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Hi Tracy,
Do to weather issues the theme of the week was “Everything all at once!”. I pretended like it was a seminar and I did all of the week 1 videos in the course of a single day. It was way too much work, but otherwise I would have been a week behind right from the start.
*** No need for a 24 hour turnaround for me — ever. I don’t practice agility every day since I’m mixing in some rally.
Wind in Hair – Wrap to a jump
This is the first time Mason saw my new gutter downspout jump bumps (locked in at 6 inches). He hit them with his back feet a few times at first. I included the time between reps to show some of the issues I’m having with getting him set up without frustration and also with refusals. I switched to the MM for our 2nd session, which starts where the video quality changes. I thought the MM might help him focus forward better. The last couple reps are from a 3rd session at TW which was 2 days after the others, so Mason had 2 whole nights of latent learning before doing these. This was a more stimulating environment for him, but he got the job done, albeit with some whining. I’m curious to know what you think worked better, the toy toss or the MM. I’m also wondering if I should be using my arm to send to the wraps since that’s when I tend to get the refusals.
Set Point
Mason did great with this game as far as I can tell. Over the break we worked crazy hard on sit stays and retrieves. I’m using the MM here and I’m starting to think he likes this way of rewarding. He seems calmer and more focused. I’m not sure why, but maybe it’s because he knows where he’s headed or because there aren’t any of those super exciting wraps? He also seems like he’s being a bit more thoughtful about his foot placement. I couldn’t tell if his head position is what we were going for or not. I think this is the game where we were supposed to look for that. It was really helpful to have the advice to do only 5 reps. Of course I did 6, but this advice was way easier to stick to than trying to do a certain number of minutes since we sometimes take breaks for pattern games and decompression during a session.
Wrap Proofing
This went really well. I think Mason knows that CheckCheck and SaySay are his wrap verbals, but he doesn’t know the directions yet. I’m guessing he just assumes I am always on the inside of the turn. I noticed that sometimes I released him as I was saying the cue, so next time I’ll try to make sure the cue comes first. Also, on the last rep it looks like he jumped at the toy on his way to the tunnel. I suppose I need to keep switching the toy from hand to hand to make sure he doesn’t see it.
Smiley Faces
We did the smiley face pattern, the race track, and a made up sequence. At this point it was almost 5pm and we were both really tired. I had a hard time keeping track of the verbals and had to edit out a bunch of my miscues. Also, my head was spinning from trying to remember the cue names, the timing of the cues, the connection, and where to point. I think remembering the wrap cues will be easier once we have a bar for reference. Similarly I’m hoping right/left will be easier to remember when we’re not doing a circle pattern. For this session I was just happy to get through it with minimal frustration. I’m thinking of ways to do some pressure slices with obstacles and incorporate that into a setup routine, but that discussion can wait for another day. 🙂
The end. Thanks for watching!
Hi Tracy,
For the engagement between bowls during Power Bowls, how much do you care about actual eye contact? Today while practicing with a couple fellow MaxPuppers, my friends said I was late in responding to Mason’s engagement. Mason likes to look at my hands and my pockets, so I was waiting for him to look directly at my eyes, not my chest or even my chin. We weren’t sure if the criteria for engagement should be that strict.
Mason can make eye contact during Power Bowls, but he would rather stare at the bowls and offer the least amount of engagement that it takes to get the cookie. I’d say I have to wait a full second for him to switch his gaze from my chin to my eyes. What do you think? Give him the cookie or wait for the eye contact?
Jen
Hi Tracy,
I’m now having the same arousal issues in my yard as I saw almost 3 months ago when I tried doing a foundation class with Mason. The video I have for you today is 2 minutes of us trying to get set up to do the tunnel rocking horses. As we walked to the field he seemed excited, but in control. However, once we got near the obstacles, the whining and jumping started and I couldn’t get him to sit. He jumps at my face and hands and he takes the tunnel a few times. Eventually I decided to do a single rep of the rocking horses and he ran away with the toy. After 5 minutes of trying to get him to come back I gave up and went inside by myself.
