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Thanks for this feedback. I’ll incorporate in our next sessions.
I was able to get a covered ring for a little bit tomorrow afternoon. I’ll try and figure out which exercises most need some space and preferentially do those.
I’m thinking Tunnels homework for sure (since what we did over the weekend was before I’d read and watched the actual homework). I’ll see what comes out for tomorrow and pick the things needing more space.
Cindi
I totally agree. It was such an awesome opportunity for a puppy to get to actually play in the ring in that environment with a lot less stress. I knew he was probably ready for the Puppy Garten side (even with the noise, people, dogs and a tunnelers run happening on the other side of a ring divider on the right of the screen) but also knew he really wasn’t ready for a full Tunnelers course. We just haven’t run enough sequences for me to know how fast he is or what his tendencies are the way I’ve known my older dogs before something like this. I was trying just to read him every step of the way and adjust – asking questions as we went. Can you walk around here and focus on me? Can you do your normal on leash behaviors on cue with minimal latency and accurately? Can you deal with being in a line with other dogs and people? Can you enter the ring and focus on me? Can you play with a toy in the ring? Can you focus on me with your leash off? Can you wait on the Startline (we actually didn’t do a startline wait his first run, I just played and ran him off the line)? Can you take a tunnel and come back to me? Can you play with a toy after doing a tunnel?
That’s about as far as I had imagined. I didn’t want to expect too much and pressure him or be disappointed in him. It’s always so hard when you are starting a baby dog. Especially if you’ve had some really good dogs in the past and people have expectations of you. I’m sure you’ve felt some of that. Anyway, I was just blown away when he was like “tell me what’s next” in a tunnel sequence.
I really wish there were more opportunities like this out there for young and baby dogs to play with low stakes to get used to everything about agility beyond just obstacle and handling skills. I try to remember to train the bits and pieces along the way but there’s nothing quite like an actual trial scenario and entering the ring alone.
Anyway, here’s a bit of lap turn and rear cross on the flat. It is VERY rainy here so not sure when we’ll be able to get outside on our agility field at home. I’ll try to get some indoor ring time (but CA not many options for that).
Sounds good on next steps on ladder work at home.
One of our local agility clubs, where lots of trials are held and where I’ve spent many weekends taking Ripley out to watch trials and practice some skills in that environment, held a Christmas party yesterday. Part of it was a NADAC style tunnels course (about 2/3 of the ring) and the other side was a “Puppy Garten” with puppy equipment.
We did the Puppy Garten side and just for fun I signed him up for some tunnelers runs. I had planned to just go in the ring and play with a toy and maybe send him through 1 or 2 tunnels or maybe do the shorter inner loop of tunnels in a nice flow sequence.
We have done a lot of playing and training out here during shows. We’ve tugged and played toy races and reverse retrieve a lot in the area where dogs line up to go in during walk throughs and at one fun match we even went into the ring and tugged and had toy races and reverse retrieve while they were walking their courses.
He ended up being super focused, able to play and ready to work when I asked him and so we ended up doing the full little sequence of 12 tunnels. He has done single tunnels in our training but I don’t have them set up sequenced tunnel to tunnel, so it was a little mind blowing for him but he did pretty amazing.
Anyway, here’s a little video of our Puppy Garten work there – small wobble board, big wobble board, ladder, low teeter, low wide dog walk, tunnel and some start line stays. Then at the end his little Tunnelers course run. I know there was a lot here that wasn’t perfect (and that I need to learn to run faster and get some distance verbals in there) but I was so proud of how well he did and how much fun he had. Plus, not horrible speed for a baby just learning (12 tunnel sequence in 19.7 seconds 😁).
Yep, he enjoyed Leg Bumps, just took advantage of me being slurp level.
Here’s a short ladders clip from yesterday.
We’re heading to an agility group Christmas party this morning. He might get to do a little bit of a tunnelers game or puppy play area they plan to have out. 😆
Thank you for the feedback on that last session. 😊
“yes” is my move to food hand and take food LSM so that part is probably okay.
The udder tugger is a toy I’m trying to build more value for. It’s just so much easier to stick in my pocket. It’s working okay for tugging when it’s in my hand but looks like it doesn’t yet have great value as a dead toy. So, I’ll keep working on that and next session sub in his hollee roller on fleece tug. I also have a couple of udder tuggers on fleece or other handle coming from clean run hoping they are better for him and easier for me (the plain ones get really slippery as we play 😝).
Here’s some leg bumps for your amusement. 😁 I’ll go brave my muddy agility area to get our ladder later today if I can break off work for a bit. Training a puppy does horrible things to my work ethic. 🤣
Here’s a little bit of “Strike a Pose” this morning. Just using kibble as treats since he has in person class tonight and indoors since it’s a bit wet out.
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 🤣).
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. 😝
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.
