[Kim Tees]

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[Kim Tees]

Short session this morning, once again the video includes all the in betweens. Amazing what just a few short sessions with hugely high rates of reinforcement and managing interactions between Sly and Millie at home more proactively, again with huge rates of reinforcement, does for everyone’s attitude 😊, mostly mine!

A couple of ill placed throws and I need to remember to throw to him on some reps but overall this session was fun and felt good 😊

[Kim Tees]

Two short sessions yesterday……Videos are the full sessions with the in between again.

First one is Sequence 3. I just told him to wait, he chose to sit. Now that I’ve played with this a bit two things come to mind. He wasn’t sure what to do with just a Wait in this context, don’t think I’ve ever done it in agility anyplace but in RDW training with him on the DW or plank. The “I sit in front of a jump” behavior is strong. Also, the release from my “wait” isn’t nearly as clean as when I cue either a sit or down. My bad….. Tried to keep this light with lots of reinforcers while we were both figuring this out.

Second session was a little later in the morning, focused on him looking at the jump before releasing. He chose to stand at least once, maybe twice 🙂

And I love your description of the difference between interrupting and putting a stop to 🙂 As I think about it…..I’m pretty sure for me that interrupting doesn’t involve swearing and stopping does!

[Kim Tees]

So starting closer and adding in a low hand cue to look at it will help smooth out the line and guarantee he takes it
– Got it! Makes perfect sense.

You can also put him on more of a slice line
– Duh!! If I had a nickle for every time I coached someone about setting their dog up at the startline on the line to the next obstacle I could…..well….now for me to remember it for myself

Do you mean you would use a sit cue to interrupt a behavior, or redirect his focus
– Historically to redirect his focus..and I’d usually be prepared with lots of treats. I know that the last couple of months though that I’ve been using it to interrupt a behavior and I think that’s part of the problem I’ve created. Example….We have 2 sets of cues for when he gets out of the crate in the car….Ok, Go with physical cues to match means you are free!!! And Ok, With me which means come out and sit close to me. I found myself last weekend just giving him an OK, he blasts out and I wanted to “scream” sit, because of our discussion I stopped myself. Pretty sure I’ve been doing more of that recently

When is this happening – when you are interrupting behavior or putting a stop to behavior?
– More interrupting, I think. Guess I’m not completely sure of the difference……doesn’t interrupting stop the behavior?

didn’t always bring his toy back relatively quickly (although that might be normal :))
– His “normal” when he is 100% engaged is a quick victory lap with his toy and then immediately returns with it to me. He is so clear in his actions, a couple of laps and need for a name means he is slightly stressed, when he’s had more than enough, and I haven’t been listening to him like I should the victory lap ends with him laying at the end of tunnel looking out. He’s really very clear about how he feels.

For agility, let’s take it out of the start line for a while! Try playing with a stand stay or a down stay and see how it goes (lots of rewards because it is different).
Also, does he do any mat work?
– Funny that you ask about the mat. We did a LOT of mat work when he was young. Haven’t done much in quite awhile, but a couple of weeks ago I started some with the puppy and thought it would be fun to play with Sly as well. Took him a minute to remember the game but once he remembered we had a blast. I added a new dimension……layer an obstacle 🙂 And he was like I so got this!!! His mat behavior has always been a down so not sure if asking him to sit on it would create confusion/stress? What if instead of his mat I use his platform that we used in the jumping skills class? That has always been a sit and we do sits on in several times a month – it’s kinda become one of my easy core exercises for him. I think a stand (not on the mat) might work for him as well. We’ll do that if I don’t really care what position he is in as long as he waits for his release……. so frequently I’ll just cue a “wait” and he gets to choose position. He’s almost always in a stand when I do this and he’ll choose to stay in the stand – think this came out of the RDW training, maybe.

Thanks a bunch, Tracy. I’ll keep you posted. Oh yeah, a lot of the “home stuff” is resolving/becoming easier. The puppy, Millie is starting to sort of get Sly and listen/read his body language when he’s telling her he’s not interested. The two of them are also a lot more comfortable with each other and play some now. And my husband is actually starting to understand (and do) some of the stuff I’ve been telling him to do with both of them…….. YEAH!

