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Just a quick progress check before Package 11 comes along 🙂
Wing Wrap/Rocking Horses:
We got to play and record in a much bigger space so we could get some SPEEEEEED!
Happy Stays:
Tried to mix it up a bit more here and release with/without eye contact, while moving/still, bit more toy movement, etc.
Left/Right:
Got to borrow some wings yesterday, so we took advantage 🙂
Thank you for the bowl/treat suggestion for the restrained recall substitute!
Happy Wednesday!
In response to above: I’m hoping to meet up with the Tollers when they get back from CPE nationals and do a side-by-side walk. I also just made friends with a BC handler at last weekends NADAC trial who saw me working with Macklynn and offered her older/seasoned/relaxed BC as a walking partner at the next trial. In the meantime – the “up and down” game was a fun add for her over this weekend. She was concerned about a Poodle that was 50+ feet away and this was interesting enough to calm her down and get her to focus back in.
Here’s a quick progress check for Games Package 10:
Resilience/Find My Face:
Wing Wrap Rocking Horses:
Her first little bobble was because of a tunnel that was just out of frame and far too tempting. Otherwise – she has seemed happy playing this game over the last week, I’ve just become increasingly aware of how uncoordinated I can be 😉Happy Stays:
Not the best representation of her progress with ‘stay’, but I’ll take it! Something clicked for her with ‘stay’ in the last four weeks or so and we’ve been having a lot of fun making up games with speed, toys, etc- hopefully I’ll get a better video in the near future.Do you have any suggestions/modifications for the Flyball/Restrained Recall? I’m on my own and don’t live near many people who could assist.
Thank you!
Update on the resilience games this weekend:
Our walks at the trial this weekend were very strategic – but I think the effort was well worth it. I asked a friend with very relaxed Tollers if she could help us with this little exercise and it went super well. Not one hint of the intense staring/barking that has occurred in the past, she was ready and excited to do any little trick I asked for, and she seemed generally relaxed.
There were a few items that I had control over to help her: distance from the other dogs, utilizing a friend she knows (whose dogs she has never met), a space that is familiar to her and fairly open, good cheese 🙂
The things I couldn’t control: insane wind that was messing with a lot of the dogs, judge calling numbers over the speaker from inside the ring, my phone repeatedly being blown over.It’s a baby step in the right direction, but it feels HUGE.
Happy Friday!
Quick progress check in for this games package:Threadle Wrap Barrel:
Tunnels:
We were given permission to play solo in the ring after my other dog’s class the last couple of weeks, so we’ve used that time to test some of our more basic skills in a new environment. This week we worked on our threadle foundations and backside slices. There were two straight tunnels set up, so I wanted to give her a chance to open up to a little more speed than we can get in my yard. Hope this isn’t counterproductive! We only ran it a few times total just to be on the safe side. Now that the mud is gone at home and I feel a bit more confident in her understanding of ‘tunnel’ I’m more eager to do more with the tunnel threadle.
Resilience Games/Arousal Management:
She almost focuses MORE when I turn up the dial -but only at home or in safe spaces. We are having to stay in the baby phases and basics of the resilience games when we are out in the real world. I may try to get a video or two of the resilience games from the parking lot of the trial this weekend if I can do so safely/respectfully and in a way that I can still give Macklynn my complete focus. Fingers crossed!Have a great weekend 🙂
Happy Wednesday!
Here are some progress videos from the last couple of days!
Perch Work:
Backside Slice Foundations:
Thank you for the clarification on the setup differences! That was a huge help.
Hi There!
Perch Work:
Strike A Pose 3/Transfer for Threadle Slices:
We’ve had a bit of a rough time transferring from the previous iteration of this game to this one. We played this game many times this week, and progress has definitely been made – but we’re still not quite there. Her tendency is to go through the uprights to get to my hand, even if she is set up in a way that my hand is in an obvious path with no obstruction. In the second video, you’ll see her unsure if she should go through the uprights or not to start the rep. I’m hoping we had enough ‘oops’ reps to give you a good idea of what I may be doing wrong.
In the first video – we started strong with the stay/ignoring the toy, but that got to be too much of the focus, so we switched to a treat toss.
We haven’t yet started the Backside Slice Foundation – only because she was having trouble with the Threadle Slice and I wasn’t sure if it would be too similar or confusing? Let me know what you think 😊
In one of the videos you mentioned potentially having additional information on the setup differences for the threadle/backside – I’d love more information if it’s not already in the field guides/videos.
Leading with the Head/360s:
She does NOT like the idea of having to go around twice before getting a cookie, when she CLEARLY did it correctly the first time 😉. After rewatching the videos I realized she was leading with her head from the start – if that’s the case, should I not ask her for a second turn?
