[Jen Beyer]

Hi Tracy,

Week 8 – Accordion Grid

I love when we get a game that Ellie and I can do in just one session! We did have a snafu on the second rep though. The last bar came down, but all of the bars stayed up when we did this distance again on the fourth rep. I didn’t attempt to figure out exactly what went wrong or what she did differently to fix it, but it looks like she came up way short on that second rep. Please also let me know if you still think Ellie is pushing off with her rear. I can never tell.

Bars are at 8 inches (I think).
Distances: 6′, 9′, 12′, 9′, 6′

Jen

[Jen Beyer]

Hi Tracy,

Week 7 Tunnel Threadles part 2 — the side that didn’t work.

I went back and pulled out the reps from our not-so-good side. These are in the order that we did them, although they were interspersed with the reps in the first video. Looking back at this, I think I had some good ideas for breaking things down. Nothing really worked that well though and I was getting frustrated, so I banned this side’s reps from the initial video. 🙂

Week 8 – Lateral Lead Outs

I’m submitting this game early since we’re going to be learning serps in Ellie’s class Tuesday evening and I’m hoping you can keep me from causing her to wipe out on the serps like she did in this video …

Ellie has a nice stay. I take zero credit for this since Mason still can’t stay for a even a microsecond and I “trained” both dogs, lol. This is Ellie’s second session with this game. All reps from the session are included in the video. Everything went well except she wiped out on the landing of the serp reps when she was turning to her left. Youtube cleverly selected this very moment for the thumbnail to assist with your review. 🙂 I can’t tell what went wrong here. The second try is better, but still not a clean landing. I’m not sure what she needs me to do differently.

Reps:
1,2 – lead out to inside of wing, 180 turn
3,4,5 – lead out to outside of wing, serp – wiped out on both turns to her left
6,7 – lead out to inside of wing, turn and burn

Jen

[Jen Beyer]

Hi Tracy,

Week 7 – Tunnel Threadles

These were really hard, as they were for Mason last year. I learned that Ellie can’t consistently do a wrap in front of a tunnel. I think it’s going to take more sessions to build that skill, so today’s video has mostly the baby-level stays without the wings. There are a couple balance reps and two miraculous wing wraps to the left side of the tunnel, but we never got any wing wraps to work on the other side. I think this just needs more sessions and we’re heading into 3 days of rain, so it may be next weekend before the yard dries out. The good news is that Mason finally was able to put this together (no video) after finding the tunnel threadles impossible last year. One year of “sleeping on it” appears to have done the trick!

Jen

[Jen Beyer]

Hi Tracy,

Thanks for the great feedback on the turn-aways. I totally didn’t think about moving my arm and leg slowly or decelerating. Instead I think I kept moving faster because I saw that Ellie was moving faster and I was trying to keep up with her. I’m thrilled that you can see her following my motion. Sometimes I have a harder time seeing it, but those might be the times to stop and look at the video like you suggested.

For the past few days I’ve been working a lot on mixing things up with the Wind in Your Hair setup. My goal for each session has been to do something different each time: front cross, go, rear cross, backside wrap, tandem turns. I’ve also been switching sides every 2 reps. I think it’s helping a lot and Ellie and Mason both like it. The challenge for me will be to keep that mindset when we are learning a new skill. That’s when I tend to start drilling because I want to get the new skill trained in as few sessions as possible so I have time to get to the other games for the week.

Thanks again for your help with this. It’s something you can’t get in an in-person group class because there isn’t time and the trainers never see me practicing at home.

Three easy questions:
1) When will MaxPup 3 next be offered as a class with video feedback or is it self-study?

2) Is the weaves class always self-study? If not, when is the next session with video feedback?

3) When can I start raising Ellie’s jump height in our in-person class? I’ve had the jumps at 12″ for 4-5 months. Ellie is around 20″ tall or maybe a little over, but she has a small frame and a less than perfect structure with a rounded back. My guess is she will be more comfortable jumping 16″ than 20″, but we’ll have to see. She’ll be 18 months old in a couple weeks. Do you have any suggestions for a strategy/timeline for raising the bars? I know we’ve been keeping everything nice and low for MaxPup because the dogs are learning new handling. We will probably still be learning new handling for many months to come in our in-person class too though, so I’m not sure when to add height. I don’t want to make things too hard for Ellie by raising the bars, but I’m guessing it’s also probably not great to stay at 12″ for a long time.

