[Cindi Delany]

Thinking of other activity reinforcers – he likes people a lot as far as interest in greeting them – hasn’t shown any fear or worry about anyone he’s met. But we’ve also done lots of moving out of the way for folks on trails so he doesn’t really expect to interact. The random times I offer him to go say hi he’s wiggly, happy but then quickly loses interest in the person and wants to chase a bug, watch ducks or something more entertaining.

He likes other dogs but can be a bit much for them these days now that he’s big and a teenager. He’s used to very rough and rowdy play with our Swissy and that tends to not be great in the settings we end up in. He also had a weird period of dog reactivity about 2 weeks ago while we were at dog camp so we’re working back up to where he was before that (prior to that he hadn’t really shown anything like that) and we’re aiming more for dogs are interesting but not a threat and don’t anticipate that I’ll be asking you to interact with them.

Here’s this morning’s session of food related location specific markers. We’ve ended up with quite a few. 😁 1. I’m a behavior nerd, 2. He really likes clarity. He doesn’t get fussy or not participate in training but did used to show some confusion when the reinforcer I was delivering or how I was delivering it weren’t what he expected. So, I’ve just added more over time to be super clear. He’s big into concepts so I try to use that to our advantage wherever I can.

So, this is:
1. Get it – treat thrown
2. Yes – dog moves to get treat
3. Nice – dog stays in position, treat comes to his mouth – room service
4. Take it – take the already accessible treat when cued
5. Heads – catch thrown treat
6. Dish – take treat from the dish
7. Tails – turn to take reinforcer behind you (our least used one so I added a hand cue here)
8. Follow cookie in hand – no verbal really just based on context and how I hold my hand – using pieces of kibble here as like a treat magnet

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Cindi Delany. Reason: Forgot #8

[Cindi Delany]

Here’s Ripley’s reinforcement hierarchy homework:

Reinforcement Hierarchy – Food
1. Cheeseballs – (they combine food and action)
2. Meat type jerky treat
3. Semi-soft flavored treats
4. Crunchy treats – meat, cheese, other
5. Kibble (lowest but he’ll actually work pretty darn hard for it)

NOTES:
Pup loves cheeseballs – I think he likes the taste but also has a deep history with us using them as thrown treats in training in pattern games, remote reinforcement, etc. So, nice +CER there and he can catch them out of the air where he is, chase them thrown on grass, dirt, etc. He will NEVER refuse one so far.

Essentially he never refuses any treats, even his puppy kibble. He doesn’t get fed meals in a bowl ever. He gets all of his food throughout the day during training or just to reinforce things I like.
If his arousal is higher he might get a LITTLE harder with his mouth but is never super sharky (at least not compared to my 13 year old he goes super sharky when aroused).
He does occasionally not fully swallow really small treats, like his kibble, but it doesn’t seem super intentional.

He, so far, will always switch nicely between food and toys (which I’m super appreciative of).

Reinforcement Hierarchy – Toys
1. Hollee Roller on braided fleece
2. Other tug with knot at end to not slide off
3. Ball on rope (but hurts when he thrashes since ball hits him in the head – he doesn’t seem to mind, but I can’t imagine it doesn’t have some impact)
4. Udder tugger – working on this being higher value since it’s easier for me (he’s medium on it so far but increasingly into it as his mouth has gotten bigger)
5. Ball or frisbee not on a rope – no tug option

NOTES:
He will usually play/tug anywhere. Sometimes if the space is challenging he may lose interest sooner so I try to keep play short when I can see he is more distracted and let him check out the environment more, sniff more and then come back when he’s ready/wants play. He’s good at chasing, retrieving and handing back thrown toys. He’s good at running to a dead toy, but not super amazing at always picking up a dead toy and bringing it to me. He may just pick it up and stand there waiting for me or waiting for me to call him in to tug it with me or ask him to give it to me to throw. So, I do want to do some more dead toy pickup work.

He historically has been a little inaccurate with his grabbing of tug toys so I’ve tended to go for larger ones that keep my hands safer.

He can be particular about thickness of braided fleece toys and prefers ones with a knot at the end so his mouth doesn’t just slide off.

Tennis balls on ropes he likes but he wants to grab the rope part to tug or just thrash and then the ball hits him in the head (he seems okay with this, but it’s kind of sad so I’ve been trying to get him to hold the ball part and let me have the rope if he wants to tug or thrash).

I want to try to increase the value of the udder tugger since it’s such a nice multipurpose toy and easier to carry than his favorite, favorite hollee roller on braided fleece.

P.S. He is a long-time and fierce thrasher, since he was a tiny puppy (like literally since he was less than 8 weeks old). I try to reinforce weight shift back and steady pull but the act of thrashing is quite enjoyable for him (less so for my shoulders and neck).

