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Set my timer for 5 minutes and walked Sequence 3……wasn’t First Run, Best Run but it was First Run, Clean Run, I’ll take it. I then rewalked the section that I didn’t like….7 to 9. I didn’t change my plan (which I actually liked) but tried to better plan the execution of it and to run the whole sequence more confidently (first time was a little tentative on my part). Much better the second time but 7 to 9 still could’ve been executed better. I timed the full run both times and just cleaning up 7 to 9 took a full second off the run. As I was doing this today, I was thinking about the EO runs that I watched and just how hard it was to get through those courses without Eing, much less getting a score! And then just how perfect Angie’s EO Finals Jumpers run really was… Unbelievable how “perfect” that run was!
Here’s the Walk Through……..
Here’s the Run
We’ve also been doing some short sessions this last week with the Threadle Wrap, figured I ought to video one to make sure we’re on the right track. I have to be careful about releasing with our Threadle Wrap verbal which is Flip. And I didn’t even realize it that when I switched to the other side that the tunnel (that is out of frame) would be as hard for him as it was. So instead of moving to a different jump or moving the tunnel I tried to make other parts easier and help him work through the tunnel distraction. It was interesting as I was editing the video that even when he does the Flip correctly that you can “see” him still thinking/knowing that the tunnel is there. Good boy!
Since this was still setup, I ran it again this morning incorporating your feedback. You were 100% right in that I could easily get to where I needed to be for the FC without the layer and he did read it much better. Even with that though it really all came down to the intensity of the connection at 3! The “looser” the connection the bigger the turn, never took the tunnel but definitely wider. I struggled when I kept my arms tighter on the blind, low arms had me fronting instead of blinding and when I was finally able to keep my arms low and blind it was really, really late. Who knew that “airplane” arms were such a crucial part of my ability to blind 🙂 I’ll definitely put this on my list of Skills to Teach Kim!
Well this was certainly not my finest hour 🙄 The walk through video is long, really long….be prepared to fast forward! I struggled with deciding how to handle 1 to 4. I think my setup is a little narrower than yours. I really didn’t like not layering 4, because I thought my motion to get from between jump 4 and 2 to between the tunnel and jump 4 would tend to cue the off course tunnel but I wasn’t sure we had the skill to layer 4. Turned out it was an easy layer and I probably should’ve recognized that sooner as the #2 jump was pretty much on path when he landed 1. And then God only knows why but I then questioned my original choice for 9 to 11 and well….. And then somewhere in all that I decided I had to walk it at speed with verbals that I hadn’t really thought through 🥹 Anyway…. I did end up liking the layer, I’m not sure how to improve the turn at 3. And although I did like my choice of side for 9 to 11, I’m not sure the blind was the best choice, but when I walked a front there I really didn’t like that.
Thanks for the feedback and I totally agree! I find that I “need” – either for real or because I think I do, to get a course “in my head” and that if it’s not in my head that it’s not going to matter how many times I walk it. And if it’s in my head I can frequently “get through” it, even if I don’t walk it. I think I tend to overthink the get it in my head part, which does cause me to not put enough emphasis on the “at speed” walk throughs. And it’s not like I don’t generally have plenty of time (well except for Snooker!) but instead of doing the at speed walks I just do another “thinking” walk. So, this is really good for me! Especially thinking about the verbals.
And yes, I saw the little “wobble” from the tunnel to the backside when I ran it. Agree about the connection out of tunnels and I definitely can be better about that. Funny story…I went to a seminar with Rachel (Sanders) during the winter and she asked the group what the most frequently faulted obstacle on course was…she got all the expected answers; weaves, contacts, dada, dada. The “correct” answer, whatever is after a tunnel. All about that connection. 🙂 I think that also at play here is the strength of his backside verbal. I almost never get a head check or hesitation if I’m good about the timing of a GO on entrance to the tunnel and almost always get that little wobble to a backside out of tunnel, even with good timing of my verbal and good connection…..combination of understanding of the cue, stronger connection needed and experience? We occasionally get the wobble from a line of jumps, but in those cases it’s almost always because I disconnected.
