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The first three sequences. The first time, best time theme is going to be really good for us. I tend to be too much trainer and not enough competitor 😉
Hey! Sorry to have “dropped off the face of the planet”. On our way home from a RV trip to Florida for a mini family reunion. The 4 sisters were finally all able to get there at the same time to spread my Mom’s ashes. It actually all worked out well, Mother’s Day weekend and the first year anniversary of her passing, it all just seemed right ❤️ Lots of opportunities for Pattern Games and instant focus with the car keys, quick hand touches and sits in all sorts of new places with all sorts of new distractions. Thanks for another great class! See you at Camp!
Changing subjects on you….do you have any interest/availability for “seminar tour of New England”? Jennifer Johnson and I are trying to figure out how to work with you on person! She loved the seminar she attended in Florida. Hope all is well with you and yoursPlanned a session yesterday to get some video. This is coming into the Training Center straight from the car. Pattern game on the way in….some RR, nothing in my hands but surprise treats in pocket. I think I’m learning that fast hand touches with me moving might be a good volume up game. Is it possible that hand touches with movement can be a volume up and hand touches without movement can be a volume down? He really is a pretty clear little communicator… when he grabs his leash and tugs in the middle of the quick hand touches and plops his butt into a sit …. he’s ready 😊
We’re still here! And I think definitely on the right track with some of the suggestions for class. Unfortunately, I drove off and left my piece of cardboard in the garage so had to improvise with a couple of jumps. The video is a series of short clips from this past Wednesday…..first clip is about 5 minutes after he went in the crate for the first time, last clip is about an hour later.
I have a “new plan” for next week. During this time of year AK9C leaves the doors to the arena open with a baby gate in front so dogs can’t get out. There’s a door in the corner of the arena not very far at all from where we are crated. Assuming it’s not raining, I’m going to set his crate up just outside the door. A step between crating upstairs (where he really is quite comfortable now) and ringside. We also get to sort of simulate the whole stand outside the gate, come through the gate when it’s our turn, vs. come out of your crate and go to the line (which is a LOT harder for him). I’m thinking this is a good interim step for us in class. And if it is raining, we’ll crate inside and continue with what we did this week. Thoughts?
We’re also doing lots and lots of leash on, leash off and quick sits and quick releases, mixing in remote rewards and having fun weaving between my legs….just not a lot of video. But we’re here!!! And thanks for the comment on the run I posted on Facebook from last week 🙂 It really is fun when all the pieces start to come together 🙂 He’s such a fun little dog. Have a great weekend.
Yes!!!! All makes perfect sense, as always 😊 I love the piece of cardboard idea. The first clip where he’s breathing hard is very shortly after he’s entered the building, hasn’t run yet. He comes into the building that way and then settles over time. Usually by the end of the hour and 1/2 class he can start to relax a little bit. But you should’ve seen him 6 months ago. Seriously, he would be so over the top between the car and the door, not even inside yet that he couldn’t even take a treat. Pattern games have been SO good for us. I think the other thing that helps him is familiarity, or maybe it’s distance from the action. We’re trialing today and tomorrow (I’m building courses for the Brittany club). And here’s a couple of short clips of him hanging in is crate upstairs.
You know how you have ah-ha moments! Your feedback about letting him offer the engagement was like “duh, of course!” Pretty typical is I can regulate him after we walk in the gate with hand touches, and he stays engaged for the sit but the moment I reach to take off his leash or collar he consistently looks away, gets sniffy, says Hard, Hard, Hard and unfortunately I think because I feel the pressure of time I haven’t been giving him the chance to breathe and then choose to reconnect…..down the proverbial rabbit hole we go 🥺 Today’s fun while hanging upstairs is lots of release from crate, sit, reward from treat bag on top of crate (sort of remote), reach to remove leash, wait for him to reconnect, reward, release back into crate, reward. Depending on how that goes I’ll add in actually removing the leash. So far he likes the game…. Still disengages as soon as I reach for leash but reengages much quicker. What do you think?
Hey! We’re still here 🙂 Actually we’ve been doing a lot of the stuff, taking the opportunity to train wiggle through my legs at breakfast, fast focus with the keys at all sorts of places, etc. None of it very conducive for video but I’m feeling good about where a lot of it is going. 🙂
In regards to class, not really able to crate anywhere else, except out of the car and I think that’s even harder as we’ve definitely determined that he gets more and more relaxed/comfortable the longer he’s inside even in the crate along the back wall. I was smart enough yesterday to grab some video. There are 3 separate ones.