Jen

[Jen Beyer]

Hi Tracy,

Week 6 – Rocking Horse – Turn Aways

Lap Turns
The lap turns were kind of fun and definitely easier than the tandem turns. We had to do a bunch of sessions to get the tandem turns going and we always warmed up with lap turns, so Ellie got really fast at them. We did so many reps over a few days that this is where I started to question whether she was really following my hand or whether she was on autopilot. Even on super slow-motion I still can’t really tell.

Tandem Turns
The tandem turns were so hard and our sessions so unproductive that I could only find 4 ok-ish reps for this video. At the time, I had the feeling that Ellie was going to wrap the wing no matter what I did. It seemed like she was running past my hand and doing her own thing. I really want to keep working on these turns though because they seem like they could be very handy on course.

Jen

[Jen Beyer]

Hi Tracy,

Week 6 – Get Out

We did a bunch of sessions on the get-outs. I think I was having trouble because I kept forgetting to throw the toy until after Ellie had landed. Eventually we got it together, although I think I surprised her with the crosses at the end. Using just the dog-side arm and waving to the jump seems like it would be a whole lot easier for the human. Running straight while twisted toward the bar takes some extra coordination. Do the dogs read the opposite arm a lot better than the dog-side arm? If so, I’ll work on my twisting, but only if you think Ellie will really appreciate it. 🙂

Week 6 – Zig Zag with Bars

For the zig zags, I decided to start out by trying to do all 3 wings just to see how it would go. Ellie zig-zagged correctly, but I noticed that she was turning in the gap between the bar and the next wing instead of hopping directly over the bars. I figured I was probably late (wild guess, lol), so I went down to 2 wings and then back up to 3. I couldn’t really ever get her to hop directly over the bars though. I don’t know if she was avoiding the bars or if maybe I should have started her farther back or if I had the wings too close together. The bars are 4.5 ft long and I think the gap after the bar was 1.5-2 feet. What do you think?

Jen

[Jen Beyer]

Hi Tracy,

Week 5 – RC After Tunnel

This video is from our third session on this game. Anything after a tunnel is harder for us and I see that Ellie has some questions, even on the “Go” and balance “Left” reps. The rear crosses are getting better though and she is pretty consistently turning in the correct direction. I’m not sure she is reading the turn before takeoff though. I think I was still mostly late in this video. Perhaps a little less late than I was when we did the rear crosses with the Week 4 Wind in Your Hair game though. The last rep was our best one and I’m curious to know if you think this one was on time.

Jen

[Jen Beyer]

Hi Tracy,

Week 6 – Wraps

I jumped ahead to Week 6 to try out some of your ideas for mixing up the tight wraps session. I definitely have a tendency to go into drilling mode and “just one more rep” mode. The video of our session includes all reps, 12 total, in the order that I did them.

Here’s a breakdown of the reps:
3 reps on first side, turning Right – go, wrap, wrap
4 reps on other side, turning Left – RC (to right), wrap, wrap (wrong way), wrap
1 rep on first side, turning Right – wrap
4 reps on other side, turning Left – wrap, go, wrap, wrap

My thoughts:
Maybe there were too many reps, but Mason also did 12 reps and it was fine for him. He had a lot more success though, so he had more side switches and variations. He also had a lot more praise and positive feedback from me.

Even though I switched sides 3 times with Ellie, we ended up doing twice as many reps turning left, so it wasn’t really balanced. When we had more trouble on the left, then I started to get in my head. I wasn’t talking to Ellie as much, I wasn’t as cheery, and I tended to disconnect from her between reps when we had issues. I definitely went into handler focus mode myself.

Any suggestions for how you would have mixed things up differently, reacted differently when there were issues, or changed the session length?

Oh, and if you know how to tighten up these wraps, that would be great too. 🙂

Thanks,
Jen

[Jen Beyer]

Hi Tracy,

Week 5 – Layering the Tunnel

I recorded this a week ago since I have lifetime access from when Mason took MP2 last year. Watching this video today, I’m shocked by easy it looked. Apparently I deleted the half dozen or so reps where Ellie ran full speed into my shins instead of turning into the tunnel. I think she finally figured it out by watching Mason do it, not by me showing her what I wanted with handling.

This brings up an issue we’ve been having. It seems that Ellie patterns things really quickly. We’ve been working on the rocking horse tandem turns for the past few days. Our turns were wide and choppy, so I kept changing my mechanics a little with each rep, e.g., waving my hand, lowering my hand, slowing way down. Despite this, Ellie kept doing the same thing and every rep she actually ran faster! At some point I thought, there’s no way she’s following my cues. Sure enough, the video showed that she was turning before I gave the turn cue. I had the same issue trying to switch from the front cross to the race track reps.