Anyway……..I definitely plan to do the other two sequences, this is really good for me! Do you want to see the whole walkthrough? That’s a lot of video for you to watch! Or I could edit it to the last couple of at speed walkthroughs…..or something in between. Let me know. Thanks as always. Have a great day!
Well, other than the fact that I walked and ran the wrong course 😱 (left out the last obstacle) I thought this went pretty well. Someday I will learn to not try to do this without actually putting down numbers and checking against the course map. Anyway… first video is my entire walk through, kinda long (6 minutes) but I figured you’d want to see the whole thing at least for the first sequence. Second video is the run – 1 and done!
Played with 1 to 4 on the Standard Course one last time this morning before I had to take it down. These are all the reps, feeling good about his understanding and my handling of this layer 😊 Timed from tunnel exit to tunnel entrance again, tried to be sure and get off his line on the landing side of 2 blind… When we did this last time and I got off his line our time was 4.8. The blind between the tunnel and take off of 2 and staying in was pretty consistently 5.1
Repeated what we had done on the layering exercise again, I tried to be better about cueing the Go before takeoff of the 2nd jump. Again, feel pretty good about his understanding even with my less than perfect verbals 😉. Then we took a break and we tried the exercise with “no” handling and more pure verbal. Hard to not handle 🙄, and I had to use a lot of brain cells to try to move exactly the same so I think I frequently forgot the GO before the yellow jump.
Another good skill building exercise! These are all the reps from this session, well I did cut out the couple where I sent him to the backside of the first jump. I started with his toy, switched to his favorite food (liverwurst) near the end which messed up my throwing 😆, but he was working hard and thinking so I made the reward his favorite and easy those last couple of reps. Lots of good learning for both of us!
“The timing should be as soon as he is past the commitment plane of the backside jump and turns his head to the bar. You might be leaving too early and pushing him off the line, or he might need more reinforcement tossed on the landing side as you leave to maintain commitment and not chase you… or both”………….. I’ve always thought of moving once he passed the commitment line but I’ve haven’t really thought about the and turning his head to the jump. I’ll have to pay attention to that. I’ll look for some sections of a Jumpers course and set this up. Although I suspect that some landing side reinforcement is in order as well 🙂
I went back and looked at a couple of the layer videos and it’s crazy how just that little bit of change in line (me getting out of the way) on the landing side of jump 2 was worth .3 of a second!!! .3 here and .3 there and the next thing you just took a couple of seconds off your time!!! Planning to reset the equipment tomorrow and play with the layering exercise with the straight tunnel and I’ll have to see if I can find a section of a Jumpers course with a Reverse Wrap. Thanks as always!
Thanks Tracy…I was pleasantly surprised how quickly and how much motion he was OK with with the weave exercise 🙂 I was going to ask about the preplaced reward as it really helps clarify/confirm for him what the desired behavior is. I’ll try leaving it out and when he can have it give him his Get it cue and no cue when I want him to come towards the tunnel and not take it. I think he’ll be able to do this with his toy, if that’s too much of an ask I can always switch to the MM. I’ll let you know how it goes. Does this exercise eventually add to a full set of 12? Not in any hurry, but I’m thinking that the longer the set of poles the more of a challenge to keep going away for the mama.
Also, you picked up on when there was a little bit of pressure on his way to the poles he flicked away and went to the tunnel. We have this same thing happen on our Reverse Wraps….my timing of when I can leave is pretty critical…if I put a little pressure on the line “too early” for him he’ll flick off just like he did here. Sort of like he thinks it was a rear cross? Is this something we’ll be doing anything with in Camp?