Reinforcement Hierarchy – Activity (only listing those I would want to use in a training setting)
1. Playing ready, steady, break in hose with firm stream (hose is off until I say break, then it turns on and he jumps in to grab the water).
2. Chasing cheeseballs back and forth in our cheeseball ping pong game (nice pattern game and he loves it) – “Get it” LSM for thrown treat
3. Catching cheeseballs – “head” LSM
4. Tugging with me with various toys – “tug” LSM for tugging, “toy” LSM for getting a dead toy
5. Training/games with interaction

NOTES:
These are all pretty highly ranked in general and usually done (at least 2-5) in every training session at some point. #1 is reserved for less often at home (since he gets so wet and then has to roll around on our new carpeting) but also at any show we go visit where I can find a hose.

So far he can do #1-3 in almost any environment at any time. #4 he can do pretty much anywhere but may lose interest sooner if the environment is busy, stressful, etc. #5 he can do to some extent at least in any environment as long as I pay attention to what he’s trying to tell me and adjust my expectations/the behaviors I ask of him accordingly. I do a bit of a Shade Whitesel ready to work protocol with him (can you hear and respond appropriately to your LSMs, can you do a simple behavior, can you do a harder behavior, before I consider him ready to really train in new or challenging locations).

I’m not including activities I don’t really want him to do in a training setting like playing with other dogs just because I don’t really want that to be a part of his training picture. He does play with our household dogs (3 year old Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, 4 year old Miniature Poodle, 13 year old Border Collie – who totally ignores him) and over time he’s done some puppy social things and had play dates with friends, but in training I really don’t want him to be thinking about opportunities to play with other dogs – at least not right now while he’s firmly a teenage and a bit complicated in his approach. He does also like to sniff and I’ll use “Go sniff” on decompression walks or when at a new location but I don’t really see using this in a training context as that would annoy him a bit.

As far as the camels are concerned, when I first got them I literally used an app on my iPad to create a database and log of what treats they did and didn’t like (including how much they liked it, cost, stickiness/residue, if it needed to be fresh or not, etc.)🤣 . So, I at least have a good feel for that with food treats. My camel is R+/clicker trained and super cute. Very fun to work with but reaction times are MUCH slower than a border collie. 😁🐫💗

[Cindi Delany]

Do you have the ones on Facebook set to “public” or do we need to do a friend request to see them?

[Cindi Delany]

Hi Anne,

I registered for it in late September so I know it is open to register. If you’re able to post here in the forum I think that means you are already registered, right? I don’t think the forum is visible until you do that.

Is it showing in your “My Courses” page for you?

Cindi

[Cindi Delany]

Thanks for that feedback on the grid exercise. Glad it didn’t look as bad to you as it did to me when I started reviewing the tape.

We worked on front and blind crosses from Week 2 today.

I thought he did well with these and seemed to read the side change pretty clearly.

Blind and Front Crosses – 1, 2 and 3 jumps

[Cindi Delany]

We worked on the 1 stride grid today since he hasn’t done a ton of grid work.

I tried to set the 3 jump bounce to a 1 stride at the beginning, but I set the first rep up to be too long and so he put in 2 smaller strides. That was with it set around 14′ (and on his first rep, so not really striding out yet).

I closed it down to about 10′ and that would have been a nice 1 stride for him but I can see in the video that because he’s reaching for that 3rd bounce jump he’s landing too close to it and needing to extend to get this at 10′ (in the moment I couldn’t tell that the bounce was too wide).

I think if I’d had those 3 bounce jumps set up closer together he could have more easily bounced right through, landing and taking off in the center between each of them and then landing more comfortable in an arc after jump 3 (so not having to reach for that jump 4).

So, he was reaching to find his takeoff for jump 4 at 10′, then just looks like he extended out and reached more when I moved it out to 12′ on rep 2 (which I was thinking would be the point at which he would decide to collect for a tight 2 strides).

I moved it out to 15′ feeling sure that would give him a nice 2 strides but instead he just extended out and basically left out a stride to take it as a single stride (and that’s still with the bounce too wide so still reaching for jump 3). Ugh!!

So, I extended it out to 18′ and finally got him to put in the 2 strides.

He’s pretty athletic and rarely touches bars, so he’s getting away with this stuff, without severe consequences for him but I do think it would be more ideal if he was a little more fluent in reading distances and adjusting his stride accordingly.

P.S. Toy is a lotus ball with treats in it, is always on the ground and about 2 strides after the last jump.

Jump grid – 3 bounce jumps to 1 or 2 stride ascending oxer

[Cindi Delany]

We worked on Send and Go Pinwheels a bit. Moved the jumps onto the lawn since he wasn’t loving the dirt last session (or first thing this AM). It’s getting a bit hot, but windy so we kept the session short and he was shade seeking a bit between reps.

Here you’ve got 1st rep, 2 middle reps and last rep (I cut out 2 additional reps with Jump 2 closer but it looked about the same).

On rep 2 here I think I said Go as a cue to jump 3. But I cued after he had landed and was turning toward it already so looked like a Go at that point. I think ideally I’d be saying Come as he’s taking off for or landing from Jump 2. Since this is kind of a wide-spaced pinwheel for him I could theoretically see saying Come before he takes off for Jump 2 as signaling a tighter turn in the air but worry that could pull him off the path to Jump 3.

