[dashalin]

So tonight we played a bit and did a bit of catch up and review. JJ had already had a busy day so I do not know if that made a difference in how she looks in any of these videos. The first thing that I am posting is three shorts at the weirdness gauntlet. https://youtube.com/shorts/IGMu-4P73Eg?feature=share. was the first time through. JJ shows a slight glance at two of the objects, otherwise she did not care about the contents in the hall at all. In the second time through, I deleted much of what was there and added one object. It was really interesting here to listen to JJ. She decided to approach this as a scent work activity. You can hear her sniffing the objects. I am not sure what triggered that action from JJ. It might have been that the bag looked like a container from a container search. https://youtube.com/shorts/Pw3BmE_urk8?feature=share. In the last run through, JJ did a quick sniff of two of the objects, but without finding odor the previous time i think that she did not spend as much time doing a scent search. https://youtube.com/shorts/8WgWclruzV0?feature=share. This is what can happen when you have a versatility dog LOL.

One thing that my agility instructor talked with me about today was whether JJ can back up. I just happened to have JJ’s Kato board available so I showed her backing up on it. She noticed that JJ was only using her left foot to back up. To see if we could get her to alternate the feet she begins to back up with first, I switched hands. I took this video at home tonight to see what she was doing with her feet. If you have a suggestion to get both feet working equally I would love to hear your thoughts and try it. https://youtu.be/IIhvWEqK7ZU

The last thing that we videoed was Remote reinforcement We tried this with both a toy and with food. I did food first. I used the cue “It’s Time”. I unfortunately use “Let’s Go” in Rally Obedience, so I had to come up with a plan for a different verbal cue. I was actually shocked that JJ did not climb all over the stand to get to the food. https://youtu.be/zJCXI-CmRpE. She seemed like a well behaved little lady. Not her usual MO. There was an incident earlier in the evening that might have had an impact on her behavior. We had gotten a cooked chicken from Costco and it was on the counter. I had removed enough for dinner and then moved it further back on the counter away from the edge. Somehow while we were eating JJ got up there and pulled the chicken near the edge and was caught munching on the chicken. That was followed by a loud NO, and JJ got down and gave the guilty look. Soooo getting up on a surface might not have been in her thoughts about an hour later.
I also tried this with a disc as a tuggy. Soft tuggies were not enticing her tonight. Again, JJ looked like a well behaved little lady doing exactly what she was thinking I would want her to do. https://youtu.be/S4JOGhkgpb0
I look forward to your feedback.

[dashalin]

We have been doing short practices, but often without video to go with it. Not that helpful i know, but it was what worked in to our schedule as of late. I am just sending out 3 videos today. The first is with Strike a pose. I think that we are doing pretty good on this activity. https://youtu.be/vdoeqYf7Sq4. let me know what you think.

The next two videos are of wing wrap/rocking horse. You can hear JJ’s mom screaming in the background. She is mad that she is not on the agility floor. https://youtu.be/5mvkEVW4Qmk. I think that in this practice I was not doing what I was supposed to at connecting in the center. I wanted to send it anyway just to show this particular clip. In the next video I had taken i fixed that but the video somehow got deleted. In the next video we tries side sends. https://youtu.be/-AoFvRbbgyw. not perfect, but beginning to get the flow of things. As I reread what you had said…that speed is not the most important thing on these practices, i am wondering if I need to spend more time getting the breakdown of the action more clean before asking for the additional flow.
Holly
PS JJ got a Best in Breed this weekend and a 3rd place in UKC nosework vehicle searching, earning her a Total Dog award. She then went to a rally and obedience match on Sunday and did okay for her first time trying this kind of practice for both Rally and Obedience.

[dashalin]

Oops here is the first video link from tonight. https://youtu.be/k0DVQ–iD7M

[dashalin]

Not a super large amount of time to play with JJ today at the club between classes, but we did do a it of wrap/combo work.
In the first video I was trying to work with JJ on wraps with tuggy for excitement and racing to her toy. Boy in looking back at this I was less than stellar. I did not use my cue words and when I did they were sooo late. I was pleased to get JJ to interact with her disc and get her to run to it, but she was not really interested in getting it before me. My foot work was constantly off at the start of the wrap. I also seemed to think that I needed to collar direct her to the wrap which I should not have had to do. The dog barking in the background is her mom. We were at the far end of the floor of the agility building so that seemed to work ok.

