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You’re up and at it early today! Yes, all makes total sense, thank you! I forgot to mention in the original post last night that I had swapped out a jump for the Wrap Wing. We really struggled with the Gos when it was out to the Wing. I’m not totally sure why, but I think it might be at least in part that we did most of our puppy Go, Wraps games around pop up trash barrels and not wings and that now when we’re wrapping wings it’s frequently at the start of a game (like this one) and I’m close so he gets to drive ahead…. Who knows for sure!?!? Anyway, we were both getting a little frustrated so I swapped in the Jump for the Wing and he was like “Well, so that’s what you wanted!” It was just so much clearer to him for the Gos with the jump than the Wing that I decided to just leave it for the whole game. Does that make sense?
I think this is the 2nd or maybe even 3rd time we’ve played with this since the last video…Mostly playing with GO to the thrown toy. This is actually the first time we added in the Lefts and Rights. As you said, those were relatively easy for him. I really have to think about just moving forward in a straight line and not helping with my motion and remembering our Get It cue for the reward….
And another session of our turn away cue, Flip. I tried to “help” when needed with my hand/arm and not by cueing the turn by crossing behind. I liked this session 😊
This first session of the Fast Lines Challenge Game from Week 4 turned into more of a Go session than Wrap, and the Soft Turn part is definitely going to wait for a future session. Until this class I don’t think I realized how much (most) of our Go was about me running as fast as I could behind him! I really did enjoy this session, it was fun watching him sort this out! I found myself wondering if it was a jump out there for the wrap instead of a wing if that would’ve been clearer for him but I think working through this with the wing will help to strengthen his understanding of GO. I did end up physically helping/cueing the wrap. I actually did it intentionally as I didn’t mind helping that as he was working through the Go without as much physical cueing. Does that make sense?
We also played with the Week 4, Wrap Away Verbal. Similar to our Wrap verbal I’ve (at least for now) decided to have just one verbal, relative to me. Our word is Flip. Started with a quick review. His head was pretty tired when we did this, even though we took a break and played a few rounds of chase the ball and a short walk outside he really hadn’t recovered from all the thinking from the Fast Lines session. He worked hard and got a well deserved snow romp after all of this training. He is sound asleep in his Dad’s lap right now!
Oh he’s definitely happy, chase toys and get setup cookies….he says “what’s not to like about this game!” Better throws (great suggestion to practice my mechanics without him first, I need to remember to do that more often) and I did better with my Get its and the different tone for the Gos 😀. Think I’ll give this a break for a few days, check out Week 3 games and then come back to this one incorporating me staying back and letting him drive forward…definitely going to need that skill with his RDW! Love this course!
OMG! I think you need a class on throwing toys!!! Sly says PLEASE!!!!! Spent most of this session trying to figure out throwing a toy..timely, right spot, etc. etc I left of few of my ‘finer” throws in for your viewing pleasure but figured you had better things to do with your time than watch them all!!!
Once I sort of got that figured out this was a good learning session…more for me than Sly 🙂 Totally forgot my Get It cues and only in the last couple of reps did I remember to try a different tone/cadence with the Gos. Plan is to do this tomorrow with Lefts….and hopefully I’ll remember Get it! I do get an atta boy though for being good about managing my movement and not helping that way. Hope you had a nice weekend.
Eventually remembered the Get It marker 🙂 The “off course” jump was never of much interest, good boy! The Go was really hard without the preplaced reward. Harder for me to throw anything close to well than it was for him to Go! Decided to quit while we were ahead today and go play in the snow. Have a great weekend. And thank you for the earlier explanation of your use for the Lefts and Rights. That was my plan too, finish whatever obstacle that’s been cued and then turn in the correct direction….be it towards me or away from me. At least that’s the plan 🙂 One more question about soft turns vs. Go straight. Where do turns at like a 45 fall? Like a jump at a 45 off the dogwalk? Is the answer “it depends”? I’m thinking that if it’s a turn to jump with an off course tunnel straight ahead that’s going to be Right or Left? But is it still a Right or Left if there’s no off course obstacle ahead? Again, have a great weekend!
Well I did a better job of not decelerating but crap… did not even feel myself take the early step in the direction of the turn 😱 We’ve done some Left/Right training previously, different method and quite awhile ago, but I was pleasantly surprised that a lot of it is “in there” 😊 Going to play this again tomorrow assuming we’re not snowed in….anything else I should change in addition to being careful about the lateral step too early?
Yes…..I kept trying to “manage” my motion so as not to help with any handling/decel, hard to do in the smallish space and I always think I’m doing better at it until I start to edit video and then it’s like…..not quite as good as I thought 🙂 I do find it to be really good training for me, to manage more than one thing for me to do with “me” based on what I see him doing.
Rewatched all the Week 2 videos, couple of questions. Do you use your Left and Right for all your soft turns – ie. straight(ish) tunnels and running dogwalk or do you have a different verbal for those? Or maybe the better question is: Is that what you use them for primarily and do you also/ever use them over a jump, like in a Gamble? Does that question make sense? Also, in all the videos your Left and Right is to the side that you are on, when you cue Right you are on the dog’s Right side and vice versa. Are your left and rights not relative to you and later on in the training you add in training for when they are a turn away from you? Thanks as always….off to play with Game 1. By the way…I was smart enough to print out the Field Guide this time and it’s great!
Sly says to tell you that I’m dangerous when I have a MM clicker in my hand and have to use it for more than one thing! I loved your idea of using the MM for the Wraps but I kept clicking it as soon as I saw commitment to the Wrap instead of waiting for him to come back to me and then sending…after I did that 2 or 3 times, I had the poor boy SO confused!!! Short session today of Wraps and Gos and Wraps and Gos….with the MM only for the Gos. I was really pleased with how this went 🙂 On to Week 2’s games!!!