[Kim Tees]

This is from earlier in the week, Sequence 1 and 2. Hadn’t posted until now as I thought I should edit out all the “in between” but decided to leave it as it’s the part we’re struggling with. Video is long, almost 6 minutes. It’s the entire session. I’m feeling like I am/have created an issue with his sit 😔 The sit itself has always been pretty solid, the stay and release not quite as much. I’ve always used a sit cue as something of an impulse control tool, mostly when I wasn’t paying enough attention to use a pattern game or something more proactive. Since the addition of Millie (husband’s almost 4 month old Berner puppy) and managing Sly, Millie and Mags (12 and blind) I’ve been yelling “sit the f___ down” to Sly 😳 a lot it seems. Poor guy is really getting the short end of home life the last month or so. At a trial he’s still fine but starting to see this stressy stuff in training, and realized while watching this that he gets more concerned with each sit. Need to fix me and how I’m relying on his sit to get me out of a potential issue with the 3 of them at home….got some plans for that but also want to “rebuild” his love of his sit cue. Am I making sense? Thoughts, ideas? Back to hugely high rate of reinforcement? Only ask for one sit/stay in a training session? Thanks in advance.

• This reply was modified 10 months ago by Kim Tees.

[Kim Tees]

First video is from 3 short sessions today playing with the shifting connection exercises. These were fun. Second video is a fast, line from a UKI skills workshop that Sly and I went to. Thought you’d like it. I was very proud of my fast running, complete with pumping arms and keeping my connection 😊

[Kim Tees]

We also played with some Exit Line connection today. I noticed when editing that I didn’t hold the toy as tight to my body and started to lean and not stand up as straight….???

[Kim Tees]

Interesting….I hadn’t noticed the extra stride. I’ll have to pay more attention to that in the upcoming exercises.

[Kim Tees]

Run like hell, pumping arms, keep connection. No problem for Sly! I had to work harder to keep the connection and not switch to just run like hell. I’ve recently changed my question to my students when they are trying to get to a spot for a front or blind from “Were you running as fast as you can? to “Were you running as fast as you could while staying connected to your dog?” That’s a lot harder! 🤪

[Kim Tees]

Just posted in the “regular” Camp feed but forgot something that I really wanted to share with you…. loved the two Power Patterns presentations. For me it’s GREAT to review things from previous presentations you and Bobbie have done. With each one, my “fluencey” gets a little stronger….. I don’t have to say HPA axis, what it that? anymore 🙂 And then continue to build.

When Sly was young we had this game that developed from crate games, mat training and some verbals foundation stuff where he’d come out of his crate on either a mat cue or a with me cue and we’d mix them up and sometimes we’d do mat and then with me before scoot, scoot which is his go in the crate cue. Anyway….crating in a trial/class environment is still hard (crate out of the car as much as possible) and although Sly has gotten much more comfortable doing it especially when I give him long breaks in the car, it’s something that I want to be able to continue to help him with. Not sure exactly why I thought do this on Friday but before a run when I got him out of the crate, I decided to do some scoot/scoot and with me (didn’t have a mat with me) game and after 3 or 4 reps he was so much more relaxed than normal when we headed downstairs to get in line. Not sure it’s truly a pattern game but it’s definitely going to get added to our prerun routine. 🙂 Thanks again, have a great day!

• This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by Kim Tees.

[Kim Tees]

Good Sunday Morning!
Not sure where the last week went…..damn when life gets in the way of my agility training 🙂 Not sure when Camp officially ends but we’re headed out in a couple of days for another vacation/motorhome trip, several days around the Finger Lakes of New York.

Thanks again for all you do to put Camp together. This year was especially timely for Sly and I, the agility skills were just right for what we were ready to tackle, especially the layering. And the mental management has truly been a bit of a game changer for me 🙂 So much good stuff there, but I think that the biggest has been the tools/”approval” to be able to not get sucked into negative conversations at a trial (and God love us but we agility folks really LOVE our negative conversations! Better to be had at dinner with adult beverages though!) and better yet to walk away gracefully when it does happen and just how much it was impacting my ability to focus on the important stuff and Sly.