Our new (safer) jumps should be delivered this week, so I can ditch the scary metal jump and potentially not deconstruct hoops for uprights 🙂
Thank you for the input on the resilience games/overall fear regression!
We’ve done a couple sessions with the barking videos, and although it was definitely a rough start – she’s getting better with them!
We did a quick trip to the lake/park yesterday (swimming is her absolute favorite thing, and burns a bit of excess energy) – it was virtually empty, so we stayed to try a bit of resilience work in a secluded area. It was going really well, until it wasn’t ;). A couple came through the confined area we were in and rode their motorized scooters within about 2 feet of us. Absolutely their right, but Macklynn flipped out. It took us a while to reset, calm down, and get a few positive reps in before leaving.
Baby Steps 🙂Get Out: This wasn’t our strongest session of the week (how am I STILL camera shy this far into the class? LOL) – but I think it still shows some of the progress. Our balance reps aren’t fully consistent, but the eye contact you suggested has been a big help.
ShPile: Stacked our toys and made things a bit unstable – she didn’t seem to be bothered. I tried seeking out other things to add, but came up short. At least I was able to keep the toy a bit more interesting this time around!
Backing Up: This one has been slow-going for us for a while now, but I was THRILLED to get a couple of good reps this time. I may need to bungee my hands to my sides so I stop accidentally asking for a ‘sit’ 😀
Wing Wrap/Rocking Horse: We’re getting more drive/speed in this one, which I love. I’m hoping to find some play time soon where my neighbors aren’t out to be bothered and I can be a bit more exciting, but she seemed to drive to the toy well regardless. Very slowly adding distance on this – I initially added a bit too much and she didn’t want to play.
You were right :). Resilience games at the trial went better than I expected. We started with the very basic start of the game out in the parking area (smells, but not many dogs or people), then progressed through multiple mini-sessions through the weekend until we were just outside the barn where people and dogs were regularly walking in sight. For the most part she would observe, then check right back in to continue the game. She only had two moments in which I couldn’t get her attention while she reacted and both times were in response to a reactive dog barking and scaring her (we were VERY far away, so I’m not sure what I could have done to prevent it). I will still absolutely consider this weekend a win for her.
A sudden onslaught of rain has kept us inside, so we are focusing on trying to catch up with our ‘stay,’ retrieves, and backing up. But in the meantime…here are two games we played before the rain hit!
ShPile:
Prop Game 4: Get Out
Still living life in left turns over here! But enjoying Games Package 6 🙂
We had been revisiting the backing up games over last weekend- she still likes to back up a bit sideways so we took a couple steps back to basics before we tackle the added steps for this week. I found that just a very light hand/arm under her belly (no pulling, pressure, directing…just light touch/support- if that makes sense…) helped her back a straight line. Hopefully I didn’t make a poor choice in that…
The Rocking Horse game is a favorite of my older dog, so I was excited to get Macklynn started in it. You will likely watch me correct my errors in real time on this video. As we progressed through repetitions I would catch myself – “Too much hand direction,” “No connection,”…etc. 🙂 I’m learning! LOL
Strike a Pose Part 2!
Unless I’m missing something here, she feels decent on this one? I was pretty surprised and happy with how quickly she picked this one up. Love my post-work exhaustion causing me to be incapable of handling treats AND sticky notes, haha!
We are trialing this weekend, so I’m hoping to spend some time with her between runs working on resilience games. She’s been successful there before, and there are options for varying levels of intensity. I’m optimistic, but a little nervous to be honest.
The defaulting to left turns makes complete sense – when she gets happy zoomies in the yard, they are ALWAYS to the left, she definitely has a preference. I’ve been paying closer attention during the wrap game/rotated sends this weekend and we are making progress.
We ramped up the parallel path game this weekend! We stuck with treats for the sake of the video, but have been alternating treats/toy in our little practice sessions.
We finally got to play with the tunnel! My manners minder was refusing to respond to the remote, so I had to improvise but she seemed content going for the toy…
Thank you for the insight on the resilience game and fear vs. resource guarding – your thoughts were a big relief.
I feel very confident in her ability on the resilience game in lower distraction areas (home, the agility facility we frequent most often, etc.). We’re going to keep working on this in baby steps. We did a quick trip to the lake with a friend yesterday and stayed in less populated areas. Once she was comfortable with my friend’s dog – she did regularly scoot closer to him and turn to see how he was reacting to things that she was unsure about. That just further validated your thoughts. 🙂Thank you!
It has been far too long since our last post – I apologize! It’s been a rough couple of weeks for both of us, but no excuses :). We’ve been playing our games and revisiting some old ones, but I have a severe lack of videos uploaded.