I get bit all the time when I’m training exciting things with Mason. It’s inhibited and it’s usually accidental, for example if he’s trying to grab the toy, but it hurts a lot and I don’t want him doing this to me or anyone else. He doesn’t seem to be aggressive, just overaroused.
Incidentally, Mason doesn’t get excited at all by the A-frame and dogwalk in the yard even though he has wandered across them a few times. The overarousal seems to come once he has learned that these are agility obstacles. When he was younger he wasn’t excited at all by the presence of wings or tunnels in the agility arena where we sometimes practice. Now that he knows they are part of sequences, he struggles to do even a sit near either one in the yard or the arena.
I really don’t know how to handle this. Mason is capable of doing games like the tunnel rocking horses in this state, but he has a reckless, frantic quality about him and I feel like doing agility at this level of arousal is not safe for him. I’ve certainly seen bc’s like this doing agility successfully, so maybe this isn’t a huge issue and it’s just me getting used to a new dog. Annie was a thinker, an over-thinker actually (like her mom). I admired that about her, lol.
This issue has taken me by surprise since Mason is a really laid back type of bc in the house and even in the yard if we are not doing agility. He’s just a mellow guy in general. I love that he seems to like my favorite sport, but I’d like more self control. He turns 10 months old on Saturday. I’m not sure if this self control will come on its own if I just wait or if I should try to train it.
I could use some focused ideas. I have lots of ideas from MaxPup and MYOB, but they are all over the place so I keep picking a new strategy each day .. lower value toy, no toy, higher value food, no reward from the hand, being calmer, pattern games near obstacles, take a break from training, take a break from tunnels, stop sessions anytime I get bit or jumped on, etc, etc.
Thanks in advance for your help with this. I’m going to make this my top priority during the break before the start of MaxPup2.
Jen
Hi Tracy,
I have a couple videos today from previous weeks.
Backside Slice
This is our 2nd or 3rd session of the backside slices. I think we had one refusal, and as usual, I forgot the balance reps. All in all though I was really happy with these. I noticed that every once in a while I cheated and walked a little toward Mason just as he was getting to the barrel.
The thumbnail shows Mason in a weird position during one of his turns. He looks like he is falling forward on his shoulders. Do this mean he didn’t collect enough before the barrel or is this just what the dogs normally look like mid-turn?
Rocking Horses – Spins
I think Mason likes the running part of this round of rocking horses. Also, it turns out that he was distracted by being able to see through the mesh sides of my red barrel/crate, so I added some tape to the sides to help with that.
We did a little of everything from the demo video. There were just a few snafus along the way, but in general these were a lot more successful than our first try at the rocking horses.
Here’s what we did:
A couple warm-up reps of front crosses.
Three reps of just spins.
A couple fc->spin combos, one with a turn and burn.
A couple fc->race track combos.Jen
Hi Tracy,
The tunnel threadles didn’t really work right. Mason went in the tunnel, but I caused him all kinds of confusion with my arm and he couldn’t figure out if he was supposed to be doing hand touches. I really like using the opposite arm, but I can’t remember how I used to use it for Annie. On a few reps I was doing a little flick of my hand which was unplanned and just sort of happened without me thinking about it. Maybe I used to do this to flip Annie into the tunnel. On the demo video it looked like you just kept holding your arm up the whole time with no flick. Any suggestions on this? I’m not attached to any particular way other than I’d like to be able to use that arm in general on course to bring him closer.
Tunnel Threadle
Jen
Hi Tracy,
Maxpup/MYOB question – feel free to save this question for later if the topic is coming up in one of the Zoom calls:
——————–Should we be entering our adolescent (or easily over-excited) dogs in Show & Go’s? If so, what should we be doing while there? Should we stay ringside or do something in the ring? For young puppies it seems easier to know what to do – get them used to the environment, learn how to think in a new place, and meet some people. There seems to be a million places to get information on what we should be doing with our performance puppies, but I haven’t come across much (other than this class) about what specifically to do with our adolescents.