In the second video I decided to have JJ run to a food treat rather than her toy. She ran faster for the food, but in the beginning I was dragging her away from the food and in retrospect I should have probably lured her away with the food I think. I was so worried about her just returning to the food treat, that I did not do this as well as I might have. Looking back at my videos is so enlightening. At about 47 sec, JJ just decided that coming back to the “barrel” on her own is what would yield the treat so she went willingly. I also decided to try the decel and turn, but noticed that I was not moving prior to the “decel” so this did not look right either. I remember after looking at this that I needed to slow down the turn too. Sigh. Things did get a bit better by the end on the one side. https://youtu.be/7yihBKfkUfc

In video 3 we worked again on the wrap to front and then rear cross. I like it when I can feel the problem with my handling when I do it and add that in the commentary. I loved having more space for these activities with JJ today, but certainly did not always use the space I had.

For the last video here, we did some additional handling combos. I can feel when I do not decel well enough and even more can see the effect on JJ. https://youtu.be/uUsRy0nvhWA. I wish I had this kind of space available all of the time so I could just go out and do a quick video to review later. Bit by bit I feel that the handling improves, but the sessions need to be short for JJ’s sake, so I fall back in to the bad behaviors when I revisit these games with the time gaps in between. We keep plugging away at this though. I wish I could have a coach on my shoulder giving me a blow by blow commentary so that each additional run would improve with the constant reminders. I look forward to hearing your commentary so that we can continue to improve as a team.

[dashalin]

I did not expect to have time to do any videos today, but made a bit of time tonight to see where we are at on a few things.
The dogs had a fun weekend doing visitations with Grandma and Grandpa, playing with JJ’s sister, trying dock diving, and doing a bit of agility on the side.
The first thing that I wanted to show you was the two retrieve games. I played part 1 with JJ and she did not have a difficult time putting her mouth on the toy and loved getting treats. https://youtu.be/iWPmgo9nJw8. When we went to phase 2-3 it was a disaster with the treats. JJ became obsessed with the treats and could not handle focusing on the toy at all so there was no advancement in getting a retrieval. When my camera person came back (I did not get any attempts at parts 2-3 on video), I had them take all of the treats that I had on me away so that I was treatless, and then JJ would actually retrieve the disc to me. https://youtu.be/TLsA9EFwwBs. I barely tried to see if this transferred to the other type of minidisc that I had at that time and JJ was not as interested in it so I did not push it with her. That is as far as we got on this game.

The next game we worked on was the running contacts one. Funny story, someone was getting rid of the PVC square so I bought it today for $10 for this activity. It can also be used for contacts on the a-frame when we get to that point if we need it. If not my students might like to try it on the a-frame in class. For this game we tried the square first and JJ liked going in it for treats and was willing to do this even with me at a distance. She transitioned well to using the yoga mat, so we decided to move in to part 2 where JJ worked on the running contacts through the box and through the mat contact. Let me know what you think. https://youtu.be/bUDbonOxuqM

The final game for tonight was one we had struggled on before and I talked ot you about it. I spent about 10 minutes getting some of the first sits out of JJ (not on video), and i really had to wait her out. During the second attempt a bit later you will see that she did some learning while we were away from the game and she came back remembering the sit much of the time was going to yield a treat. https://youtu.be/7NsQtkg6i8g. I am not sure that I was always using “catch” and “get it ” correctly, but I did my best at that. Later we decided to get a step or two of distance from her. https://youtu.be/Xr_RWvDvr6I. For this I used the verbal command to sit (this would not work earlier in the day even though she knows the command well, but tonight I got her to sit most of the time on a verbal command and we got some very short (time and distance) stays.

Tomorrow we will be at the club and hope to do a few of the games that require more distance.

Hope you had a good weekend.

[dashalin]

First I have a Question. When you said add people to the leg bump game should the people be back to back so JJ moves over the legs in a circle, or should they be side to side? I was having a hard time visualizing this.

We just did two games tonight. It is a busy weekend with planting flowers and veggies and babysitting JJ’s sister.

