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Tracy I love your feedback. You explain things so well and I had many AhHA! moments. Thanks for your clear feedback, explanations and suggestions to try, always sprinkled in with humor. Love this program.
Dianne
Hi Tracy –
Today you will see a 9.5 month old Havanese in full on crazy mode. OMG!! We got to play outdoors in the sun for the first time in something like a week and he was quite the crazy.
First off – Tunnel sends. In hindsight I probably shouldn’t have started with this one today but I’ve been waiting for some dry weather to get the tunnel out and today was the day. We’ve done tunnel work before but the tunnel has been put away since about October since we reseeded the grass and he’s a crazy wild man as you can see. We started out pretty okay but after going through the tunnel a few times boy did we rev up his excitement!
I then tried a couple of wraps outdoors with the toy behind us. I wanted to try a front to a blind and maybe some decels but at this point he was so high he couldn’t ignore the toy behind him.
Finally some leg bumps that we’ve done since he was a little puppy. His head really wasn’t in the game – did a couple of reps, took off to relieve himself, came back and crashed into my legs LOL.
MY TAKEAWAYS:
I’m glad I’m not freaking about this less than stellar training session because he’s an adolescent. Thank you adolescent Brain Camp!
I’m glad he’s having the time of his life! I wasn’t recording when he was doing zoomies all through the yard at breakneck speed. I can’t remember what it’s called, closing the circle or something like that? I need to rewatch the video after the holidays when things calm down a little bit. There is SO MUCH information there. Anyway, what I really want is to foster and develop the speed that is in there.
When he’s that excited our recall and retrieve went to crap.
I need to put a collar or harness on him when I train, but he objects to being held or positioned. I’ve done collar grabs with him from day one but since he doesn’t wear a collar at home they ultimately are light neck/coat touches. I’ll need to get him more used to a collar.
I’m familiarizing him to the treat and train. Currently he doesn’t get it.
Please please please help me not have a dog that runs into the tunnel (with or without toy) and hides :-0
His tug is improving but now that I let him win a lot he’s running away with the toy. Back to retrieve games for him lOL.
Dianne
Hi Tracy!
Thanks for all the great feedback!
We took a nice walk at a park today and we sat and just let Baxter watch the world. He was watching a pickle ball game and there were a couple of dogs under the pavilion that you can see. He was very intrigued but not worried about anything. I attempted a food scatter in the parking lot next to my car as an experiment – absolutely no interest. Food is just not important enough to him to override other distractions.
This afternoon we played the connection sandwich game. Unfortunately it’s raining so we had to play inside. We had fun. The first couple of times he went shooting past me in the collection part but understood what we were doing after a few reps.
About the wing wrap foundations and you suggested a taller prop for him to go round, would a big traffic cone work? I’m looking around the house and can’t find much else 🙁 I could always use a wing stanchion 🙂
About his laying down. I haven’t worked a lot of downs with him so I’m not sure why he’s offering them. I have worked with him on a place station but that’s always on an elevated bed station. He does like motion, there’s no doubt. He did it again today when we were working inside on the connection sandwich drill. Any suggestions?
Will see you tomorrow for the live!
Dianne
Hi Tracy –
Okay we will continue to work on the back up.
Here are some training clips from our work this weekend.
Yes Baxter will play with a toy outside. Here are some wraps – I started out easy again since it was a new location. There is a small white bar on the ground that is hard to see through the leaves. His tugging is getting better on this one furry toy. I can see some tug mechanics I can improve on, like not trying to walk and move him into position while he’s tugging that encourages him to let go. On the last rep – Oh yeah! I’m supposed to reward across the body LOL. That’s going to be a hard habit to break.
We also did some blind crosses. I was a little better with remembering to reward across the body.
And then we attempted some parallel work on the prop and some rear crosses. This did not go so well. He is VERY handler focused and is looking at me rather than driving ahead. Suggestions please!
Also you said on the LIVE that we should be thinking about verbals. I never really trained much in the way of verbals for Gabby (just ran with her all the time) and with Eli and Rudy that wasn’t a thing. Can you give me some suggestions on what cues I should be using for some of these moves? Thanks!
Dianne
Hi Tracy!
Looks like Baxter is getting a flirt pole for Christmas LOL.
Really enjoying the LIVE classes. Didn’t know what to expect initially but really liking it.