It seems like after 2 reps, Ellie is on autopilot and isn’t really following me, which means I’m not really training her anymore at that point. For the rocking horse setup she may be patterned after 0 reps because she knows it so well. For things like next week’s Wind in Your Hair/Tight Wraps, I know that I can throw in a “go go” balance rep to mix things up. For the rocking horses though, I feel like Ellie is in her own world after the first rep.

I’m wondering if you have any general advice for how I can structure a session to keep her focused on following my cues. Should I change the sequence in some way after every 2 reps? Or maybe even every other rep? For next week, I’ll have the zig zag and the wind in your hair both set up in the yard. Would it help to do one zig zag rep, then one decel/wrap rep, then come back to the zig zag for the third rep?

Just for background, when I got Ellie from rescue at 9 months old she had a great fetch, recall, and sit. She loved dogs and would follow Mason’s every move, but she wouldn’t follow me or even a treat lure at all. She also seemed to have no concept of coming to a person’s side. In fact, she felt uncomfortable with it. She was all about coming to the front like you do when you’re playing fetch. After a few months of basic training, we were able to start Maxpup1 and she had a lot of fun with that, but I’m sure there are still holes in her foundation.

So back to the pattering, I don’t know if Ellie is just a border collie that is very quick to pattern things or if maybe there are some very basic foundation games we can play to build more of the connection we need for following me and looking to me for cues. I’ve been trying some shadow handling while walking around in the yard, but if I turn away she often wanders off or goes to look for Mason. Any ideas?

Jen

[Jen Beyer]

Hi Tracy,

Thanks for the feedback on the ladder grid. Would you also use the moving target for the Accordion Grid game which is coming up in Week 8? If so, I’ll add that to my notes so I remember.

Thanks,
Jen

[Jen Beyer]

Hi Tracy,

Week 4 – Ladder Grid

First, thank you so much for the screenshots of my rear crosses. I can totally see now how I need to cross earlier. When I try these again I’ll be thinking about already being on the new side when Ellie is taking off. This may be the way of thinking about it that clicks for me. Fingers crossed!

For the ladder grids, the jumps are 6 ft apart and the bars are at 8″. The first bar might be a little lower. I can never really tell if Ellie is pushing off with her rear and the camera angle for the straight jumps may not be that great for you to be able to tell either. It’s easier to see her takeoff when the jumps are angled, but she was probably also getting tired by then and her form may have been influenced by the angled setup.

Let me know what you think. I was really happy with this session. I can’t tell if the takeoff is what we want, but all of the bars stayed up, her head looked low, and her bounces looked pretty good – landing near the middle between the jumps.

Jen

[Jen Beyer]

Hi Tracy,

Week 4 – Rear Cross & Backside Wraps

Rear Cross:
These were really hard. My toy tosses were late and my line wasn’t right. After 3-4 sessions we weren’t making any progress, so I moved to a smaller space, moved the wrap wing to only 13-14 ft away, switched to using Charlee Bears instead of a toy, and slowed down to walking. My plan was to slow everything down and see if that made it easier for both of us. This turned out to be our best session. Still though, I think we could use some feedback before trying this again. I feel like Ellie and I are both guessing a little bit on these.

Reps:
1,2,3 – Turning right. Pretty good?
4,5,6 – Turning left. These were harder. I think Ellie may be turning on the landing except for maybe the last one.
7,8 – Turning right. This time she was not reading the right turn as well as in the first reps and there was some confusion.
9,10 – One Right and one Left. Finished strong, I think.

Backside Wrap:

We haven’t been able to figure out the backside wraps even after multiple sessions. The good news is that Ellie is at least 80% successful if she starts from a stay. However, when we try to add the wrap at the start, everything falls apart. Usually she will take the front side of the jump, sometimes cutting in front of me and other times running behind me after the wrap. Every once in a while she will take the backside, but then she often hesitates before taking the jump or hits the wing/bar.

The video shows a collection of reps that are included in the order that we did them. I edited out a bunch of failed attempts that all looked very similar to those included here. I’m using Charlee Bears instead of a toy because Ellie really focuses on watching the toy when it’s in my hand and it’s hard for me to tell if that is part of the reason for the mistakes.

Reps:
1,2 – Turning right. Took the front side both times. Once she ran behind me to take the front side.
3,4 – Turning right, starting with a stay. Success!
5,6 – Turning left, starting with a stay. Success again!
7 – Turning left, starting with a wrap. Ran behind me to take the front side.