The first game was a redo of the ladder game. I had my tow bowls at the ready for when I flipped the ladder to a higher height, but as you can see in the video, for some reason the height was no longer an obstacle and JJ was fine moving through the ladder even with the ladder flipped to the higher side. The one thing that I had to be aware of was how fast JJ went through the ladder. a couple of times she sped up making her trot no longer the nice even gate she had been doing. That just made me more aware of how I needed to keep the tempo even so she moved through one step at a time. It is interesting to me how the reintroduction of the ladder was so easy for her, and her questions were no longer present. I figured it might take additional sessions to get to this point. https://youtu.be/NnLYc5vi3mk

The second game was the Concept transfer 1 Parallel path commitment. Again JJ surprised me. I expected this to take more time to get her interested in going through the uprights over the bump. She seemed to settle in to the motion readily. I got pretty good distance from JJ, although my camera person focused on JJ most of the time not on the two of us. I look forward to trying this in a better space than my living room. Unfortunately that will not happen until Tuesday. https://youtu.be/NNSZc1q3nhs. I did notice that even if I clicked as JJ was looking at the bump, I really needed to get the treat thrown out or she would look back at me. Timing is everything in most of these games.

I hope that you have some good things planned for the holiday weekend. I have the gardens to work on (I think that we are finally past frost advisory time. We had temps in the low 30’s the last two nights), dock diving time with the puppies to introduce the two young ones to the water and the dock, and a 90th birthday party. I also have a make up dinner with my Mom for Mothers day. I missed mothers day so this weekend is our celebration. On Memorial day I have a lesson for the older girls for agility. All is well in my world 🙂

[dashalin]

I was hoping to get more posted today, but this is what i have. We played a few games today. The first one I am posting is the leg bumps and ladder games. I was not sure about the leg bumps with a bit bigger dog. It seemed clumsy and JJ really just walked over my legs. I was not even sure if I was doing it correctly. I only used a toy because her food drive is so strong that I thought this would be a better fit for a first time doing it. https://youtu.be/caGTIo1mx9c

I had made a ladder a few years ago during the Covid outbreak. We were home so much and I loved using the time to work with my older girls on fitness activities. I got it out of the garage and used it with JJ. The first video is just with a toy. https://youtu.be/BuqPhvLOU1I. , and the second one is with food as a treat. https://youtu.be/Jjitp7E00JY. The video example in the course only had music if I remember correctly so I am not quite sure what I needed to be doing. I do know that my timing and verbiage was off. Yes when i should say get it and the timing of the clicker), but on a first trial I seem to be much more clumsy than once we have had more practice. In both cases, the first video with the toy reward and the second video with the food reward, JJ had a lot of questions once the ladder was flipped and was raised up. How should I go about working with her on this. If I were to lure her I am sure that she would do the higher ladder without qualms, but with out a lure she did not feel as comfortable with this action.

The next game was resilience part 3 the environment. In the first video it was our first time on leash. I sometimes find it hard to know when JJ is actually looking at me with her black fur and dark eyes. Hopefully I see her looking correctly. I know that my timing was not always spot on, but in this environment JJ was relatively good about checking out the environment quickly and returning to my attention. The one time that she got behind me though it was an interesting puzzle for her.https://youtu.be/Q1BXk8ffN7I

When I added distractions ….even the high value distraction she seemed un phased, but that is her foodie nature. This got cut short because I ran out of treats. https://youtu.be/VUY_Z6X0lEA

I look forward to your insights.

[dashalin]

So we worked on a couple of the things we did the other day hoping to make some improvements. For tunnel games 1 we tried to include all of your suggestions. I took a 10′ tunnel and shortened it a bit for this session, unlike the full length 15′ tunnel I had used full out the first time. In video 1 https://youtu.be/T4f9p1crY0k. I just let JJ find the opening and go through the tunnel. She started to understand the MM without any problems. She loved getting the treats and I tried to always turn to the tunnel opening which I had not done in the first video. I was not sure if she should get any kind of reward for running backwards through the tunnel. I thought probably not. JJ loved doing this and realized the faster through the tunnel the faster she would get the treats. In video 2 https://youtu.be/mK6BF8tCfeA. we did the restrained ready ready tunnel tunnel tunnel. I used a treat to get her back in position each time and gently took her collar, but looking at the video I still did move her in to place with the collar at times. I kept her close to the tunnel opening for these as much as I could. The one time we were a bit further away she did question it, so I think that she needs more time like this.