Kind of a where we are update video. The “waiting” to hear THE word as opposed to just hearing A word is hard!!! My husband would say I have the same problem 🙂 We did several short sessions this week working up to this session today. Most of those sessions started with just working through “Oh I heard a word, blast to my MM! I think he’s definitely a rightie. Next time I do this I need to make sure to start with wrapping to the left just to sort out why this side is harder….right vs. left, 2nd side in the session or brain getting tired because we were further into the session………..or maybe this is him saying it would be helpful if you had different words? Anyway…..there’s a LOT about this session that I loved. The toy we are playing with is his leash :), I was smart enough (although a few reps late) to switch him to food when playing with the leash got hard…and the exercise (now turning to the left was hard), loved how with the switch to food and backing up to the wing instead of the 2 jumps he was 100% back in the game. And he definitely knows what GO means 🙂 We’re headed out tonight for a 2 day seminar so we’ll be “absent” for few days. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week.
Wraps, Part 1 with me waiting to see his head turn on the verbal before I complete my turn. I think this might have been harder for me than him 🤪
Got it! So, just to make sure I understand….. I’m not going to “help” him make the correct decision to Wrap by finishing my cross as soon as I see commitment to go forward? I don’t finish the cross until I see the head turn for the Wrap? The idea is for him to process the Verbal and respond to it even if my body isn’t clear? This is going to be really hard, I think. Doesn’t my body not turning on commitment to go forward to the wing cue continue going forward?
From your last comments…..
“I think people are getting RCs on those types of intended wraps because of the step-to-takeoff part of the wrap cues” I totally agree that this is what’s going on with Sly and why he reads the fronts as rears. I worked hard to get that “step to takeoff down” 🙂 and I don’t think it was ever much of an issue with Mags cause I didn’t do enough rears with her for them to be part of her “options”. Thanks for the suggestion for changing my handling to “fix” this. I’ll play with it, I’m sure it will make all the difference. Now to “retrain” me!!!And oh yeah, I know “shtick” 🙂 Mine is tieing and retieing my shoes. By the end of a trial day my shoes are so tight that my feet hurt!!! I appreciate that thought. I need to think about it as if I don’t give Sly the chance to “tie his shoes” it’s all he’s going to be able to think about until he gets to. I so get that! Seriously, if I don’t do that final “tie” I can get distracted by how my shoes feel while running!!!
Didn’t make it to the trial…..just getting too old (or finally smart enough) to want to drive home in bad weather in the dark. We have been working on continuing to put together all the pieces of this class. I think we both have learned SO much from this one and it’s been a lot of fun. Attached is a video from today. Don’t remember where I got this course but have set it up as a “Christmas Challenge” for everyone this week. Lots of interesting sections for training. Thought you might enjoy seeing Sly go!!! Incorporating (still fine tuning) our start-up and end of runs routines is getting easier 🙂
Tracey, thanks again for this class. It really has been eye opening. Have a wonderful holiday season and I’ll look for your email with 2022 classes. Until then I’ve got LOTS and LOTS of things to keep Sly and I busy with things we never got to in All Things Tunnel and Master the Challenge.
From your last feedback…….”It might have appeared that he was distracted or heading for the leash or reward at :43, but when you freeze the video – your feet and line of motion cued a rear cross. Good boy!! He was reading the handling correctly, not leaving for distractions.”
Yeah, I wondered about that and it’s something that happens more frequently than I would like….me cueing rear when I don’t mean to that is! Rears have never been my strong suit and honestly most of the time I’ve been able to get by without them, but it does seem that judges are getting pretty good at putting in at least one section in every course where either you have to do it with a rear or a rear is definitely a better way to do it so I’ve done a lot more rear cross work with Sly than any previous dog….and I need to be clearer about my mechanics!!!! Hey, sounds like an idea for a class to me!! Handler Mechanics for Fronts and Rears…..I’ll have to think of a fun name for it 🙂 I was thrilled with how well he did with the distractions. We’ll continue to play around with them.As far as the startline procedure. Contraband looked awesome!! That boy is going to have some speed!!!! I was reading your feedback to Helen for one of her remote reinforcer posts (I’m following both Helen and Kathy’s threads) and you said something about tugging being the only reinforcer available. I think I need to play around with breaking down the pieces of our setup even more. Remote reinforcement for giving up the “tug” leash. I pretty much always ask for a setup between my legs as soon as I get the leash back and one of the things I’ve noticed is that he starts to be less “happy” about giving it up. What I was doing was then doing a bit of Yours, Tug, Mine, Yours, Tug, Mine…. but I think I want to try some Tug, Mine….Let’s go to a remote reinforcer. What do you think?
And at least so far he’s not “all business” until I actually start the leadout. When we are moving into the ring is the point where he is most distracted, which is why I was wanting to develop a strong tug with his leash. He LOVES tug when he’s focused so it’s a strong behavior that I think we can build on. Right how we are doing a lot of hand touches which are pretty strong and last week in class I actually played around with a sit, I lead out to the end of the leash and then have hm come in to a hand touch. It took a little while but we were able to move 60 or 70′ without losing focus once. 🙂 Anyway…..lots to continue to play with. Have really loved this class!!!! If we don’t get snowed out, we’re entered on Saturday, AKC but they are offering FAST so we get to do a “real” FEO run and a couple of regular classes. I’m going to try to remember to setup my video so I can get all the stuff on the way into the ring before the run actually starts. I’ll let you know how it goes.
