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We’ll keep working on tug to food transitions as we go. It’s definitely on my list of things that we want and don’t have yet. I like the idea of moving to a new space when we go from food to toy at first to help and think that will be great for him.
- We did just a bit of focus forward to start (trying to stay in order so I don’t forget to do stuff).
- Started with his long drag toy but when it came time for him to bring it back it’s a bit too big and cumbersome and we were getting some “rolled it” moments.
- During a session later in the day we went to 2 very similar easier to grab and carry little toys.
- He tends to have a REALLY good grip on tug toys and doesn’t re-grip the way Ripley did so it’s a bit harder to nonchalantly steal the toy away. We’re working on a “ready” cue to drop the toy for a throw or re-bite offer and getting a bit better already.
- We have done some collar grab work during normal food training and he’s been fine but in arousal and tug he’s less a fan of that so we’ll keep working on it and in the interim I adjusted to move of a cross chest or under chest gentle hold.
- We did have to do a bit of 2 toy switch play in here to make the game a bit easier.
- By the end of the small toy session he was pretty aroused and we were getting some more bitey behavior so we transitioned to a bit of chill out and chew on nylabone instead of mom’s hands and sleeves just to practice that arousal modulation skill a bit.
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Long fluffy drag toy sessionSmaller easy carry toys session
Okay, jumping in (knowing I’ll be traveling a bit during the actual course so taking advantage of being home, no rain, all the things in our favor).
We worked on the first exercise of Week 1 – Handling Challenge 1 – wing wrap to tunnel or jump – 4 start positions. I kind of lost track of which starting position was supposed to have more motion vs more send but all good.
Okay, we incorporated some of your feedback into our stopped contacts version of contact exit skills today. Did a set of all the jump approaches being ahead and then a set tucking more into the wing wrap. Also some dirty jump handling and effort cookie/hand touch cookie if bar dropped.
Great info and advice, thank you! We’ll circle back to more advanced versions of some of this before we hit the road for Run Wild camp and Canadian Open (we leave on Monday). And, we’ll see if we can do some of this while we’re traveling too with camp and practice ring setups.
We did do contact exits with the running contact behavior today and his new (added yesterday) “Spot” cue for that behavior. It was a nice session. I am still using 4’ bars that are 1/2” PVC and my lighter wings so that any hit will cause a bar drop.
His cue response was awesome, mat hits were pretty darn good, and not a ton of bars and almost all my fault (totally stopping, being in his path, early toy toss). I want to proof against those things so they are explanations not excuses.
I’m still not running and trying not to toss with my left arm (side the chest injury and rib fracture are on) so there’s some weird toy hand switching I would normally avoid here.
Fun exercise! It was really helping me figure out timing on his cues and what he needs when (at least while we’re using a mat behavior cue).
Okay, so still injured and actually found out I did break a rib at that trial 2 weekends ago (found out after 3 days of competing in the West Coast Cup this past weekend) 😝.
So, still not really running at home (running at WCC did not help the healing process apparently). Also still not tugging.
So, we did some lowkey “other side of the dogwalk” stuff from Package 4 skills but with the real dogwalk since this isn’t new to him. Also some of the weave independence stuff from Package 5 skills. Added a couple of clips from 2 weekends ago where we had some of this on our courses – I LOVE it when camp stuff shows up immediately for me in a trial. Including a course with the layered weaves where the same basic course layout was used for 3 classes so I used my Gamblers run to practice the weave layer for the Masters Agility class that came after it. 😉 I’m too short so to see if he hits the entry so I have to like peek under the dogwalk. 🤣 Also added a short clip of layered dogwalk to a jump with a flipaway to the weaves layering jump and dogwalk. A bit of an awkward jump approach since he was already thinking about taking the far side of the weaves but he saved it. He’s a good kiddo.
I want to work on the contact exit skills next so will set that up. He’s still having LOTS of issues with aframes in trials when he extends and just leaps apex, lands halfway down downramp and strides off. At some RDW issues when his stride really extends and his beautiful perfect hit 4 stride becomes a 3 stride that leaves the dogwalk 12″ above the contact.
On Aframe at home and with props (or at home without props) he is perfect almost every time with landing from apex and taking a nice stride down, but the struggle is real at trials. And, if I ask him to try again in that setting it’s variable if he fixes it (at which point we’re usually coming in with less speed and extension), repeats the same thing if I really go back a few obstacles, or even starts to have 2o2o thoughts if he’s not sure what I want.
I’m trying – for the first time with running contacts a “hit it” type cue after the runnning contact obstacle cue to see if that gives him the clarity he needs. I really don’t want to have to use that long term since I really like being able to tell him once he’s committed to the contact with the contact verbal how to exit the contact and to which obstacle, but so far that’s way too often leading to missed contacts when his stride gets really extended.
So, in the past his mat cue was just the running obstacle cue (fly – RDW, zoom – RAF) or “Go,” but I’m adding “Spot” for the actual mat hit and transitioning to a yellow mat. He did great on this today in a short session so we’ll see if it translates and gives him the clarity he needs.
Good points, thank you. We have seen some of those veer around something to get to something. We had a hidden/recessed weaves entry at Run Wild where they had to veer around a tunnel to find a hidden set of weaves that felt new to me.
And yes, on some really fast lines to a backside I have been looking to landing to help avoid drive-bys. So glad that’s in the skills package I worked on today.
