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Hi Tracy,
Good luck this weekend!
After a ridiculous amount of time walking the Ladder – tunnel to 2 wings in my yard, talking to my phone while watching your video, I think I finally got it. Then much to my surprise, I discovered I had taught Ven dig dig. I do not remember doing that.
Another muggy day/evening so I broke our session up into little bits. Here are the short videos with my questions
Beginning to work the course – after rewatching this morning, I think I start with Ven on the wrong side coming out of the tunnel?
Working the hard side (dog on left) – I’m sure I’m doing something wrong/less effective here but not sure what
Working through errors / back chaining a portion – better error handling?
Jean-Maria and VentureThanks Tracy,
I will keep trying not to let him know if I or he make a mistake. Old habits can be hard for old brains to break 😀
Venture had his regular quarterly chiro appointment on the 8th. He got a few adjustments, nothing major. I had already messaged our canine massage therapist but she’s out of town through the weekend. I’ll get him in to her next week. I have been giving him massages in the evenings to help him wind down at bed time and to get my hands on him to make sure he’s feeling good.
I am confused on what to say for the steps in the tunnel with two wings drill. What command do you use for each obstacle in the sequence? I have watched the video several times but just not getting it.
89 degrees feels like 97 tonight due to humidity so I picked the tandem turns drill so we could do something less complicated and a bit less intense. Here is the video of the only session we did. I was surprised he remembered the two hands tandem turn from the flat. Were we ever supposed to put a verbal on it or not yet?
Jean-Maria and VentureHi Tracy,
So maybe I was doing a lot of things to help him. When he said he couldn’t work, we played. We had lots of impromptu short games of tug that he often instigated. I fed him out of a treat bowl for breakfast most mornings. He’s had extra naps because I have to go to the office twice a week now. I had never seen him stress down in training before. He’s also peeing on EVERYTHING (no sign of UTI) and getting into EVERYTHING.We were able to do two short sessions this evening, worked Wingin’ it – tunnel to jump. You’ll see in the first video, we started with a little game of tug but once work began, he made it very clear he expected that Ziwi Peak in my pocket. It was super muggy tonight so I’m pretty happy with how he did. We came in between sessions just to cool off a bit.
Jean-Maria and Venture
Hi Tracy,
Need some help. Venture is struggling with focus for about a week now. He’ll be all excited to work, do one or two reps and then just stand there looking at me like his brain has left the building. He just turned 14 mos old. Is this normal?
Another example, at his weekly class yesterday, his first turn he did the easy sequences. Second turn, we started back chaining threadle out of the tunnel and he couldn’t stay engaged or even hold a stay.
Help please
Jean-Maria and VentureHi Tracy,
Why do I always forget that when he’s slow responding he’s processing? Thanks for reminding me again.
It took a full 48 hours for him to sleep on it. I tried to work the exercise again last night, he was all gung ho to play and as soon as I asked him to wrap he just stood there with his tail at half staff. I tried one more time with food and I clearly had no dog to work. So we bailed last night.
Tonight he brought me a tug to play so we used the highest value tug for the first part of our session
His enthusiasm was dropping so we switched to food and here is the middle rep. I added the circle because he really perks up when he gets to move his feet.
And final rep
Do you think we need to continue working this exercise or should we move to this week’s Wingin It that adds the tunnel to build the ladder exercises? He might benefit from the tunnel to get him moving.
Jean-Maria and VentureHi Tracy,
I’m going to rewatch the videos from this past weekend to see if the rear cross issues were connection. That’s helpful info to go look for.Here is our first work on the Wingin’ it – counter motion game. I hurt my back today when I picked up 30 pound case of chicken necks in a hurry. I just couldn’t deal with trying to play tug with him so I used food and we just worked individual wings. Ven seemed a bit unsure so I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong or it’s just been a while since he saw this game. I think he also knows I’m not feeling too well because of my back screaming at me. Thoughts on our work?
Jean-Maria and Venture
Hi Tracy,
Venture is tired from the weekend seminars so no video. I do have some questions/observations after walking courses and running him this weekend.
1. Pinwheel – what verbal should I be using? I used right/left. With past dogs I had a turning cue (sprinkler sound). Do we have something like that with MaxPup or is it not needed and we use something else?
2. Rear crosses – discovered Venture responds to the “wrong” arm for rear cross. No clue how I taught that but will be working to use the correct arm closest to the dog. At our lesson yesterday we worked on my hand motion drawing a C and he started getting it.
3. 3 jump serpentine – I used my 180 around command going in. When I fell behind he turned to me and missed 3rd jump. We experimented with using the around command repeated as he takes the second jump because at that point, it’s a 180 and just happens to come towards me. He read that perfectly.
4. Social boy – a row of people at one end of the room was a huge challenge for him the first day but we worked through it and by day 3 he ignored the people and played with me all 3 turns.
5. Over tired = naughty adolescent. We have work to do for him to learn to chill between turns. He only protested being in the crate a couple times but he didn’t lay down and rest either. Covering him didn’t help.
Jean-Maria and Venture who wants every day to be agility dayHi Tracy, greetings from the surface of the sun. Goofy Ven demanded to work this afternoon for his favorite bun bun tug. So short video of the first couple passes of dog on left for straight lines.
Second short video, weird issue I’m unsure how to handle. Venture started jumping the blue wing. For today I switched the blue wing for one of the big PVC wings but wonder what if anything I need to do about this.