It’s kind of hard since his strides are so short and turning is so easy. I’m used to a bigger, long strided dog where I would really need to cue collection for this type of turn from 2 to 3 so end up overthinking it a bit.

Send and Go Pinwheel – in new tab

[Cindi Delany]

We’re really far behind but plugging along. Just worked on rear crosses a bit.

It felt like he was so patterned to driving out ahead that he wasn’t really noticing/responding to my rear cross the way I would have anticipated. I ended up throwing in verbals to help turn him and help him find the jump once I had crossed.

It’s probably just that we’ve been doing a lot of verbal only/ignore my body/position stuff in the past few weeks. That’s due to the exercises I’ve chosen and probably driven by my Achilles tendonitis issue. So, anyway, probably just time to balance things up with more handler focus again. Not a horrible problem to have with this little guy since historically we’ve had an over-abundance of handler focus and not as much obstacle focus/drive.

Rear Crosses

[Cindi Delany]

Hi Diane,

We may need to duck out. Work has been crazy with COVID response projects.

We’ll try to retake this class in the future when things are a bit more settled.

If I can do any more work during the rest of the course I will.

Cindi

[Cindi Delany]

We did a bit of the threadle assignment and then did the tunnel jump commitment set the way you suggested backing up closer to the tunnel entrance and sending him ahead.

He hasn’t had any specific mechanical training on threadles and no verbal for that. So, I started out showing him the position and verbal cue “Close” and having him just come into my open arm and getting reinforced there at my front, then progressed to tossing his ball along the next part of his path and we worked our way up to the ball sitting on the slice line. We also moved from him being offset from the wing with a clear path to me, then a bit more in line with the wing, then behind the wing, then more in front of the jump so he had to come all the way around the wing to come into me.

He seemed to do pretty well on this today.

Threadle Cue and More Tunnel/Jump Commitment

[Cindi Delany]

Whoops, fixed it, sorry about that.

[Cindi Delany]

Hi Diane,

Sorry we’re kind of behind on the actual weekly schedule.

Work is crazy with a COVID related project and I had over-committed to online classes not realizing that would happen.

So we worked on Week 1 – Weaves Place assignment this past weekend when we rented our local agility venue (classes and shows canceled for now due to COVID).

We’ll move on to next exercises when our ground dries up a bit or when I next have the location available.

Also, can you clarify for the next part of these exercises which hand you think treat should be in. Here I was behind pole 3, so should have had the treat in my left hand I think (but had forgotten that by the time I got out there to do the exercises) and then you’re saying if/when we have exercises where I’m behind pole 2 I should have the treat in my right hand (makes sense, just making sure I’ve got it right for next time).

Week 1 – Weaves – Place

[Cindi Delany]

Hi Tracy,

Yes, historically I’ve used “Go” to mean take the single obstacle in front of you and “Go On” to basically mean continue along this line taking all obstacles in your path until told otherwise (or until you hit a tunnel or other obstacle that turns you or shapes your path). It’s made sense with my big long striding border collie in the past to let her know exactly how long she can expect to stay in extension. Not sure how much it does or should mean to this little guy and I may not be as consistent with him using it.

After we taped the last exercise we had rented out our local agility location for an hour (the next morning) so both of my dogs could play (since classes are canceled right now due to COVID-19).

I went ahead and set up and did the same exercise – commitment out of the tunnel – just because I’m trying to emphasize acceleration, extension, distance and confidence with this guy to keep things fun for him and try to build his overall confidence/optimism and enjoyment.

So, I taped this before I saw your comments above but am sharing it since it’s the only thing I have taped right now. Hopefully we’ll set something up this afternoon (between rain and a huge work project we’re a bit behind). I like your suggestion of balancing the tunnel exit being closer to the jumps and working back toward the tunnel exit and will try to set that up next if my field isn’t too soggy (or during this week’s rental session tomorrow).

Commitment out of tunnel to line of 3 jumps with some distance and not a ton of handler motion support

[Cindi Delany]

We did a bit with finding a line – committing to going straight coming out of a tunnel.

We’ve been doing some find the single jump work when we’re at a local park (I set it about 30-50 feet away and send either this little one or my border collie out over it). So, he’s been seeing some distance without a lot of supporting motion when we do that (mostly because my Achilles is still a bit off and I’m avoiding running plus it’s really good for him to be brave and do things like that in new locations).

We did the exercises as shown but I kind of faked the running and tried to show just the picture of what I might look like if I was actually running (but not moving much to spare my tendon).

He seemed fine with this. Back in the day I used to do a lot of NADAC (when there were fewer venues/fewer shows) so I tend to incorporate quite a bit of distance stuff early on just of have that in our bag of tricks.

Finding a Line – Committing to Jumps out of Tunnel

[Cindi Delany]

Sorry for the late start, work is crazy.

We just worked on the luring exercise for positions 12, 11 and 1.

Weave Lure Exercise

[Author]

Posts