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Good Morning! We’re headed to the Northern Maine woods for a few days for some R and R 😊 so there probably won’t be anything new from Sly and I until Monday. I did get to watch all the Package 4 videos yesterday… lots of great stuff. I don’t think we have any sort of hangout behavior. At home if we’re hanging out he’s either sleeping in my lap or someplace on the floor. He will when he wants me to to interact pick up a toy and bring it over, my husband calls it bringing a carcass 😆 And when we are training and he’s fully engaged he’s one of those dogs that will just “hang off his toy” with minimal interaction from me while I think about what’s next. Can we use this a starting point or should I think of something else that doesn’t need a “prop”? Thoughts? Have a great weekend!
We also did a couple of the Decisions Sequences….the 1st one and the 3rd one. I need to reset the first one so that we can go both directions at Jump 3. And I just realized that I didn’t do the 3rd one correctly….ran 6 as a front side instead of the back…..and added a jump between 5 and 6 🙁 Anyway…it was fun and we played with a send at 4 and tight wrap at 5 and then setting the line at 4 with more of send at 5. Guess we’ll run this one “right” tomorrow! Stay tuned….
We’ve played with the Threadle Wrap a couple more times. Decided to (for now anyway) just do one side per session. Today’s “right session” was short and sweet 🙂 I think I see smoke coming out of his ears 🙂 and light bulbs switching on!
Holy crap…where’d this week go? Oh yeah….he’s a LOT happier just opening up and running 🙂 And yes…..Masher could cover some ground in hurry!!!!! Not sure if you are a fan of any kind of car racing but those guys all understand that the short/tighter line is not always the fastest. Lots of understanding about fastest lines in and out of turns in most all motorsports. Anyway….. Finally going to get a chance to do a little training this afternoon. 🙂 Before I head out I’ve got to share something with you though. At our class/lesson with Lo on Wednesday we did a little bit of up/down by our crate as we waited our turn to hand touches into the ring (no food), got to the first jump and as I reached down to take off his leash he immediately setup between my legs….at which point in time Lo said “Well, he’s all business today” 🙂 Have a great weekend! Oh yeah….and he did a picture perfect, run all the way to the end and slide into his two on two off seesaw 🙂
We also started playing with the Threadle/Wrap game. We’d done some of this awhile back… in one of the MaxPup games maybe? Not sure if turning to his right is just easier or if it was because it was the first side we did.
Played with the sequence again this afternoon… definitely better setting him further back at jump 1. I played with the 2 different ways to handle 5 and tried to time a couple of them off the video, tunnel exit to tunnel entrance. It looks to me like they are very close in time. Also worked on my timing at 11. This was a fun sequence.
Yesterday was GREAT! Went pretty much as I had hoped…..some better than I expected, like his ability to actually walk around upstairs where all the dogs are crated and focus. We did lots of up and downs while we walked through the crating area and then would stop, ask for some hand touches and some Throughs, all of which he was able to do 🙂 A little black Lab puppy really got him tweeked but we both backed away a bit and Sly was able to reconnect. A friend of mine videoed the time we “stood on deck” for me and the run, although the run is kinda hard to see and I’m going to buy the video from the videographer that was there. The on deck time is long…..over 5 minutes. Not sure if you’d like to see any or all of it….synopsis of it was that Sly was able to focus enough to do all his tricks….hand touches, Throughs, downs and could almost tug outside the ring but not quite. A little bit of disconnect on the way in …I don’t have enough hands to hold the leash, the toy, hand touch and open the gate 🙂 But we quickly reconnected at the line. Setup, I led out quite aways, I thought he was totally comfortable but he did drop the first bar. Anyway was able to tug after the tunnel at the end of the long jump line. He did get a little unfocused at one point but came back and finished strong 🙂 I’ll post the run video as soon as I get it…probably not until tomorrow sometime. And let me know if you want to see any or all of the prerun stuff…again, it’s long …a little more than 5 minutes. Tracy, thanks for this class, it’s exactly what we need 🙂 I got so many compliments from folks yesterday about how far Sly has come. One person who saw him at a seminar about a month ago was amazed at the change in just the past month. Yesterday was a GOOD day 🙂
Yep!…..all makes perfect sense. Raining here today so a good opportunity to go over to the Training Center and play with this one a little bit more. And YES….should’ve rewarded all those times he did it right while I worked out what the cuing for that turn needed to be for him. As you said, he is pretty responsive, unlike Mags who I like to say “responds when she’s damn good and ready” 🙂
We both needed to run so here’s our baseline for the Games Package 2 Sequence for Success. I thought our turns at 5 and 8 were pretty good. I messed up the one at 11 just about every way possible!!! Also as I was watching I realized I didn’t use any verbal cues 😞
Oh yeah….I sort of forgot all about our hand touches, what I call (With Me) which is a hand touch to a flip into a loose heel sitting at my side, also his sits and downs are more games and are really solid and comfortable behaviors and then there’s his “through” which is between my legs. I think I forgot about them because anytime he can’t go directly to tug we immediately go to the hand touches. I guess without even thinking about it. So yes, absolutely all of the above outside the ring with food if he can’t tug. Question…..so if he can’t get to tug but he can do hand touches could I “hand touch” him into the ring? If he can hand touch he can almost always do through. And at least in that 2nd run at Data Driven where he was pretty distracted once he did the 3 straight jumps to the tunnel he could chase and tug his favorite toy like a demon 🙂 I think I’ve got a plan for tomorrow. I’ll let you know how things go. And I finally got a chance this afternoon to catch up on most of the videos. And maybe I can kill 2 birds with one stone 🙂 I’ve always wanted to teach either a High Five or a Give Me Five…..just never found/made the time. If I did it with some sort of funny target could that work as both his moving behavior for the Verbals with Arousal and as a Instant Focus Game? Gotta run…..living on a lake in Maine and my recently retired husband are really cutting into my dog training time!!!! Have a great weekend!