Here’s my graduation brag! Ran AKC Friday at AK9C – judge that usually has really nice courses within the constraints of AKC design and the size at AK9C. Courses were “good” and some different challenges than what we normally see, although he did have a couple of not normal for him kinda yucky spots. A friend and I got into a discussion about some of the challenges, mostly how they were different than “the norm” and how that was nice, but it eventually lead to the inevitable discussions of AKC course design limitations, then to her saying “I think c-shaped tunnels should not be allowed”, me saying “Be careful, if we keep outlawing equipment we’ll be just like NADAC running with bars on the ground”….. you can see where this is going 🙁 She said something, I said I’m OK with C’s with good entries and lots of bags, she said something and I said you know we should agree to just disagree on this one and I’m in my happy place right now and want to stay there so I’m going to go take Mags for a walk and walked away. Felt a little brusk, but she wasn’t going to let it go and neither was I 🙁 The best part, when we ran into each other later in the parking lot she thanked me!!! And we had a great time talking about her soon to arrive puppy 🙂 And Sly and I went 4 for 4 – winning 3 classes and we would’ve won the 4th except I got to dance with the judge when I went for an aggressive blind cross. We chatted later and he apologized for being in the way, he said he never expected anyone to go for a cross where I had 🙂 That sort of really made my day 🙂 Our DW contact was to die for 🙂 and we layered a jump on the way to it. Fun day……

Thanks again, look forward to continuing to improve our game with whatever you’ve got coming up at AgilityU

Take care.

[Kim Tees]

To paraphrase Robbie the Robot ” Danger, Danger, Tracy Skelnar!” Big brain dump coming!!!

Listened to Monday’s Zoom on my drive to AK9C for a 4 hour workshop with Daisy Peel – definitely a potentially stressful situation…have never worked with Daisy, want her to like my dog, want to be able to keep my brain together, afraid we might be overfaced with the subject matter, concerned that because I don’t have a BC or a Sheltie….. there were probably a couple of others. The agility training was great….didn’t hurt to relieve my “stress” that on the first sequence there was a big loop of 3 jumps to a tunnel where you layered a set of poles and Sly did it like he’d been doing it his whole life!! Thank you CAMP!! And I got a compliment on a fairly tricky blind 🙂 Certainly helped me “start” at a good place.

Interesting bunch of additional mental challenges that came up over the course of the 4 hours that I was much better able to handle because of this class. I just smiled and walked away from a conversation that went into the “she said she was going to set a timer and she’s not doing that” by saying I’d had too much coffee and needed to go pee. I’m sure that in the past I’d have gotten sucked into the conversation, in this case probably agreeing because it was true and I was one of the participants that didn’t use as much time as some others. But as I left the conversation, I talked to myself about did I get what I wanted/needed from the seminar so far and it was a yes….. metal note it’s not about the time you get it’s about the quality of the time!!!

Harder one that I was better at handling than I might have been in the past but would like to get better, maybe it’s just about practice. Friend whose one of those folks that focuses just on their turn and then chats a lot during the rest of folks turns. I had attempted to crate “away” from the group (and this friend) – Sly really does do better when I crate in an area that minimizes the dog traffic going by and I figured it would make it easier for me to focus on stuff and not get “drug into distractions” Great idea, didn’t work that well though as 3 other people, one of them the chatty friend came down and decided to crate in that area as well, actually all 3 of them chatters and friends. Can’t remember who Daisy was working with but they were discussing training basics – placement of reward, reward markers, consistency…… da, da, da, da . Just before Daisy starts talking with this person, I got into a conversation about really cute dog fabrics for making toys with “the chatter friend”….. and I just couldn’t figure out how to get out of it so I’m trying to hear what Daisy is saying and not offending the person who’s flipping through pictures of fabric on her phone.. I guess I just could’ve nicely said something like I’d like to hear what Daisy is saying to… but I didn’t. Concerned about the reaction from the friend? And friend is friend but not close friend. Hmmm….could use some ideas on this as it does happen and is one of those things that happens at trials. I’m pretty good at being able to tell close friends that I need to do something else, not good at all at it with just friend, friends.