Here is an spontaneous training session on the plank. Wayne and I were just trying to set it up for a training session and Baxter ran over the jumped on it so I went with it. You’ll see a cameo of Rudy 🙂
And our first session with back up. I’ve always had difficulty training my dogs to back up because they’re small, coated, and I have a hard time seeing their back legs move from my position. When I went back to watch this video which is positioned from the back I see so many places where I could have marked for his back leg movement. I’m working on the light colored sheet so he can see his dark treat when I toss it. I’m wondering if having him back up to a “thing” very close would help me visualize and mark his foot movement?
Thanks,
DianneHi Tracy –
You are right! I am using the yoga mat a lot and I hadn’t noticed. I’ll change locations on some of these games.
Regarding your comment about using lower value treats – I’m using kibble, LOL. And it doesn’t crumble! I’ve also noticed that he has to smell them out and doesn’t seem to find them by seeing them – I’m always conscious of pulling his hair up out of his eyes and I haven’t seen any evidence that he has bad eyesight. He’ll eat cheese on occasion so I’ll try to use that on the dark floor. He’s very weird about training treats – what he’ll eat one day he’ll absolutely refuse the next. I’ve turned myself into a pretzel trying to find and/or make things he’ll actually eat and the most consistent is kibble. Strange dog 😆
I’m posting a tug toy video. I’m aware that it’s long, sorry, but toy #3 in the middle (out of 5 toys) he absolutely did not want and I did not want to give up on it. In hindsight I should have stopped after toy #4 because we’d been going so long.
What I’d like is some really good tug mechanics from him. He likes playing and chasing his toys but what I’ve observed is that he loves to chase them (and me LOL) and pounce on them but has a very very light bite. If he does bite down on it and slight tug or pressure (either purposefully or inadvertently if we’re running/chasing the toy) he lets go. He LOVES to retrieve if I throw the toy and that’s really my go to right now. His other preference is to grab it with his front feet and try to chew on it or, as you see in some of the video, lay on the floor and be dragged like a swiffer LOL. What I’d really love is to have him drive and bite the toy and do some weight shift tugging. Any suggestions? And again I apologize for how long this session is.
Dianne
Hi Tracy!
Really great webinar on the adolescent brain this weekend. So much good information and lots of aha moments.
Baxter and I got a chance to have a few sessions today. Here he is on the wobble and tippy board. I have been doing these with him since he was a young puppy so these are not new. I put pads under the wobble board to absorb the noise but will gradually remove them. He doesn’t seem to be a noise sensitive dog.
Then we played on a plank.
And in a later session we played with the wing wrap foundations. I took your advice and used the bowls again instead of feeding from my hands. Not the best angle for you to see but I backed up a little after every couple of reps so there was some space between me and the object by the time we were finished.
He’s making me work harder to get on a toy after these treat games!
Thanks,
DianneHi Tracy!
Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you had a great holiday.
I’m running a little behind because of the holiday. Here is our work on wing wrap foundations – I am moving away a little more with each session. Note he made some errors going in front of me the second session but seems to have figured it out.
Also some of the Prop Game #1 sends. We started working on the advanced skills and they seem to have gone well.
Lastly we did a couple of sessions of GOAT games. I’ve shaped him on different objects during his puppyhood so this isn’t new to him.
Thanks Tracy!
PS – I love my training room too!!!
Hi Tracy!
Loved the Zoom Live. I was curious as to how that was going to work and it went very well. It was fun!
Baxter and I have been playing some of these games. He really is a fun puppy.
I reshaped him on a different target for the prop game #1 because I didn’t like the prop I started with. We did a couple of shaping sessions and then started working on the sends. I feel I might have been a step too far away to start.
Next is our first attempt on the wing wrap foundation. Next time I will attempt kneeling so my feet don’t get in the way, but seeing him jump over my legs is kind of cute LOL.
And our last game for the day is the Blind cross foundations. I have to admit I had a hard time with the mechanics of this one. I even practiced without the dog to start but I’m very accustomed to presenting the toy from the other side instead of across my body so this one is awkward for me. I’ll definitely keep working on it because I anticipate using blind crosses with him like I did with Gabby but he’s a fast little guy and I have definitely slowed down so we shall see …
Thanks Tracy!