For predictability part 2 patterns I am hoping this is more what you were looking for. https://youtu.be/HEURFgk4jfg

In strike a pose, I had two videos today, but will just share the first. We did this with a toy and food. I chose a bigger disc to save my hands LOL. I noticed that I showed too much of the disc at about 48 and so had to hide it a bit more for the remainder of the session. JJ does not hit as hard or as fast when food is not the reward, but I felt like this was a great session. In both videos the same thing happened when I showed too much of the disc. I need a high value toy for her to want to interact with it, but then it becomes more interesting than just the target. https://youtu.be/s7gxoIU-2fs

I felt like I did a better job with the Prop game #3 even though we did not get to using the prop. I accidentally left JJ’s prop at home :-(. For both the lap turn https://youtu.be/fbOndJvkt_Q. and the tandem turn https://youtu.be/WUj7I2LqFQI. I tried to make sure that the cookies were already ready in my hand so I did not have to go digging in my pocket to get the treats. That way I could be in the proper pose at the start of the turn so that JJ knew what to drive to better. I am wondering if my hand was too high up (not at nose level) for the tandem turn. I see JJ jumping in the air for this turn.

As always I am excited to hear your thoughts.

PS You did not miss the run for the Robin in the videos from yesterday, my camera person stopped the video when JJ bailed for a more interesting activity.

[dashalin]

Quick additional question. On start line stay games, should the dog Ofer up the sit, or should it be cued. I read in the notes or maybe saw it in the video to only cue the sit if it is consistent. Well it isn’t that good. I can give a hand cue for sit and it is typically good, but then the dog is looking for a hand cue and I did not think that is what we were looking for in this activity. JJ is doing anything but offering up a sit when we start doing this. She will stare at me, or back up or do something else, but she does not naturally Ofer up a sit at this time.

[dashalin]

Lots of play trying to get the idea of what we want from ourselves and the pup. I am mostly posting my introductory clips with JJ so that i can get feedback and move ahead.
For predictability part 2 patterns we did two clips one inside and one outside. Here is inside. https://youtu.be/zYW88FK1MOk and here is outside. https://youtu.be/rn5PL5PCsEo. When it comes to food she is always right there for more, although sometimes it was a challenge to find it in the grass.

For this week I have three things to share so far. For strike a pose the first video is with food and then I tried to transition to a toy with out success. https://youtu.be/PxQw0fgEDrc. When my mechanics were good she had no problem with this. I see that at times I had difficulty changing sides, and making sure that I had my feet in the right direction and that I was correctly looking at the target.
In video 2 I tried to incorporate her disc but on a tug so that I could spare my hands. At first JJ was not happy having no food as a reward, but things did get better as we went along. Again I had to remind myself where I was supposed to be looking. https://youtu.be/UVr6KtGUJlU

We did get a tunnel out in the yard. This was much harder than using one in a building. At one point JJ just ran off to check out one of the local Robins. She had never been introduced to a treat and train before and had a great level of fascination with it which made recalling her more challenging so I used an occasional food treat fro coming back to me. https://youtu.be/RWZb84T5I_Q. She has been introduced to tunnels at the club , but this was really different for her. Seeing how she did with just making her own choice I was really thinking that moving on was not a good idea, but decided todo a very short session with restrain and ready, tunnel tunnel tunnel. This actually did not seem to go to badly. I am interested in your thoughts. We did not try backing up more than one step. https://youtu.be/4E9d9vfr63I. I think that she liked this more than the first session.

We also tried our hand at prop game #3 and the first clip is a start at the lap turn. She definitely prefers one side to the other, and I did not have to worry about my mechanics so much on the second side. I really had to slow things down on the first side mostly so that I could get my own mechanics correct. I did not do the send to the prop for the lap turn. https://youtu.be/T_W-j46zkBY

For the tandem turn again JJ had a better side and so did I lol. Here is a clip in both directions.
https://youtu.be/ht91iZlmsfg.
Later we included the prop. I find it interesting that the prop is not a bigger draw for her. We always have to go back to re-introducing it to JJ and building up its importance before we play a game with the prop included. The two sides are on separate clips since I had to move the prop in the middle. https://youtu.be/5nyMkdyKiYE. and https://youtu.be/C4d7fueE0hc
I have a tendency to put pressure on her to move towards the prop. I have not figured out a way to deter myself from doing that. If you have any suggestions let me know. Maybe I need to use a painters tape line that I am not supposed to cross.