3rd significant mental event. Last (3rd) sequence of the afternoon…..has 2 skills in it that aren’t our strongest – long leadout and a rear cross at weaves. In our walk through I really focused on all the aspects of my handling for the rear, even visualized where I was when I saw Sly drive ahead, enter, make the 2nd turn and I fell in behind him – and we got it!!! Yeah!!! But with the leadout – I did the same planning but as I was setting Sly up on line, my last words to Daisy were “this is a really hard one for us” and I lead out like I was walking on egg shells and of course Sly got up and wandered a bit – that’s his way of saying “who the hell is this person and what did you do with my Mama”. Daisy was great and said “you know it’s near the end of the day, he’s done so well, can you do this without a leadout?” and the answer was “Hell yeah” – Sly was slightly hesitant with his sit (another sign that he’s a little concerned”, but with only a couple of steps leadout he came off the line nicely and we worked the rest of the sequence and he was able to play and tug. Huge mental win for him!!!

So many good things mentally and agilitywise for both of us…..and a couple of new agility challenges…..finding a set of weaves when they are sort of hidden in a sea of jumps and you need to layer one of those jumps, and weaving into the middle of a c shaped tunnel with the tunnel openings really close to the exit of the poles. Mentalwise…same thing…some really good stuff, not so much any new challenges, but still not able to deal with the old ones and not have it effect my mental game. Going to take some time to digest and think about yesterday in the context of the home work for moving forward – what my 3 go to tools are/were and what ones will be most beneficial moving forward in situations like yesterday.

Thanks as always and I love the idea of a Mental Management Transition to Trials Class – count us in and if you are looking for ideas for some 4 week winter skills workshops let me know and I’ll send you the map of the sequence that had the poles surrounded by jumps that we don’t have the skills to do. Daisy’s answer was “this is one of the reasons that verbals are becoming so important” and she did give me some ideas of how she’d go about working on that particular sequence.

See ya!

[Kim Tees]

Package 5, the 1st RYG Sequence. Damn…..that first Threadle Wrap was a bit of a mess! Watched the video, walked just that section again focusing on slowing me down, pause and see him actually turn towards the jump. Practiced one and then ran the sequence again.

I did video the whole walkthrough. Here’s a side x side of the last walk and the 2nd run (figured that was a better comparison than the first run with the messed up Threadle Wrap). Again, start off pretty close and as the walk goes on I get further and further ahead. I watched the side x side in slow motion and the walk through really starts to get ahead at the Threadle Wrap. Hmmmmm, I’m thinking that might be indicative of why I messed it up the first time? Needed to plan that section a bit more thoroughly in the walk, which would have slowed my walk down a bit there? Does that question make sense?

[Kim Tees]

Thanks Tracy. All your comments make perfect sense. This set of sequences was so interesting. I know the focus of this package is on the planning, the walk through and the one and done execution. Don’t keep running again and again to get “perfection”. But, I’m really curious how much time I can shave off by making the two changes you suggested. Think I’ll run this one more time and make those changes. It’ll be fun to side x side the two runs. Geekery at its finest ☺️

[Kim Tees]

The 3rd RYG Sequence from Package 4. I don’t have enough room to do #6 as a backside so did it as a frontside. 3 Videos….the first one is my walkthrough, 2nd one is the last walk and our first run side x side – couldn’t figure out how to overlay them but progress! I was able to get them in the same video 🙂 Last video is our runs – 2 full runs + 2 partials where we work through “running by” #6.

I was totally surprised that he missed 6 in the first run, didn’t see that at all when I walked it. Looked at the video a bunch of times and figured I needed more connection and a slightly different handler path to cue it more clearly. Again, I totally didn’t see this when I walked it, I figured he’d pick that jump up as “on path”, especially where we’d done this layer in Sequence 2 without any problems?

There’s a lot of video here and I know you are away…..no hurries, we’ve got stuff going on all day tomorrow and Monday is my long teaching day. Hope the trial continues to go well!

My walk through

Side x Side of my last “at speed” walk through and our first run. It looks like I again walked faster than the actual run ran.

And then the runs

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