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I did a ring rental yesterday so we could take our games on the road in a semi familiar place. He’s visited this location a few times to watch agility classes and meet friendly dogs. I haven’t pulled the tunnel video but he was “insulted” by the tiny 5′ tunnel and kept running to take the big curved tunnel instead, LOL.
Turn and burn – words – Lulu is left wrap, Check-check is right wrap.
Turn aways – felt a little awkward on the lap turns
Stays 2 ways – need some clarification – if I’m starting with Catch, is it ok if Venture comes to me after every treat throw? He’s offering the sit but not leaving much space between us when he comes back. In theory I should begin taking half a step away while he’s sitting and slowly build up distance while using catch. Then work his break (drive to me) and get it drive ahead. Am I understanding this all correctly?
Jean-Maria and Venture
Thank you! That helps me break the mental logjam of “still working” on so much early stuff.
Here is Venture’s first experience with the “paw and eat” aka TNT. I didn’t include the entire second direction due to a several minutes long interlude of “surely if I paw this machine enough it will give up the goods without me running through the tunnel”. He did finally recover and continue doing the tunnel from further and further away from the entrance end.
I do need to find my tunnel bags but he wasn’t phased by the tunnel moving a little today so I went ahead with the game.
I’m struggling with when to move on to the next games vs continuing to work towards the more advanced versions. The games build on each other over time so do we need to get all the way to advanced level or move on, let the skills build, and come back to more advanced levels if we struggle later?
For example, we worked a more advanced level of back up to a large balance disk tonight.
Happy First night of Hannukah!
Jean-Maria and Venture>>We have plenty of time to bring the toys into training. He plays with them when food isn’t around, yes?
Yes. He plays tug with me, retrieves / chases his tribbles, plays with a squeaky toy and retrieves it. He also enjoys personal play. He can do the baby level wing wrap for two tugs.
Rear cross prop game. It feels like the value of driving to the prop is waning so tonight we played a short “go” to the prop across the room for high value cookies to reload it’s value. I’m wondering if I should have stopped once we did 3 left rear crosses as the session went downhill from there.
Huge difference using the food bowl.
Toys just don’t have high enough value to reward for work. yet. I hope.
Hi Tracy,
We did some more work on the rears and I have to cross behind him much sooner to get the left. No video today. We’ll work a bit more before I post another one for that.Need your help with the collection sandwich. Normally I wouldn’t post two videos for the same exercise but I want you to see the first session where I tried to use toys/then cookie when I couldn’t get engagement. Second video is after we came in and took a 2 hour nap. I swapped the toy for his target item (freezer bag) in an effort to get more drive ahead after the post turn. I’m not seeing anything like what I was getting with the rear cross game.
It occurs to me as I type this, we probably need to pull some pieces out? Not sure which ones. We started the way you showed in the video and then put the whole thing together for the videos.
Rear cross prop game. Filling in gaps from week 3 before starting week 4 games.
This is actually our second session playing the game. Video fail in the first session where he always turned the wrong way for both sides. Second session, switched to easy to see pieces of string cheese. He turned to the right no matter which side I crossed him from so half right. Thinking if he fixed one side during a break, maybe latent learning will fix the other side in a day or two? Or should I do something to help him turn the correct way when going left?Resilience game 3, pattern 1
We have played similar games indoors so I took it outside to the back yard about the time the small planes are taking off from Addison Airport so we’d have some air distractions along with the normal neighborhood noises. I hope you’ve got a big cup of coffee to relax and enjoy the cronches of each half of a Fromm O. I think he averaged 12-15 cronches per half treat toss. Such a funny boy, chewing his treats so completely.We’ll video backup tomorrow or the next day. I used a couple of flexiness bricks that were just under 2″ high and he was doing well.
Today we did plankacrobatics. I noticed turning right on the plank was way harder for him than turning left. For that reason, I started with the plank stable, then when he was more comfortable, I changed it to tip back and forth. He’s played on it before but has grown a lot since the last time I had it out.
Yesterday Venture said he just couldn’t work so we took a break. We had already had a couple outings to the pet store and Tractor Supply. He got lots of pets and love from all the shoppers and I think that was the limit for his adolescent brain. Black Friday with a puppy!
I spent a little time working on me for blind cross and the one that I was late on above – it’s the side I’m struggling with mechanics. So Ven sniffed for hidden treats while I tried to get the mechanics down.
I’m unsure about the “You can throw the toy on the exit of the blind here: when he gets to the new side, you can throw the toy ahead and let him drive to it to get the cookie out of it without you”. The timing would be? Throw forward as soon as he’s close to the toy or should he be at the toy before the throw?
Backing up to the Cato board – it’s 4″ high when on a solid surface inside. In the grass it sinks and is quite a bit lower. Ven is about 14″ tall so far. I expect he’ll end up about 15″ tall. Is 4″ too tall or should I try it out and see?
Jean-Maria and Venture
Would a Cato board be about the right height for Venture to back up to?
First video working on blind cross foundation. He is struggling with switching between cookies and toys this week. So I pulled out a tug with lotus ball on the end and started showing him how to get the cookie out of it. Didn’t see much in the video but we are working to understand/love that toy away from training right now. Wondering if I should try the entire blind cross exercise with food to make it easier for him. The Cato board at the beginning is just to make it easy for him to find the small cookie so he doesn’t need a big treat that takes 30 seconds to chew.
<<What was shipped in it?>>
Frozen bone broth a couple years ago. To me, it has a strong styrofoam smell to it. The video almost looks like I’m teaching mondio object guard which I find rather funny.Ven hasn’t done any nose work but we have started tracking which he loves. Maybe he was trying to offer an article indication but I ask for a sit or paw touch on articles. I think the only fitness equipment he hasn’t seen yet is a bosu ball so I’m planning to use it for the next round of shaping goat tricks.
We need some help with round 2 of drive ahead / focus forward. He was driving but missed grabbing the toy on a couple passes and then on the last one, he didn’t try to get it. Maybe because I was getting it when he missed and playing keep away a little? I don’t want to create confusion here. I see where not grabbing the toy could lead to not taking the obstacle. Thoughts?
I’m headed out of town for a weekend photography workshop so we won’t have any more videos until I get home Sunday night. I will be trying to read all the remaining lectures in prep so might post a question or two along the way. Have a blast at the UKI national.
Jean-Maria & Venture
Goat Tricks 2 – there’s not much Venture hasn’t already climbed on and been reinforced for interacting with. A wander around the house found this small Styrofoam cooler that something was shipped in. I took it outside on the grass so it would be less “stable” and there would be some noise/distraction for first time shaping out there.
A couple of observations – he’s never started like this before, trying to put his head towards it / chin/mouth on it. Usually he offers feet/pawing first. Maybe because it was taller than a lot of things he’s seen before. He wants to work a lot longer than 2 minutes. He wasn’t that into his tug so I switched to personal play.