Tomorrow we are at the club so maybe I can get some new video there.

[dashalin]

We played more games tonight and actually got some additional video. I thought out beginner retrieve game went well. I would like to know what the next step will be rather than the narrow hallway. https://youtu.be/Hta30f-oBII

We did a review of the parallel path for prop games. JJ still does not always go to the prop on her path. I am not sure if it is the space we are in or something else. When we are not playing the game JJ will often chose to go over to her prop and put her feet on it, so I know that she equates it with treats some of the time, but not consistently. https://youtu.be/Qk1IhTFaU5M

We then reviewed sending to the prop as a start to working on counter motion. We still need work on a consistent send before the counter motion will be really successful. https://youtu.be/X3c615TXKKs I did find that if I had a cookie in my send hand I was doomed. I need to make sure that the treat is in the other hand or she gets confused by my send hand motion.

For collection part 2 we reviewed the motions without the send. https://youtu.be/zgBz44M07nQ JJ was pretty obsessed with the food so I tried to integrate a toy for the go go go. This did not work out well at first. I went through a number of different toy options without success. She did not want to run ahead for a toy, but food was a different story.
https://youtu.be/Q8xNSJlzyeE I also found it more difficult to coordinate things with a toy added to the mix. JJ finally settled in to the chase with her disc. https://youtu.be/15weboGJ7zc I unfortunately did not always keep her on the correct hand as you will see her sneak around behind me to chase to the toy. I need to work on my own mechanics. I hope that I will have a chance to play some of these games in a less restrictive space in the next day or two.

I hope that you had a good weekend.

[dashalin]

Again it is a crazy life. Fun with the older girls this weekend and a 3 day trial where I was also head course builder. JJ got lots of interaction with people and she is working on her polite behaviors when meeting people and waiting for petting. When meeting others is not her best activity yet, but we are working on it. She is getting used to life at a trial.

We did play games during the week, but viddo times were more limited and exhaustion made me slack when we would get home at night. I have some things to post now and more later tonight.

We worked a lot on rear end awareness. There are 3 progressive videos. We did not go back to the plank (it was downstairs) but we did add in a wobbling surface with the fit bones. In video #1 JJ is offering rear end awareness by getting up on the revised surface readily on her own. https://youtu.be/KxZM3NyHEM4 In the second video JJ was introduced to the fit ones for backing up. I was more patient than typical, but I think it was totally worth it. She finally had success, but I was out of cookies so the session ended. https://youtu.be/tqiwR9ZL6Oo Later we came back to the fit bones and she found it much easier to fine her groove with her back end getting up on the surface. https://youtu.be/iPeoXuNmNsU I am anxious to hear what you think. Getting down on her level was such a good suggestion last time.

The last video here was Wing wrap on her bad side. I will have more for you of this later. Her good side seems to be no trouble at all, but this side poses an interesting challenge for her. I will definitely love hearing more about your thoughts for working her on a wrap on this side. https://youtu.be/1fQ2K3EBjrI.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.
Holly & JJ

[dashalin]

Here is the link that I forgot to add for the reinforcement strategies:food. https://youtu.be/ks6Auweg_FI. “The first video is Get it food. I do not see a problem with this. I do have to be careful how I offer food from the hand when JJ is in a heightened state. She wants to lunge at the food and can be quite demanding. I found that turning my hand over so that she comes in to the hand is a better situation for me.”

I also wanted to include the toy races video we had done before class last night. I thought the mechanics were better here. It was much earlier in the day than it is for class. JJ had much more energy at this time of the day, and I had enough room to do a better job with the game. I thought the slight push back might have been better for her than the food throw back, but with the slight push back she still beat me. Interested in your thoughts. https://youtu.be/8YkMEMOjwU0

Class was fun last night, but JJ was sleeping between turns. She has a Household puppy class that day and she also did some Cato board work and a few games earlier in the day (not to mention running around with the other two dogs in the yard), so she did not have the drive that she has earlier in the day in the live class. Not much I can do about that.