Jen

[Jen Beyer]

Hi Tracy,

Thanks for pointing out the tunnel stumble in the Diamond video. I didn’t even notice it, but I see now that she came out slower than she went in and there seemed to be a hesitation when she got past the middle. I’m still trying to figure out the best tunnel stakes to use for my new bags. The ones I used in this video keep pulling part way out of the ground. I also have at least a couple more bags I can add.

Week 4 – Serp Proofing

When we did MaxPup 1, we didn’t make through all of the Strike A Pose games. We got the initial targeting games, but we couldn’t put it together over a jump. After trying this week’s proofing games, I think we probably mostly tried the serps and not the threadles.

The serps were pretty easy for Ellie. Taking the tunnel instead was harder. She did it, but she had to think about it a little bit.

The first threadle was great except that Ellie clearly doesn’t know the verbal “In In” yet so she got stuck in the stay. The remaining threadle reps were all hard. One time she took the tunnel even though I thought I was set up correctly. The other times she came in (yay!), but didn’t take the jump.

I don’t know how the first threadle rep was so easy and smooth and the other ones weren’t. I couldn’t tell if I changed something without realizing it. It’s possible the jump surprised her the first time and she may not have wanted to deal with it again. Sometimes she will avoid jumps if she isn’t confident about her footwork. I’m really not sure, but I told her you would fix it. 🙂

Reps:
1) Serp
2) Tunnel
3) Serp
4) Tunnel
5) Threadle – This was our best threadle. I think I didn’t ever teach her the “In In” cue though.
6) Wanted a threadle, but got the tunnel. Not sure why.
7) One arm threadle. Tried something different. Ellie came in, but didn’t take the jump/tunnel. I’m not sure how to cue the lead change to take the jump.
8) Threadle. Started with a cookie toss to see if motion would help with the jump, but she still didn’t take it.
9) Threadle. Finally got the jump/tunnel, but it was awkward and she had to make a big turn to go over the jump.

Jen

[Jen Beyer]

Hi Tracy,

Week 4 – The Diamond

First an update:
Last night in class we moved the trainer from the end of the sequence to where a judge would stand. The toy is now my responsibility. I have to hide it and I can’t reach for it until after the last obstacle or she’ll look for the toy. At the end she gets verbal praise first, then I pull out the toy for tugging after the praise. This made a HUGE difference for Ellie! She was focused on taking direction from me from the start line to the end and also while heading back to the start line. She did her first start line stay without a holder, did her longest sequence ever, and learned a new skill (180 turn) without shutting down and sniffing. I think it was a breakthrough class for us!

The Diamond:
We did the Diamond as our first game from Week 4. The video has our best reps of each sequence. I edited out a ton of reps where I forgot the sequence or had to stop to refresh Ellie’s memory about blind crosses. We may have only done blind crosses in the hallway before this.

The figure eights where pretty easy once Ellie figured out where to be. The fluffy blind sequence was super hard though. The one on the video was the only one that was successful. She would either come to the wrong side or would miss the next wrap. I had to run way over to the outside of the wing (after the tunnel) to get her to go around it before the blind, then we had a near collision after the wrap. This section is where I could use the most help — fluffy blind to the wrap. I can’t remember where I’m supposed to be and when to switch arms.

The race track seemed easy after that, although I noticed that I have helicopter arms. I’ll try to remember to point more at her collar next time. We also had a big zig zag before the last tunnel and I couldn’t tell why that happened.

Reps:
1) Intro figure 8
2) Longer figure 8 sequence
3) Fluffy blind
4) Race Track

Jen

[Jen Beyer]

Hi Tracy,

Fyi – if you read this on Tuesday, I’ll be joining the Zoom call late – probably 7:15-7:30.

Week 3 – Find The Jump

Ellie did well with these, which surprised me because at class she almost always runs past the jump after a tunnel on the first rep. Usually the trainer (one of her best friends) is standing near the jump ready to toss the toy. Since Ellie did it correctly at home, that makes me think even more that she is targeting the trainer. Tonight is our last in-person class of the session, so I’ll probably need to wait until May to start working on varying the trainer position.

The video has all four positions on each side. I got better on the second side. For the handler ahead/behind reps, I’m just a tiny bit ahead/behind. It felt like it was more of a difference at the time. I edited out the first two reps, which had big swerves toward me. The reps on the video have some hints of swervy-ness, but by then she was probably expecting the reward to be straight ahead.

Reps on each side:
1) handler even with dog at jump
2) handler ahead (a little)
3) handler lateral
4) handler behind (a little)

Jen

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