We aren’t doing real obstacles yet and I can’t move equipment or throw treats on the ground in the ring during a Show & Go. Also, Mason would probably still be too excited to avoid zoomies in the ring, so I would have to think of something I could do on-leash. Should we be zoomy-free and very predictably in the sweet spot of the Y-D curve in practice with friends before entering a Show & Go? What about visiting trials where our pup can see dogs running in the ring? Is it important that the pups get used to watching other dogs run while they are young or can that wait?
Strike A Pose – Threadles
————————-I decided to submit a threadle video even though these could use more work. My yard is a swamp and more rain is on the way, so it might be a while before I can make any more videos. For these threadles, I first tried using a piece of kibble in a bowl as the reward. Mason wouldn’t go over the jump bump for that though. He would do the nose touch, then stop and stare at me while waiting for a treat. I was using a higher value treat in my hand to set up the sit stays, so he wasn’t about to go away from me for kibble.
Knowing that putting a toy on the ground could make for a long session of trying to get the toy back between reps, I decided to try the MM. Somewhat surprisingly, Mason was able to ignore the MM and do the nose target! Having the Charlee Bears in my hand helped with that part a lot. Thanks for the suggestion.
I’m using “In In” for the threadle slice verbal since you said that was more common. Am I supposed to give the verbal cue before showing the target? I noticed that Mason would tend to release his stay as soon as he saw the pose.
I also accidentally rewarded a serp, which reminds me that I forgot to do balance reps with them. We might not quite be ready for balance reps anyway though. We did make it to position 3 turning to the right though and to position 2 turning to the left. By then Mason started losing interest in the sit-stay portion of the game so I declared victory and ended the session.
Jen
Hi Tracy,
Quick question then a quick, easy video .. Do you have a preference for 1 video per post (faster to review) or 2 videos per post (fewer posts to review)? My next one will have just one since I think our threadles will present lots of opportunities for feedback, lol, but sometimes when things go well and I’m not expecting a ton of feedback I might have two videos ready to go at once. Any preference? It doesn’t matter to me.
As promised, today’s video should be nice and quick. The Get Outs went well. Mason has a lot of value for the prop. He loved my previous deflated yoga ball prop so much that he took it on a marathon victory lap session in the yard. That prop was promptly retired and I switched to a sit platform for this video since it is harder to steal. The balance reps, which are mostly in the beginning of the session, were the most challenging part of this game for us. I had to use a heel cue and call his name to keep him from going to the prop, but it got the job done.
Jen
Yesterday Mason did several short recalls to a nose touch target with a piece of kibble in the bowl on the floor. Threadles here we come!!
Hi Tracy,
Long post alert … after this I only have one video to post from my backlog.
Today I played the remote reinforcement game twice in the living room (not a stimulating environment). The first time I used the little blue bowl sitting on the mantle with a bunch of kibble in it and and then I switched to the MM on the ground with boring crunchy treats in it. Mason did great with the elevated blue bowl. He did sits, nose touches, and even stands (a hard trick). When I switched to the the MM on the floor the whimpering started, and while he did manage to do a couple sits with a lot of encouragement, it seemed too hard.
Any ideas for how I can use this information for my training? The bowl on the mantle might have been too easy, but the MM was way too stimulating. I just noticed that you said to try the bowl on the ground. Maybe I should try that next. I don’t have a way to keep the treat from being stolen from the bowl though. Eventually I’d like to be able to use the MM since it is really high value and I paid a bunch of $$$ for it.
I also have two videos from about a week and a half ago.
