I was going to use “Wrap” and “Check check”. Then realized “Wrap” sounds too much like “Rip” which is what I call him for short. So, going with “Dig Dig” for him turning left, “Check Check” for him turning right.

I think he would like cued wraps to a toy at this point. Either just a step to the thing +/- a verbal. I think he’s ready for either. I don’t really think he would like it with me like kneeling next to the thing at this age/stage of his life. That seems more frustrating for him since when he’s tugging he wants to really move around a bit more. I know he’ll offer a wrap of an object with any kind of step to it at this point (+/- the verbal) and feel I can easily play, indicate, play. Does that sound okay?

Here’s a short clip of some baby blind crosses. This is from yesterday afternoon at the same fun match in one of the little exercise/potty yards next to the ring. I did alternate the blinds with some no blind cross reps just to make sure he was actually listening/looking (just so you don’t think I’m crazy if there are any of those in there).

[Cindi Delany]

He’s really good at offering to interact with props and will typically interact with toys on them too. We’ll put taping that on our to do list for the next few days.

Here’s some stuff from this weekend. We went to a fun match to hang out. We were also able to go in the ring and just tug and play reverse retrieve while the participants were walking their JWW course. He was awesome, had fun and had no interest in the walking people (it felt like we were just playing in our living room 😊). When they were walking their tunnelers course we did some tug plus some line up behaviors (away from the tunnels) them some Startline stays but not facing any tunnel entrance – like at the midpoint of the tunnel facing away or near an opening but facing various directions. He was super good and had lots of fun. I also got your Startline stays course for my library and we’re working through some of those exercises.

This video is shaped wrap at home on various objects. Started where we were in the live class – starting back at the beginning with a super quick review of the steps we did to where we ended up just to remind him of the concept. Then at the end of the day at the fun match once the dogs were done with their runs we shaped wrapping some trees and other objects outside the ring.

[Cindi Delany]

Hi Tracy,

Busy work week and COVID booster Friday left me doing training sessions but not editing and posting the past few days.

Here’s some “Goat Games”. I am a HUGE fan of this stuff. I feel like it not only helps them learn to shape in arousal the way you have it designed in this course but really helps build a lot of confidence and optimism with surfaces, elevation, balance, movement and noise that is not only great for agility but carries over really well into real life.

Ripley is a big fan of shaping and pretty confident in general, but I still like to really encourage him in that area after my last dog that was so lacking in confidence (mini poodle Mighty Mouse).

I’ve always encouraged him to put his front paws on objects +/- jump all 4 on. The past few weeks he’s been offering more movement on and around the objects (like big rocks at parks or horizontal trees). I think it’s due to feeling more comfortable in his body now that his growth is slowing down.

Anyway, here’s some goat games in arousal at home on various objects + some offered goat games in the wild (more like parkour). I don’t love that his long line is on on the outdoor stuff and we should be able to take it off in the future now that I feel pretty good about his recall.

[Cindi Delany]

You can never have too much coffee! 🤣

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