[cynthia]

Heh yeah, Maze is definitely the self-elected fun police. :p For today I put him in the bedroom where he can’t see or hear anything so won’t participate!

Casper is such a thinker! I knew that when I picked him up from the breeder. I called in silly sounds to get him to come, and he just stood and stared at me at 9 weeks old. LOL. Like he was wondering whether coming was worth it. :p Also, he did pick up a bad habit at the breeder. She’s not a sports breeder. She did awesome building confidence, but he will run if you bend down to just pet him, and taking anything away won’t happen. I have been doing lots of trading and really trying to convince him that coming to me is super awesome. It’s a thing I think will take a while to fade. That being said, his retrieve is terrible and he’d prefer to run off with things rather than engage with me with things.

This morning I started with Prop Game 1. I may need a bigger room. When just standing waiting for him to touch the folder, he did have to think about it for a while. And he was a bit confused when I pointed toward the folder, so I kept it short and stayed pretty close to the folder.

[cynthia]

Thanks for the feedback! I can definitely give Casper tugging privacy. Maze is the one barking in the kitchen, he’s the house Fun Police, so if anyone else plays he thinks he has to talk about it. If I put him in the bedroom that will solve that problem. I definitely want Casper to keep tugging, so yeah I am looking forward to building that tug-play resilience. Dreamer doesn’t care if something else happens but he’s older and definitely more experienced.

Should I submit more videos of these games? I can do that tomorrow. I do try to keep sessions short but Casper is doing so good and wants to keep learning, so I have to remind myself to stop early, before he wants to stop. :). He also tends to like new toys or special toys better, so I’m keeping that long toy as a special toy he will love to play with when training.

I will reward away next time and stop using the clicker, it is hard to click and hold treats and the nose target all at the same time. :p

Thanks!

[cynthia]

Fun another Farmdog puppy! They are such a wonderful breed. So sweet and they love to learn All The Things. 🙂

Here are Casper’s pre-games. I think I mixed up 1 and 2 lol. I’ve been working a lot of feet on the thing, perch box, platform, etc, so he’s got that one down. 🙂 I used a plastic folder that I haven’t used for anything else.

And I’ve also worked the nose touch to my palm, so putting a target in my palm went well. Though he tried to steal the target. LOL. It’s just a small pad of sticky notes.

I’m really happy how he switches to play. My other Farmdogs only work for treats now, I didn’t really keep up on the play training with them when they were puppies. And I LOVE using toy rewards for Dreamer, so I definitely want to keep that toy drive!

[cynthia]

Thank you! I will probably keep with the smaller games. And the threadle arm videos are great. I tried a little with Dreamer today. I think he will catch on pretty quickly.

“Faster, yes, but also easier because he will be able to read cues sooner and understand the flow of the course, which helps us humans because we don’t need to be as perfect. Then it will be much easier to get the first run, best run theme solidly in place ”
And thanks for saying why we will get better. 🙂 Many people say we will get better ( and I think we will too ), but I haven’t really heard a description of why we’ll get better. 🙂

[cynthia]

Thanks for the feedback! We had a trial this weekend and had fun. I still have handling mistakes lol. Dreamer did awesome. He loves the game so much.

I actually do not have a threadle arm. I wonder if he would really pay attention to it if he’s committed to a tunnel entrance. I do want to train a threadle arm on him for sure and I’d love help!

I have to admit I have a lot of anxiety and should reply here more but sometimes I get overwhelmed!

[cynthia]

LOL I love the water idea! Though I don’t know if I could concentrate on the water bottle and the course at the same time. :). Yeah, I figure he will get faster as he gets older and has more confidence. :D.

So I will set the skills up in the backyard again, but today I had to opportunity to run the standard course at a friend’s house. I don’t have enough room in my yard to set up a full course, and I don’t have aframe or a dog walk. But I can rent a yard to set up the jumpers course.

We only did two reps. And, well, the first run wasn’t the best run. lol. Though I do love that idea of first run best run! I found 9-10-11-12 exceptionally difficult. He locked onto the wrong end of the tunnel so early I didn’t know how to cue the left end of the tunnel. After we ran the full course, I tried some decel, but he was already locked onto the right end. I can post that video too. He’s sooo far ahead of me I don’t know the best way to handle that.

Then 13-14-15… I was able to get a blind in after the frame to support the back side for the second rep, but didn’t get it in for the first rep. I really don’t know the best way to handle that, either. when I worked that sequence he would often miss jump 13 if I pumped my arms and just ran as fast as I could to the end of the frame. Also, I’m not really super confidence he will do the frame safely when I do that. He can tend to fly off the frame from too high a height if I’m running super fast past it. Cause of course he wants to race me. 🙂

Anyway, other issues as well, but those were my two biggest. I look forward to your reply! Thanks!

Rep 1:

Rep 2:

[cynthia]

What, what? Get him faster? 🤣🤣 Lol he’s so fun.

In reply… You said ..When you say his name on tight turns, is that for wraps. I use ‘check’ as a wrap cue. But I don’t always get the word out of my mouth. Lol. I use his name for like a hard turn towards me out of a tunnel or in a pinwheel or something.

My instructor here in Utah also tells me I need need to stay in motion for him so that’s good to have more information about that. I try to but sometimes he’s so far ahead of me I feel like I need to slow down or almost stop in order to be where I need to be. So I definitely need to be aware of that.

I like the idea of a marker on the ground to help me remember when to decel!

I do point too much. Sometimes my arms have minds of their own lol.

Thanks for the feedback! I will set this up again and make notes of your input. I am probably going to a friend’s house tomorrow who is also in this class and try the standard course.

[cynthia]

Thanks!

We had fun working on the first set of skills. I did the first 3. I only did 2 reps of 1, and 2 reps of 2, then I did 4 reps of 3. That was enough, it was already getting hot this morning.

As you can see, I need to cue sooner. LOL. In skill 3, after the first rep, I thought maybe a reverse spin would work well at jump 5, and I think that worked better. He loves to jump in extension, and he’s not very good at collection. I didn’t know, when he was a puppy, that I would need so much collection! And I didn’t do Max Pup, which I now regret, and want to do it with my next puppy. :). And… I don’t have a Come In Towards Me cue, really. For a tight turn I use his name, which I have been doing for 18 years lol, and probably need something different. I am in the process of teaching him Right and Left verbal cues. I’ve never trained them on a dog before, haven’t really needed to, but I think I need to with Mr. Speedy Dreamer. I haven’t had a dog this fast since 2006. 🙂

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