We will get a chance to play some of the new games later today so I can post her progress.

“

[dashalin]

Reinforcement strategies: getting started.
For this part I separated things in to separate videos. The first video is Get it food. I do not see a problem with this. I do have to be careful how I offer food from the hand when JJ is in a heightened state. She wants to lunge at the food and can be quite demanding. I found that turning my hand over so that she comes in to the hand is a better situation for me.

We tried two toys, but the toys that I had brought with me were definitely not of equal value so this session was a bust. JJ will NOT let go of a high value toy for a low value toy no matter how enticing i made it. Maybe if I had gotten the high value toy away from her and had done running play with the other toy or been able to get her to go chase it, things would have been different. This might have to be done with the two discs or something. https://youtu.be/o6KX6qsFIGI

The next section is food and toy. I did not think that this went too badly. She is always willing to get a treat and she actually went back for the toy once food was no longer offered. https://youtu.be/uHfQwhqRjUs

We did not add getting the toy in a retrieve. She had too big an area to work in for this to be successful.

We had room for toy races here. When we did this I had to work on my own mechanics again. JJ would get free from me before I could get her collar so that was a bit of a challenge, and when I did win, I am not sure that I should have thrown the cookie back again for the next run for her to win. It is definitely a work in progress, but I think that she loved the game and the challenge. https://youtu.be/GzVrPAaVeg0

I am pretty sure that I left off the updated wing wrap session with JJ. I think that sitting on the couch with a laundry basket in front of me would have been a better scenario for this session. JJ occasionally went behind me. I am guessing that I should not have let her have access to going behind me for this, hence sitting on a couch with something in front of me would have kept her from doing this. https://youtu.be/b08WZHwmWRk
As always I look forward to your insight.

[dashalin]

Busy weekend with course building and trialing with the two older girls. JJ came one day, but on the other days she got to stay with her sister and have some wonderful sibling play time. That being said today was again a catch up time for videos.
In the first video we are repeating hind end awareness with just the raised platform. I think she is showing growth here making the choice to do the back up herself. Let me know what you think and if we should go on to trying the ramp again or to stay at this level longer or how to change mechanics if needed. https://youtu.be/s66JxMAsQfY

In the next video we did the prop game with toy only like you suggested. I agree that this was more successful and JJ did not get so distracted by searching the floor for cookies. I totally need to work on my toe point though LOL. https://youtu.be/24rmIklOKeU

In the video clip with goat trick one, you suggested that I toss the treat to create more drive to the object. this seemed to work, but my mechanics and timing was not on so I was not giving her the feedback that she needed in a timely manner. I have a different clicker I might try, or I may have to just defer to using a marker word. I love the clicker in theory, but have never felt the coordination of its use very well. https://youtu.be/mDMp8i2srcw

For resilience 2 predictability clean mechanics and markers. Again I fear that my own coordination issues did not help me out on this. This was our first time doing this and I am not sure that I liked the choice I made for the toys. First, they probably should have been different from each other, and if not of equal value as tug toys. Things to think about as I am working with her. On the other hand I felt that we had some good success here. She seemed to take the second disc readily with the word bite. She did well with get it, although bringing it back was not always the best, and I actually got food out a couple of times without her letting go of the tugged. https://youtu.be/wNSpD5vDzZM

For goat tricks 2 we redid the wobble board with towels under it to get her to shift her weight to the rear better with the tugging. Let me know what you think. I still used food to get her started. Food and confidence go hand in hand with this girl. https://youtu.be/N5qAXamLx-0

We also did more with the plankrobatics. https://youtu.be/lhtU7zK2R4s I worked with the cookie lure lower like you suggested. I think that went well. Let me know what you think.

JJ gets to work with Jen Pinder a bit on Mondays during a shared lesson time. We totally noticed her preference to a side when sending her in to a tunnel. I find the handedness in dogs really interesting and am becoming more aware of it when JJ does her work on her training games and activities. We have done a lot of work in the heel position and working with her on my right side is definitely not very strong. We will be doing more with that this week for sure.

I wanted to do more with the toy races, but found it too difficult at home. Maybe we can do more with this tomorrow on my teaching day at the club.

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