Thanks Tracy. In hindsight I was actually pretty proud of myself for walking out of the ring 🙂 We’re entered in just a Starters Gamblers class this coming Saturday. It’s a BARK USDAA trial at AK9C so it’s a place where we’ve had lots of opportunity to train. But no doubt that the class setting is a LOT different than a trial setting. The training opportunity is going to be the actual standing in line with other dogs and other people. My plan (and thank goodness for the COVID protocols that give us a lot more space!) is up and down game and if he can focus with the distractions with that then see if he can tug with his favorite toy while in line. If he can actually tug in line, we’ll tug into the ring. I think if we get that far he’s probably going to be able to stay focused so the plan is then a few jumps and tunnels and his teeter if it’s easy to get to in flow as its a teeter that he’s now been on a fair amount and he LOVES his teeters, play, and out. My plan is that at any point in time if he isn’t able to focus that we abort at that point and back up to what he could focus on and call it good. I’m thinking that is most likely to happen when we switch from up and down to tug while standing in line. We’ll see. I know he was able to do it last weekend at DataDriven, but we were outside and able to really spread out and the trial was so small that there really wasn’t a lot of waiting in line. This time a familiar venue but not going to be able to spread out as much and will definitely have to stand in a line a little more. What do you think? Suggestions? Hoping to watch the Week 3 videos today…. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.
Well……change of plans for yesterday. It was raining, so I got Val to let me move him back to 12″….figured that the addition of running in the rain was enough of a change that we weren’t going to do anything else different. Things sort of fell apart after that though. VERY small trial and some scratches meant we were 2nd dog on line and the person in front of us did 6 obstacles and left. Sly was already a little cranked as a former student that I hadn’t seen in 2 or 3 years with a big German Shepherd kept wanting to talk and I was too polite 🙁 Next thing I knew the gate was yelling for us so we attempted up and down from crate to gate, sort of had him but only sort of, in my rush I grabbed the wrong toy and he wasn’t even close to being able to tug with it as we were heading in so we walked out of the ring and I scratched him. Of course the friend with Shepherd runs over to ask if Sly is OK and he’s immediately on his way to “talk” to the Shepherd 🙁 Not all bad though…..as soon as I yelled HEY! he backed right off from the Shepherd, friend finally figured out she needed to get her dog away and within less than 2 minutes of up and down Sly was totally focused and I have absolutely no doubt that he could’ve run just like on Friday. All in all not what we had planned and I was pretty bummed as he had done SO well the day before and mostly I was pissed at myself for “being polite”….but now I’m actually kinda pleased with both of us 🙂 I was able to control my desire to run and walked out and he was able to screw his head back on MUCH, MUCH quicker than he ever has before in a situation this charged. Onward!!!!! 🙂
We’re still here!!! We’re at DataDriven, did a lesson yesterday, short sequences, 12”, lots of food rewards (he wasn’t able to tug) but on his last turn he was able to do 6 weaves, chase his HolyRoller ball and bring it back and tug with it 😊
2 Runs today UKI, FEO, 12”. Had entered 3 classes but decided to scratch the 3rd one, dealing with the heat was frying 😆 both of our brains. One was a Speedstakes course, other was a Jumpers. He was AWESOME!!!! I’ll post the videos, unfortunately I didn’t get the “on deck” stuff. Used his favorite tug toy, jumped 12”, played up and down from his crate to where we got in line, continued to play in line and then got him to switch over to tugging with his favorite tug toy, tried a little leash tug but no go but he was able to switch right back to his toy, tugged all the way in to setting up, couple of hand touches and he sat right up between my legs on the first run. Second run the dog before us pooped in the ring so we had to “kill” a lot of time. Used what I had for treats playing up/down and then we sat on the ground and tugged. He wasn’t quite as comfortable at the start of this run and actually broke his start line as I was leading out. In hindsight my bad… should’ve recognized how “hard” the extra time waiting was and not done the big lead out but as soon as he moved we went and he recovered really nicely…straight run to a tunnel and then play. The videos aren’t the best but I think you can get a feel for how things went. We’ve got one run tomorrow, Starters Gamblers. My plan is same as today… try to setup a course with primarily jumps and tunnels… and maybe a seesaw towards the end. Only change (at least in theory) from today is going to be jumping at 16”. I’ll let you know how it goes
1st Run
2nd Run
Getting Started with the Verbals with Arousal 🙂 I’m good with a stationary behavior, we’ve got tons of them but I’m realizing that I don’t think I’ve taught any moving ones “on a verbal”. And I’m assuming I don’t want to do this (at least not to start) with an “agility” one….like Back, or left or right, right? Way too hard, I think. Would go to your mat be considered a moving behavior? We’ve got it on pretty well understood verbal and usually when I cue it I’m not moving and he does have to move from where he is to his mat. Would that work for this game?