1) The first video is the barrel combos. I wanted to work up to a blind cross with a pivot, but I couldn’t get enough distance on the send to have time to do that. Instead we were able to do some front crosses with a pivot — after a lot of practice. I was using a piece of kibble placed on a dustpan as my “get it” reward. It was soooo hard for Mason to focus on anything else besides that lone cookie behind him, that I struggled to get any connection at all out of the turn. The video doesn’t do a great job of showing just how hard this was. I think I deleted an earlier session where I got really frustrated and ended up getting bit a few times when I was trying to use a toy in my hand. I’m still hoping to get this game going with a nice send and a blind cross before MaxPup 2 starts.2) The second video is the rocking horses. I’m putting these videos in the same post because they both use the barrel and some of the handling issues might be related. I started with two barrels/pop-up crates. The new red crate had previously been used by Annie so it smelled like her and Mason wouldn’t stop sniffing it. Frustrated from the earlier session and afraid that Mason was going to lift his leg on one of the few things that still has Annie’s scent on it, the red barrel got tossed across the yard and I switched to the upright. Not my best moment to be sure, but I mention it here because I think the exasperation led to me keeping my arms nice and low instead of swinging them high. I wonder if this amount of arm motion is good or if I should wave my arms a little higher for the sends. It was working pretty nicely except that I would always get a refusal on the third send. Any thoughts?
Jen
Hi Tracy,
I forgot to thank you for offering to let my friend join the class late. She ended up deciding to do an independent study class instead since her pup is already doing sequences. I think she said it was AU-028, but I don’t see that one on the website. I’m not sure what it is, but I know she likes it. 🙂
For today’s video I have the Strike A Pose serp foundation game, featuring the beginnings of a start line stay! We’re using the Catch training method for the stays. Mason did well with the serp game. The only issue we had was that putting an actual treat in the target bowl before asking for the nose touch was too hard, so I’m using an empty bowl and then I toss the treat into it. Tossing the treat into the bowl will be harder for the threadles since the bowl will be farther away from me, but I think he will cheat otherwise.
The only other thing I noticed is that my pose doesn’t look all that much like I think it will when I’m running. I’m guessing Mason will still be able to recognize the basic look. If you have any tips though, please let me know since I’m probably going to do the Strike A Pose threadles next.
Jen
Hi Tracy,
Here is a video of our Week 4 serp and threadle tunnel entries. We’re not as far behind as it seems. I just have a backlog of videos to submit. We’re actually going to be starting on Week 7 later this week.
Mason did well with the tunnel. I just had a hard time releasing him when he was actually looking at it. He would look at it for a second and then look away. Having the TT behind him was super hard, hence all the squealing. I see that Week 7 has a remote reinforcement game, so hopefully that will help make setups like this one easier.
Tunnel Entries
Jen
Hi Tracy,
Ah, I see. There are a lot of trees and shrubs in the parking area, so we could definitely do the sniffing/peeing/exploring part there before starting the walk. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.
The only time I really need attention and engagement is when we are approaching other walkers and joggers coming toward us. Otherwise Mason would pull and jump at them to say hi, which is cute at 9 weeks, but not so much at 9 months.
I’m using boring kibble for treats. Amateur mistake. In my defense, Annie and I never walked in public because that would not have been fun for her. Conveniently, there’s a McDonalds on the way to the park, which could be a motivator for me too. I could be convinced to share a few little bites of *my* Egg McMuffin with Mason. I see more resilience walks in my future!
Jen
Hi Tracy,
As it happens, I saw your reply just after I pulled into the park and was about to take Mason for a walk so I tried this out. His drive to mark is a lot stronger than it was even a couple weeks ago and I couldn’t get his attention with the pattern games. The 1-2-3 game did get him to stay on the greenway when walking past things though. I’m not sure if this would be considered a pattern game. You just repeatedly say “1-2-3” (a pattern?), giving the dog a treat on “3”. We use it to walk past oncoming people without jumping on them. I think it’s for predictability and impulse control. Do you think that game could work in place of the pattern games?
I see what you’re saying about arousal/stress. The first 15 minutes of the walk ends up with a lot more marking than after that. There’s usually a stop to poop right in the beginning too. Mason likes the walks and is really confident, but it seems like at least in the beginning of the walk there is a bit of arousal/stress for him.
Jen
Hi Tracy,
I have a Week 1 question. How do you take your adolescent male dog on a resilience conditioning walk without him lifting his leg on everything?
I want to let Mason explore and sniff things, but he pees on everything he sniffs. This causes me to pull him away from things and tell him to leave it, taking away his agency. Should I only do these walks in open spaces and not let him approach/sniff anything except trees and shrubs?
Jen