We played with 1 to 4 of the first Standard course yesterday and today. My firsts thoughts for handling were blind between the tunnel and the takeoff side of jump 2 and stay in to cue the line to the tunnel. I then tried the blind in the same place but then moving “out” to layer the jump on the way to the tunnel. I didn’t like this at all as I thought my motion to get out for the layer actually cued him to come in and take the layer jump. So, then I did it with a landing side blind on #2 jump and the layer. I actually liked this…we had to do some training for the layer. This is a really hard layer for us, he definitely defaults to the serp and coming in and taking the jump between he and I. The video has about 2/3rd of the training reps, hopefully enough to give you a good sampling of the process but not too much repeating. Once we figured it out this felt pretty good and I thought it would be faster than staying in and not layering because I thought it would be a better line to the tunnel, so I timed a bunch of the reps and except for the very last rep of the layer this morning, which was like .3 faster than any other rep, both of the handling choices ended up being essentially the same time. On the first day I timed from tunnel entrance to tunnel entrance, on the second day I timed from tunnel exit to tunnel entrance. Fun exercise!!!
Hope your trip was uneventful. Agree, challenges are good but not at every obstacle! 😳 A friend of mine and I were looking at the maps yesterday and talking about handling options, her favorite option became “and a miracle happens here” 😆
We played with rear crossing the weaves this morning… Lots of thinking in this session for both of us. I tried to be careful about allowing only 2 failures and then making it easier, in general preplacing his tug did the trick. Lots of reset cookies to keep a really high rate of reinforcement, you can almost see smoke coming out of his ears a couple of times 😉. Video has first 3 reps, last couple of reps and a little more than 1/2 of the in betweens.
Thanks Tracy. I could not have been any more proud of him, he SO stepped up 🙂 And yes, totally agree with your comment about some of those starts. It was one of those things that I saw happening in the moment (him getting a little slower off each start as the day/weekend went along) but I wasn’t able to process and adjust. As I’ve thought about it since I think we’ve worked really hard on dialing back his arousal level at the start so he is able to stay and focus (and I think he still has to work pretty hard to do that) that as the weekend went on it definitely took him a couple of obstacles to really kick the speed on. We haven’t done much at all this week. A lot of quick releases, throw the treat so he can chase it from sits around the house and class with Lo on Wednesday where I didn’t have to do a lot of leadouts (which was good) and on the few we did do I ran and rewarded with his tug after the 2nd jump and then did the sequence. We’re not trialing again for 3 or 4 weeks so my plan is to put “the fun” back in those starts. I’m also thinking that I may need/be able to put a little more arousal back into our to the line routine…..we’ll see. But I got tools!!!!
Love the focus of Package 2 and thank you for the mini sets. My area is only 40 wide so these are perfect. The selection of skills in this package “takes care of” 2 of the items on my Top 5 Training To Do List – verbal discriminations and rear crossing the poles. Our soft side entry is getting pretty good, here’s a short clip from Lo’s class on Wednesday….
adding the rear cross is perfect for us to start working on 🙂 Hope you are having a great weekend! And if you are by any chance looking for some freaking challenging courses checkout the ISC ones they are running at The Fieldhouse this weekend. Whoaa!
We’re back! We went “upta camp” over the 4th, home for the day last Wednesday and then Sly and I were off the the New England Regional. We did 17 runs over the 3 days and Sly was FREAKING AMAZING!!! I knew I was asking a lot (this was only the 2nd time he’d run in a 2 ring trial, and has never done this many runs). I entered everything with the idea that I could always run FEO, do a couple of jumps and tug all the way out…..we did end up pulling from Biathlon on Friday night, he was antsy on the Startline and he had been solid as a rock all day…. Released him, did an off course tunnel and out we went. He was fine on Saturday and Sunday. My motto for the 3 days was run with the intent to win….had a blast. Sly had 17 perfect, calm, focused Startlines, perfect weaves, dropped only one bar over all 3 days. Dog walk was about 50/50 which pretty much duplicates training. We had the best time and I could not have been prouder of the little guy. Here’s our local GP and Steeplechase runs….. Planning to take another day off and then we’ll start to tackle Package 2.
Oh yeah, he definitely loves chasing my line! Here’s the 3rd sequence with the different handling, definitely faster. I went back and checked and our best time “going in on the pinwheel” was 11.4 vs. the 10.8 on our 2nd rep with the send and blind. 😊
And then we did the 4th sequence….2nd Rep was faster but only by .1
Have a great 4th!