First is 3 quick clips of him in the crate, waiting his turn. This was fairly relaxed for him. I like your idea of something for him to chew on….Peanut butter Kong elicits some pretty strong resource guarding behavior, Nylabone (an at home fav) wasn’t enough here, so out of desperation I just tossed some kibble in the crate and it was distracting enough for a long enough time that it did let him start to settle…..I’m thinking some sort of snuffle toy might be the answer. Video is him before giving him any of the above items. Thoughts?
Next clip is from the crate to the startline for our 2nd turn. I didn’t think to video our first turn but got my s___ together and had a friend video our next two. Because of what happened on our first turn (started in the same place, the person who ran before us who was crated right behind this start but instead of putting her dog in the crate she gave her a bunch of treats and made a lot of noise right behind us as I was asking Sly to setup…HUGELY distracting but lots of good as he didn’t run over to see what was happening but he used I think every functioning brain cell he had not to..but SO proud of him as it wasn’t long ago he’d have been over there in a blink of an eye and ready to fight her dog to the death for the kibble). So, just chose to go with lots of food and Pattern Game….we have been able to start to do some RR but didn’t want to go there today after what happened on our first run. The whole sit, take off leash, leadout, lose focus, come back and reset and then able to do it the second time seems to be a pattern I’ve setup…. I know I was asking for a REALLY long leadout (probably shouldn’t have, but very pleased with how he was able to do it the second time) And you can see from the video that once we go he’s really “all good”
Third video is from the crate for our 3rd turn (although this one I did leave in the whole sequence – I thought you’d enjoy watching him nail it!) Whole startline activity is very similiar to the one before although I am recognizing that something really “happens” when I unclip the leash…it’s like it’s a trigger for him to get concerned about what’s next?
This startline behavior is pretty much the same at trials although we add in the complexity of getting through the gate but what happens at the line is pretty similiar – I’ve never really noticed the dramatic change in his composure when I reach to unclip the leash before today 🙁 I think it’s good that class and trial are similar, right as that gives us lots of opportunity to work through this…and Lo is 100% on board with whatever we want to work on. Doesn’t care what we do with our turn, whatever the dog needs is her motto. Oh yeah…..we’ve also been working on I’m not sure if you’d call it a Volume Dial or a Controlled Chill behavior…. but where I’m sitting or kneeling on the floor and he’s laying at my side and I’m petting him.
Sorry so long but lots to fill you in on! Hope all is well with you and yours.
No video but a quick update and a few questions 🙂
We had class at AK9C today, also had an opportunity to split an hour of ring rental time before so took it, although it made for one very tired dog and Mama on the way home! Unfortunately, no video and I hadn’t watched the Week 2 games yet but I did listen to them and the Week 1 Zoom meeting on the drive home 🙂 We played Instant Focus with the keys….took just a few reps for him to remember the game in the new place and we were able to move it to several locations both inside and outside the ring and he did great! Not quite as fluent as on home turf but pretty close 🙂
We also played with the first step of RR in the regular trial gate staging area, figured why not since we had the chance. Also did pretty well, harder for him to offer engagement than on home turf but again he figured it out pretty quickly. Question…. (wish I had video) unlike at home when he engages he pretty much stays engaged for an additional step past the first engagement or he offers it quickly…one or two steps away from the food and he quickly engages. Today, he got very comfortable offering one or maybe even two steps away from the reward and towards the gate area (which is in a kinda scary/interesting corner). If I took an additional step he would disengage and look to see “the corner” but unlike in the past he wouldn’t “bolt” to check it all out, he’d stay with me but not looking at me. I didn’t take any more steps and at first he couldn’t reengage without help (I moved around in front of him), we only did this a few times and by the 3rd time he would break the engagement, look forward and if I waited he eventually looked back and we ran for cookies. I think I asked for more than he was ready for. We also have a “history” with this specific area. The way we’ve been dealing with it at trials is Pattern Game with food until we go in the gate and he’s able to acclimate to the area because of the food and the Pattern Game but as soon as the food is gone and we immediately go in the gate…well, that’s why we’re here 🙂
The other question I have is about crating while waiting his turn in class. At a trial everyone crates upstairs and he truly is one of the best dogs up there. He’s not totally relaxed but he’s quiet in the crate, laying down and kinda watching the World go by. But at class it’s a different story. At class everyone crates along the back wall of the ring. There’s a few obedience ring gates between where we crate and the ring but it’s pretty much all the same area. Crate covered, crate uncovered he cannot settle. He doesn’t appear to be apprehensive about the other dogs but he just can’t settle. But if I take him out and have him do “mat work” next to his crate he’s so much better. At least his eye balls aren’t spinning and he’s not panting. I’ve come to say that “how much functioning brain we have is inversely proportional to how much tongue is hanging out” – In the crate his tongue is dragging on the floor, out of the crate on his mat it’s about 1/2 way back in his mouth. Thoughts?
