[Kim Tees]

Your comment: Glad it is diminishing in frequency! Was he able to play in that context? Or he was too distracted and getting further away was the only thing that helped?

He generally can’t play before he can’t take a treat. More often than not if he can’t play he can almost always still take a treat without moving away from “the thing”. As I think about it, I actually can’t remember the last time something was SO distracting/arousing that he couldn’t take a treat. 🙂

Your comment: Fun! Does he like swimming or barking or anything else? Not particularly…not really a barker. Does enjoy swimming but isn’t mad about it. He does like what I call “exploring”…free to just wander and check out the yard.

[Kim Tees]

My reinforcer cues
Food:
Thrown: Get it
From Hand: I didn’t have one but have decided on Treat and have been working on getting in the habit of using it
Follow the Hand: Don’t have a cue for this
Throwback: Catch

Toys:
Get it and Catch are the same as with Food. My “give it back to me” cue is Mine. I didn’t have a cue for take the toy that’s presented, your Bite but I decided on Yours…fits in my head with Yours/Mine
Don’t have one for OK to take the toy from my moving hand.

Here’s my questions..
I don’t think I had a cue for take the toy that’s presented to you cause I don’t think I’ve ever used a toy that way! I either throw a toy for him to chase and bring back, have a preplaced stationary toy or drag/wiggle the toy when I want to tug with him with it. Hmmm…guess I’m wondering what’s the advantage/reason for having him take it from me instead of me wiggling it? I guess that’s what I do. It’s something I’ve never really thought about it. But now that you have brought it up I do see lots of people doing this with Riot sticks, udders…. I tried an udder with Sly early on and he didn’t seem to like it but that was pretty early on. Wondering if I should “test” this type of toy again and see what he thinks? Is this making any sense?

My other question is about your Shooo cue. Again I don’t have a cue for this. Sly has become very good about understanding the toy that I’m carrying is mine until I give/offer it to him either by wiggling it, dropping it on the ground and dragging it or throwing it. I think that’s all the ways I usually give it to him and I think I usually say Get it. Which probably isn’t as “clean” as it could be thinking how Get it means leave me and get the reinforcer, which mine does but I also use it when I want him to chase the tug. Hmmm…. Is that’s where your Shoooo cue would come in?

Sorry for all the thinking out loud, trying to get it all straight in my head! Thanks as always.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by Kim Tees.

[Kim Tees]

You weren’t kidding when you said there was a lot of info in the first week’s lessons. 🙂 I’ve read/watched all of them multiple times, even took notes! Seriously, Sly and I are here and we’ve been, well I guess it’s mostly I have been working on my mechanics for reward deliveries. Mostly cleaning up cue, then present food or toy. Here’s my list of Reinforcers…

Food:
1) Pretty much anything that is in a ziplock bag….seriously, if I bring out the Ziplock bag he “knows” that there’s good stuff in it
2) Fromm Crunchy O’s – Likes the blueberry ones the best
3) Fresh Pet Chicken Select Meal Dinner
4) Pretty much any small kibble
5) Doesn’t particularly like cheese
When he is over the top aroused (usually caused by either insecurity in a new environment or something over the top exciting, like fast noisy dogs doing agility) he sometimes can’t take a treat until he’s removed from the “thing”. This doesn’t happen very much anymore

Toys:
1) Medium sized Hollee Roller, has to be a medium
2) Floramicato Fluffy Jelly Fish Tug
3) Kehu Raspberry Tug
4) Any tug with fuzz, even better if it has a little ball on the end
5) Balls, softish, not too big
Chasing the Hollee Roller might just be his favorite thing on the planet. If he’s “stressed” at all he has to do a couple of laps before bringing it back. We are even getting where he likes to tug with it, not just return it for a treat. I can pretty much always get him to chase (then tug) with the jellyfish toy, even if he’s initially hesitant/distracted

Activities:
1) Free running….just run, run, run
2) Chase a thrown ball, especially a Hollee Roller

I’ve got a couple of questions about one of the toy reinforcement procedures. I’ll put that in a separate post.

[Kim Tees]

Oh yeah, I do do some wrist flicky thing, don’t I? 🙄 We worked on that a little bit and also some threadles.

[Kim Tees]

Thanks Tracy…..all makes sense. I think what I’ll do is set this up as the mirror image and do all of this “from the other side”

[Kim Tees]

We moved stuff around a bit today and played with the Forced Fronts. Something about this lead out was hard for him so there was a bunch of stuff I did to help him be more comfortable with it. I didn’t include much of it in the video, but lots of “catch”, setup on landing of the first jump instead of on takeoff, etc., etc. I don’t think it had to do with the distance but more with either the fact that I’m behind the jump or maybe the motion of setting up for the FF? I didn’t feel comfortable with the throw back, I think something was not quite right with my movement or something…..anyway….