She has been loving the sends and parallel path, so I’ve been working on getting more distance with both of those. We did have an instance where she wasn’t sending backwards (even though I knew she knew how) – watching it back I wish I had reset sooner to increase her success rate…
We did take the resilience game out to the bike trail/lake down the road – but we needed to bring it back to somewhere with less distraction. Her choice lately is to bark at people and I have a hard time redirecting. Some have indicated that she may be resource guarding me, some think it’s fear….so we have been bringing that game back home to reset for success.
And my new tunnel bags came in this week! So we finally get to go back and pick up the tunnel game this weekend 🙂
Happy March 1!
>>CPE is often similar to AKC challenges in many ways, so those are the verbals we prioritize. NADAC has the big distance skills, so we can add those too! And if you have an interest in the international-flavors 🙂 we can add that too! The trick is to prioritize and add it all piece by piece so it doesn’t start to feel overwhelming.
I’ve been doing CPE the longest and just added NADAC in the last year, so those are where I’m most comfortable. For Macklynn I haven’t quite decided what venues I want to pursue. Definitely open to learning more of the internationals and AKC to expand MY knowledge base.
Hoping to have sketches for the turn verbals in the next few days for your comment/correction, since some still aren’t registering for me.Progress videos from this week!
We tried to slide to the next levels in the games you suggested, and she seemed to progress forward well.
I don’t have a video of our ‘stay’ progress yet, but it may be the slowest progressing game for us so far. We’re still rocking the ‘sit,’ one step, ‘catch’ combo. Anything beyond a step and a half away results in a broken stay.*Handling Combos
The camera is mirrored, so I have to really think about which side she prefers – but she makes it VERY clear that she has a preferred side.
**Turn Aways
Added the Prop! This week I’ll try to remember to start throwing the treats/toy to keep the forward focus
**Tandem Turns
Once I thought about it as a rear cross – it clicked. LOL – I’m not sure why my brain wasn’t registering that last week.
**Strike a Pose
Well. I didn’t catch the camera slide until I finished recording. The clouds are lovely, but I wish you could see more of Macklynn :D.
Happy Monday/Tuesday!
Oh, the timing of the topics in Package 4 is impeccable. My older dog missed getting his C-ATCH this weekend due to a poorly directed threadle (100% my fault), LOL – so opening this week’s package and seeing threadle foundations gave me a solid laugh.
On a more serious note- the reminder about perfection vs progress was much appreciated and also well timed.Verbals:
I do use ‘Wrap’ with my other dog, but my hesitation using it for the turn & burn game is potential confusion on NADAC barrels. In some of the sample videos it seemed like some were using ‘Around’ for the game, which is what I use for my older dog on NADAC barrels – would that be appropriate here or do you have a suggestion?
I’m ok changing some of my verbals between Fynn and Macklynn – I’m doing things much differently with Macklynn and want to make sure I learn and adjust so that Macklynn and my future agility pups benefit.
The Verbals section for this package was incredibly helpful. I do have some questions, since I don’t see a lot of the turn situations in CPE trials, but I want to understand and incorporate them. If I don’t find good examples in google searches, I may send a couple rough sketches your way to make sure I understand what’s described.We recorded two quick games today:
Turn Aways:
I clearly do not understand the tandem turn :D. I will revisit the videos and see if I can get it down.
Slightly embarrassed at my allowing her to get distracted by the tug mid-game, but appreciated her telling me it was time to break up the game.
Strike a Pose:
Have a great day!
Happy Friday Night! (Saturday morning :))
Here are progress checks on some of the games we tackled the last few days. Today was our first break in the rain, so we ran outside to take advantage of the extra play space.
This little one blows my mind sometimes – the very first time I dropped the hamper on the ground, she offered to go around it both ways before I realized what was happening. However….she DID watch the tutorial video and seemed a bit stunned and in need of emotional support (hopefully this link works):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ry98WvnBj5lYTww8bWW1ksCGhlbWtfRa/view?usp=drive_linkParallel Path/Prop
Collections:
Turn & Burn:
One question did come up this week while I was looking over your last message:
I know there isn’t set criteria or a black & white answer here, but generally speaking what is a good starting point for determining when to lure vs let them process/shape the action? A lot of what we are going over here is fairly new territory for me, so please forgive the very basic question!!
The backing up is getting better, but she’s still preferring to go sideways sometimes – so I will revert back to lure in the warmup sets just as a reminder.Incredibly rainy day here today – so we were resigned to work in my little living room. For that reason – we revisited the Parallel Path and Backing Up games 🙂
Parallel Path
-Watch in real time as I realize the mistakes I’m making in this one.
Backing Up
-The tips you gave on the last video for this game worked wonders over last week. She’s been comfortable with this green mat, so I tried using it as a starter for a bigger (or slanted) platform. For a few sessions she was working her back legs even harder by strategically backing up to avoid the mat – but we made some baby steps in the right direction this time.