Third short video, we really struggled with rear cross and back side with dog on left. How should it look to Venture and what tells him the difference between these two? Only the verbal or should I be showing something clearly different?
Jean-Maria and Venture
Giving ourselves a break from dog on left…
Straight lines 4 ways. He worked through the dog next door barking. I am limiting sessions to 5 minutes because by then we’re both super hot and brain dead. So we didn’t do the last tunnel plus back side. We’ll start with it in the next session. Am I correct to use the wrap verbal on the rear cross here? I was shocked how fast he remembered the back command for the backside.
Yes he’s jumping up at me but not in frustration. I switched to one of the original lotus balls that is VERY easy to open. It’s his favorite treat toy. I dread the day it finally gives up the ghost since it was Zubie’s and every dog since prefers it to the newer version Clean Run sells now.
Jean-Maria and Venture
Question about the love the slam game. Venture has a trained back up to feet on raised object (like a 2o2o). Is it ok to ask him for that when we play the game?
Question about the motion game. I don’t have a wobble board but I do have a 3′ rubber board that tips. Ven isn’t really phased by motion so do you think it’s ok to just use that rather than a true multi direction wobble board?
Now, for the video. I swear I am trying to get this right. I believe I need to fix me for our future success. So here is the first 3 minutes of our session tonight. I don’t think I’m getting the left arm back far enough but I’m not totally sure that’s why he kept missing the second jump coming out of the tunnel going clockwise. Am I diagnosing it correctly? Should I be rewarding more often, life maybe after 2 obstacles, before we lose the connection?
For rewards, I’m throwing the lotus ball on the line which just isn’t very far away and I’m also staying away until he’s gotten his cookies out of it. Is there a way I could mark and send him away to a manners minder to get his reward? I was hesitant to try that because I can’t really put it on course without it becoming a predictable source/place to get reward. I’m thinking almost like the beginning of working in the ring and then going back to the setup to get the reward.
Thoughts?
Jean-Maria and VentureBeryl was nothing for us except a shower today and humid tonight. We’ll be back in the 90s tomorrow and approaching 100s the rest of the week. Bleah.
So here is my attempt to run Venture without arms… mostly. I see the differences but making my body do the things is a struggle. So we started out sort of lazy game style and then added a little bit of verbals for complexity and to see how it would go. Thoughts?
Jean-Maria and Venture who had a piece of grass stuck in the side of his mouth bugging him
Hi Tracy,
>>Let me know if the connection-not-pointing on the sending makes sense
Got it. I tried to pay attention to clearly showing the send tonight. I need to work on it some more – hard to show it and yet get out of there.For tonight we worked send and go and blind crosses between jump and tunnel. I made a serious effort to never let him know if he missed a jump or did something incorrect.
We may lose a day or so to Hurricane Beryl depending on the track it takes across Texas. We are 355 miles from the current expected landfall point so we’ll be on the far west edge and it moves inland. The rain will be welcome as long as it doesn’t last too long.
Jean-Maria and VentureFluffy blinds with one or two oops FCs. I rotated the course to maximize the space between the top jump and the two before the tunnel ends to give me room to work on crosses and leave room for Venture to wrap the outside wings.
He demanded to work this evening despite 105 heat index. I gave in before the sun was down as far as I usually try to wait. I pulled out a lotus ball and some different treats to see if I could get more enthusiasm. It worked until the heat got to us both.
I’m unclear why we had trouble getting out to the middle jump when going clockwise (jumping to right). I’m sure it was something I was doing but not sure what.
What do you think about replacing the 15′ tunnel with the little baby tunnel to leave more space for the jumps and reduce the distance he’s running a little bit while it’s so stinking hot. I only have 30′ x 30′ to work with.
Jean-Maria and now crashed on the cool floor VentureThe heat wave broke and my dog’s brain fell out on the floor. Front came in this afternoon, temp was only 83 and Venture had zero focus. We tried working several times over the afternoon / evening but only the first session was even remotely successful. So here is our wrap work from that session.
I was trying to work the fluffy blinds and FCs but he made it clear he just couldn’t today so we stopped, hung out, enjoyed an evening chew (he did anyway, lol) and just did dog things. We’ll try fluffy again in the morning. I had trouble with the fluffy blind until my brain finally processed the dog was doing a post turn.
Jean-Maria and distracted unfocused, wish he could talk to me… VentureOMG, the heat made this the hardest practice we’ve had yet. I kept drying my hands off so I could hold on to the treats.
Pre-dinner mountain goat for salmon treats. Boy was he surprised by those. He’s not driving as much tonight and he would prefer to turn around and walk down the plank rather than be lifted off, goofy boy.
We waited until last light to work blind cross to tunnel along with timing and connection loop at the end. Yes, I know I accidentally did an FC in one direction when I back chained the blind crosses (0:27). I chose to go ahead and do the longer sequence instead of re-doing the back chain. There’s a failed lead out at the far jump (1:41). I didn’t try it again because I couldn’t think in the moment of how to better support it so we just went without a sit/stay start
I have the bars set at 6″ and he knocked 2 of them during the session. Is that a concern? Should I drop them to 4″? He’s 15″ at the withers so he’ll be jumping 16″ and he’s 13 mos old.
Jean-Maria and Venture