And last but not least…I loved listening to you describe dogs/breeds that will demo free choice in the Zoom meeting. You need to add Brittany to that list!
“maybe momma gets nervous……….” Oh yeah! Definitely a possibility 🙂 A couple of light bulb moments for me in this 🙂 I 100% agree with your comments in regards to the RR and how it applies to what happens when we enter the gate and how it SO fits with his personality. He is very much a dog that when he knows what to do, he’s going to do it. He’s also as I said very much a doer and only a little bit of a thinker and not a lot of patience so when we enter the gate I do think he immediately looks for “what to do”. I never put it all together in that way before 🙂 So…we did a quick session of RR today with me looking for the instant of engagement as I moved away and “rewarding” that with the Let’s GO…run back to the treats. I really liked this session 🙂 Thoughts?
Also a quick session of Instant Focus with the keys. Lots more offering of the nose touch. He’s still figuring out a little bit that that’s the behavior we’re shaping but I liked this session too so will continue with this key game for now. I’m willing to bet that after another short session or two he’s going to be 100% sure that “put my nose on the keys and the cookies will appear” Again, what do you think?
Good Morning!
All the feedback makes perfect sense, thank you!A little more history…..Sly will be 2 1/2 next month (Where the H___ did all that time go?). Show breeder so he didn’t get all the experiences that most performance breeders are doing these days with their puppies. But he did get some exposure to the outside world in that his breeder is also a groomer and the puppies spent a lot of time at the shop when they were a little older. He was the puppy in the litter that would crawl over all the other puppies and try to scale the xpen to get what he wanted. He was definitely a pup that needed to get out and “see the World” and we were making sure he got those opportunities and then Covid came. Not all bad, in that since we didn’t have much else to do and you were offering Puppy Games we had the opportunity to develop some awesome foundation skills 🙂 But I think a big piece of his “need” to acclimate comes from being “locked down” during that critical period of time. He’s come a LONG ways and has “caught up” for the most part and I think now we are working with what I think we all work with in some degree or another…as you said dog sports are hard in that we expect our pups to come into strange places and immediately be able to focus and work at a high level without any primary rewards immediately available. One other thing…I would describe him as impulsive, a shoot first, aim later kinda guy. Jim says his theme song should be “I want it all, and I want it NOW!” The Pattern Game has been our go to game for awhile now. Last summer he wasn’t able to walk around the parking lot at AK9 without blasting off to everything he saw, literally I would get to Lo’s class 15 minutes early just to get him settled enough so he could take a treat in the parking lot…. we are now playing Pattern Game walking quietly through the crating area…hardest thing is not blasting off to checkout coolers, waterbowls, etc on the floor. But we’re doing much better with this, my “plan” is to walk slowly past those things, he’s getting so that sometimes he can look and then immediately look to me. Other hard thing is not blasting ahead at the top of the stairs. With the Pattern Game we can nicely get down the stairs from the crate area, stand in line all the way until we are the next dog to run at a trial. Our hard part is through the gate, to the line – I’m assuming because that’s the part where I don’t have a primary reinforcer immediately available. He/we struggle with comfort at the start and ability to setup quickly and maintain a stay but the really good part is once we start the course he is ALL business and all GO!!! He loves to tug (when he’s comfortable with the environment) and he’s pretty good at being able to switch from toys to food and back again. Although if he’s “stressed” the toys are much harder and he “needs” his food. At classes we are working with being able to tug from right out of the crate to the line for his turn – not quite there but getting close and at trials we are now able (after he’s acclimated upstairs in the crate area for 1/2 hour or so) to tug upstairs in the crate area and when there’s no one else in the prerun staging area he can tug down there as well 🙂 I think that probably takes care of our history 🙂 Did I miss anything important?