[Kim Tees]

Thanks Tracy. I was just tickled with this run 😊 I wish AKC allowed FEO in more than just T2B and FAST. I get it that it can add significant time to a trial but it would be great if they would offer it as an option at least at the Novice and Open levels….. anyway…. Fortunately we’ve got a USDAA trial in a few weeks and my plan is to run at least one and depending how things are going more runs FEO.
Played with the Layering Game today. Things went really well so we ended up doing 2 sessions about an hour apart.
1st session: https://youtu.be/QhgmlEIiMq8

2nd session: https://youtu.be/XZAhS9oIm0Q

[Kim Tees]

He is a funny little guy. I think he was remembering that for the last several sessions it had been all about the individual verbals at the jump….didn’t really do any tunnels during that time…and he just couldn’t believe it was OK to do the tunnel again 🙂 Had to smile when I saw the course map for the Biathlon Standard course, it was all about a straight tunnel under a contact. And it ate teams alive! Did an AKC trial yesterday. Thought you might enjoy our JWW run, still getting comfortable between the gate entrance and setup but once he’s set he’s all business!

[Kim Tees]

Did several really short sessions of just each jump cue; jump, wrap and back the last couple of days and then late this afternoon pulled the 3 jump cues and the tunnel all together. Kind of quickly and didn’t have anything to throw. Intentionally “helped” by virtue of my position, but tried to use no motion. I just love how his little brain works! I think we need to take a break from these brain exercises for a couple of days and back to something where he gets to run! Really enjoying this class….seems pretty timely looking at the Cynosport courses!

[Kim Tees]

First session with the Tunnel/Jump discrimination. I’ve GOT to remember to give him reset cookies! He was a very good boy trying to work through this but looking back at this I really did ask a lot and the rate of reward was too low. I’ve GOT to get better at recognizing that in the moment.

Recognized pretty quickly that he has no idea what the word Jump means, could be because I don’t use it much and have never taught it! Since he was offering Back and it’s a word he knows pretty well I decided to use that which in hindsight made this pretty hard (should’ve moved the obstacles farther apart). And probably should’ve used his Wrap for the jump instead of Back, that would’ve been easier for the discrimination I think. And it’s word he knows pretty well too. This is a great exercise.

Question: He’s currently got Wrap, Back and Flip as words associated specifically with a jump. And he’s getting pretty good at Go. How do I teach a specific word that says take the jump “normally”? I don’t want to confuse it with Go?

[Kim Tees]

Had to set something up for this week’s classes…and everyone wants a dogwalk so figured I’d stick a tunnel under it and play with it. Made things easier with the jump closer, lots of preplaced toy. He thought this was pretty fun 🙂 Did a little “left”, easy ones, theoretically. Tried to remember to reward on a bit tighter turn out. And yes, verbals early…and often are definitely helpful for him. In the video before this one while editing it I noticed a couple of times where my verbal was really late (like after he was well in the tunnel late) and he’d come out much slower and sort of “waiting” to hear what to do. It was pretty cool to see that he was trying so hard to hear the words 🙂

Would it be OK to do some of this with a shorter tunnel? I’ve been using a 15 but I’ve got a 10 and a 6.

[Kim Tees]

Thanks! He really does love his teeter 😊❤️😊

A short session yesterday with some distance games. Wrap means take the jump you see and come back towards me. Jump is about 15’ away to start and then it’s about 20. We’ll probably get a chance to play with this again later today and I think I’ll focus on me hanging back and not going past the middle of the tunnel. Does that sound like a good next step?

[Kim Tees]

Played with the Independent Tunnel games a bit today. The boy does love his tunnels 😊 The first video is finding the entry, driving to it and Go! The 2nd video is a little bit of Left and Right. We’ve done some Left and Right previously but not much in the last several months. I think we are both at a place where we’re ready to really work on these verbals now. At the end of the 2nd video I stuck a picture that I thought you might enjoy. It’s a screen grab from a video so not very clear, but it kinda gives you a feel for where his teeter is 😊❤️😊

[Kim Tees]

Thank you Tracy! Sly and I had a blast and learned a lot. I know we’ve been kinda MIA for the last couple of weeks, needed a bit of a reset after loosing Jackson (our 13 year old Cocker) a little sooner than we had expected but the family is all good now and we’re looking forward to the seminar on the 11th!

[Kim Tees]

My plan for tomorrow’s one run…T2B so plan to do it FEO with a toy. Stay outside gate and go in at last minute, stay connected on the way in but don’t ask for any tricks/behaviors… no hand touches, downs, etc? When we get to our start position I’ll stop in my position where he can choose to setup between my legs but if he chooses something else like sit or down take it and say good boy, wait and short lead out, release and go. I’ll plan a short course with lots of fun lines but if we miss an obstacle just drop his toy and let him chase it while I figure out how/where I pick our course back up. In that JWW run all that contorting was really about me thinking I really wanted to be able to restart at weaves first because I kinda wanted to see how he did with them in an actual trial setting and also because that’s how I had planned to get into those last two lines to the tunnels that I was pretty sure he’d love. So… plan will be tomorrow anytime I need to think just run and let him chase his toy. Anything I’m missing?

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