Full disclosure, I had a pretty bad fall late Sunday at a trial and have injured ribs/intercostals and a tidge of pericardial inflammation so not able to run super fast or apparently tug right now. So, toned the exercise down a bit and will ramp up with next steps you recommend as it hopefully improves the next few days.
Rip’s a bit confused why I’m not tugging so you’ll see he’s a bit unsure about the dropped toy after the first few reps so we used more kibble to reinforce.
So, I am still only on the 2nd set of content for this class but I just wanted to post more from our 2 day training this weekend because so much of it is dead on what you are saying are course trends. Taner, the instructor (who you know is a UKI judge) has been a major advocate for bringing more international challenges to the US and big on watching for “newer” trends.
He specifically discussed the exact challenges you’ve been helping us master in he first 2 sets of content in this CAMP.
So, some clips of focus forward starts, threadle wrap vs push wrap, and lots of discriminations, including some that were very similar to what we did in our homework for you earlier this week (especially jump/tunnel and jump/tunnel/weave) and often where you can’t (or don’t want to be) right there to help a ton and verbals get really important. I’m so glad we just worked on this in AU CAMP.😊
I think I was trying too hard to copy your arm style to see if that would help him get more clarity but not doing it “right” and making it worse. We had moved to a single low inside arm a while ago that works well most of the time. It’s only when the line isn’t set that I feel that doesn’t give him what he needs.
I want to share some sequences from our seminar yesterday to see if your eagle eye can help me with pinpointing what went right and wrong on the threadle wraps. I do feel like he’s super good at them when I can successfully set that line to the backside and he’s got nice commitment and independence on them when that goes well.
P.S. we did lots of push wraps too but the threadle wraps are what gives me anxiety so I’d really like to focus on them.
Okay, sh@*t’s getting real. We need serious help with our threadle wraps. In particular the ones where the dog’s line is to the front/wrong side of the jump and they need to diverge from that line to get to the backside.
He’s generally really good at them when the line is already to the backside or even skimming away from the obstacle. I put an example of that at the very end of this video.
So, we worked on the threadle wrap skill set over several shorter sessions today so you could see various attempts.
One of his most common responses is to head to the front and as he realizes I really am asking for the threadle wrap he does a sudden detour to the backside. It impresses people because it shows he knows it’s not a front side but it’s still an error and I do tend to reinforce when he does it because it’s mostly right. I really want him to adjust his path to the backside when I cue it and don’t know how to help him understand this.
Help please!
We’re at a 2 day Taner Dogan seminar here locally so will need to put any advice to work with whatever setups he gives us.
Okay, we’re back and finally able to set up some of your fun drills at home. Between camp and trials, plus all the time driving through so many desert states with no real grassy parks, we didn’t do much training when we weren’t actually at a facility the past few weeks.
Here’s some discriminations drill work from the 2nd set of content.
Seminar was great. LOTS of running, running, technical challenge, forced layer, running, running. She was nice and Rip loved it. 😊 Lots of the trend of stuff everywhere I feel like we’re seeing more of, where just verbals, tricky skills, and distance aren’t quite enough.
She’s a judge for Canada Open (just entered yesterday) as is Greg Derrett (no freaking clue what to expect from him since I haven’t seen any courses from him since we started doing UKI). 🤷♀️
Day off today and then we just have to battle the wind and heat to get some training in before next Tuesday.
Tuesday we leave for New Mexico (17 hour drive) for Game On agility camp and then head right to Washington state (23 hour drive) for Run Wild ISC/UKI show. I’m gonna take some little jumps and cones with us so if you have any mini mini exercises you could point me at in any of our previous courses with you (we’ve got a ton of stuff in our AU library) maybe I could post some of that while we’re away from our full set up at home?
Very helpful insights and I’ll keep all of that in mind as we go on.
I’m struggling a bit to understand what happened in his class tonight. We were at Marin Humane – so on grass. Doing a Stefanie Semkat course, so technical plus distance. Jumping 24”. Jumps are winged, mostly sturdy Galican and most or all 5’ bars I think.
He didn’t drop a single bar in the whole class. Super unusual for him, but also huge difference from home this morning where he dropped tons of bars in the video I posted for class (and even last night at Power Paws – which is also grass and where we’ll be in a 2 day seminar with Stefanie Mon/Tues – where he dropped a good number of bars on another Stef course last night – obviously folks are doing her courses to prep for an ISC trial she’s judging here this weekend).
Here’s some video from tonight where bars were NOT dropping. I’m still doing some of the high arm stuff (haven’t really assimilated that yet). I do think it’s harder for him to keep bars up in our packed dirt/sand surface at home and of course at home I’m trying to push him a bit with the lighter 1/2” and shorter 4’ PVC. Let me know if this example of not dropping bars gives you a more insight into what I should and shouldn’t be doing as we go on.
He definitely acknowledged the jump even though it looks like he was not staring at it.
Yes, my criteria is just an eye flick – if he does stare at it that’s fine but with the longer lead outs an eye flick is all I need to know he’s aware of the correct obstacle.
We worked on the next set of short sequences today. Our issue is definitely bars. To be very fair I am trying 4 foot jump bars and 1/2” PVC with our flimsier plastic wings starting this week in an attempt to help him be much more aware of his body parts hitting bars/wings. AND transitioning to more 24” jumping (from 20/22 in the past).
I’m trying a few different things fewer, more, quieter, louder cues and also delaying a blind at one point to see what handling variables might make it harder or easier to keep bars up. Any advice in this area (or general handling of course) would be greatly appreciated. 😊
Cindi