Instant focus game……I saw that too when I was looking at the video. I missed the opportunity to reward a bunch of times. Is it OK that he offers the down? Or would it be better if I used something larger that he is more likely to do a paw touch? A couple of times he sort of nose touched the keys and that was the behavior I was thinking about trying to shape. What do you think?
Leg weaves….yeah, I think he thought this was fun! And thanks for the suggestion to start with front/back split legs. That should definitely help prevent any confusion.
You are right in that there is a lot of material here but really easy for short quick sessions 🙂 I was on my home yesterday afternoon and the Training Center was not in use so we ran in and did a quick session to show you where we are with Remote Reinforcement and played with the Setup Between my Legs. With that one we backed up to step one, which I didn’t do when I taught it initially so I thought it would be good to go back and play with it.
We’ve done a lot with a Remote Reinforcer…. I try to almost anytime we’re running a “full sequence” and not skill training to do it with the reinforcement not being on me. I generally ask him to come with me to start the sequence though, don’t wait for him offer to come so I wanted to see how that went. He was great, but both the food baggie and the toy on the floor were hard!!!
Hey, looks like we’re posting at the same time 🙂 I just added a couple of short clips to my posts from this morning. Thought I’d add to it instead of a new one but you were quicker than I was 🙂 Have a great weekend!
Good Morning!
Not sure how the last week got away but I wanted to say Thank You! for this class. It was great. Especially timely for us.When I get caught up from last week Sly and I will see you in To the Line – And Beyond. Oh yeah, and Wrap/Wrap got us our 3rd Advanced Gamblers Q on Saturday and a perfect turn off a fast line of 3 jumps where you had to do a tight turn back to the Aframe, not keep going straight on the line to the Tunnel on some wicked fun Ashley Anderson courses
Take care, stay well.
>>Because these games don’t have much handling, it is easy for the words to end up all at the same pitch/volume/tempo…….
You’re right! I never really thought about it but when “running” my verbals sound very different than they do in a lot of these games and just as you said they sort of match the level of the handling….interesting, I’ll have to pay more attention to that.I’m not exactly sure what was happening at .19 either. I half suspect that at least part of his brain was thinking that’s where the food was last time. I don’t tend to use food as the reward for a lot of these games, more toys that I can throw and food for setups. But I did use it in this session…
Played a little Out this morning…put some speed in it and that totally changed his ability to “not take the Jump” and suddenly going straight became hard and the Out became easy. Fun, short session….. And oh yeah, this is definitely a verbal/skill we’re going to need!
Shamrock Shake….think mint flavored, DQ soft serve with extra sugar!
Frontsides/Backsides Take 2. I think that stacking his Wrap on his Back may work really well for the circle wraps. I think on the first one I was really late with the Wrap but on a couple of them when I was more timely with the Wrap he really squared up and made a tight little circle. Moving to Position 2 really taxed his brain a bit…crazy good, how after a really short break part way through the session he was able to catch his breath, collect his thoughts and come back with a few awesome reps.
Have a great weekend.
Nothing like a doggie potty emergency to get you up and going early! Hope Elektra is all OK now.
Got a brag for you!!! We have a weekly Wednesday class with Lo Baker. Yesterday’s setup had LOTS of big, fast Go lines mixed in with lots of tight Wraps and Sly was freaking amazing!!! Per Lo “He really knows his Wrap/Wrap verbal” 🙂 Wish I had videoed! He/we (I’m including me is this as I was SO much better about getting the cue out in plenty of time) executed them all just about perfectly 🙂 Happy Dance…..cheeseburgers and Shamrock shakes on the way home!
On the other hand, it was pretty clear that we don’t really have an Out so put that on the training list and decided to play with the Bonus Game from Week 4 this morning. If you ever need video of how important the (in this case) dropped back right shoulder is for going straight just let me know! I’ve got a 1/2 dozen reps of him doing just about everything possible with the jump trying to figure out what I mean. Once I got my mechanics right he was like – Thank You, Mom!!!
Also played with the Front-Back Combos from Week 5. This is another place where (at least for now) I’ve got just the one verbal for a backside, Back and am relying on my handling to let him know whether it’s a wrap or a slice. Figure that I can always add a new cue for one of them down the road if I need/want to. Hardest part about both of these games – remembering not to say Yes and to cue Get It for the reward!!! 30 years of Yes are going to take awhile to change!!!!
