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I tend to not use unstable surfaces very much in my fitness work with my dogs. If I do, it’s for core strengthening and my goal is that they don’t let the thing wobble! So I keep it low arousal. I have some exercises for challenging their proprioception though with stable surfaces. Basically I make it HARD to get on the stable prop by putting things in the way. I haven’t done it yet with her, but I can video when I do. And I generally add movement into this game gradually, which I suppose adds some arousal, but with what you’ve been teaching I will probably try to add even more arousal with tugging and play.
Got in a bit more sequencing with Pick after the trial. He was much more into the game than yesterday, I had his highest value toy (which was buried in the agility trial bag in the car yesterday) and it was slightly before prime bunny time. Had to swap the camera view though since it was right at the sun which had already gone down further yesterday. Yes, that’s Beat screaming in the background. I thought it was because I had the dogs in kennels in the car parked closer to the agility yard than usual and even covered she could hear more. Turns out she had diarrhea in her kennel! Whoops, sorry kiddo.
Repeated that first sequence trying to get off his line 2-3. Roots would need some intentional shaping of the line there or he would slice it, so I did it with Pick too yesterday. I realized after the fact that it was silly to do, Pick turns easier (he’s slower but I think even at the same speed he turns better) and with jumping a whopping 8” shaping lines is just dumb! He got the backside at 5, but watching it back I realize I helped way too much over the bar and his line was wonky after that (see third sequence).
Second sequence went fine.
Third sequence, first attempt I aborted because I realized how badly I was getting in his way AND saying all the wrong words! But then we were back to not being able to get him to take that backside after the tunnel without me having to take steps in the wrong direction to get him to come in. I tried breaking it down (not shown) and rewarding him by dropping the toy for taking the jump a few times, but realized when I tried to run the rest of the sequence how badly I was coming off the line to help him over the bar.A bit of plank work this morning. Beginning part went fine, I thought she pretty quickly shifted her eyes off of me and was looking ahead nicely, better one direction than the other strangely. Gave a break in the middle to play with a toy, and I knew her coordination and ability to stay on the board would be affected but didn’t realize how much! Do more of this with frequent play breaks to keep the arousal up so she learns to do it in arousal?
Worked Pick on a short popout sequence after we got home from the trial. He was having a bit of a struggle because BUNNIES (edited out a few reps where he was like, “bye, I’m gonna go check for bunnies under these bushes thanks”). First rep I didn’t have enough connection after 3 to send to the tunnel, next rep I connected but then lost where I was going and fudged up the line to 5. Then had to isolate the backside send a few times (not shown) and he nailed it after that.
One step sends also seemed fairly easy for her, harder for me to get words out fast enough! I think the one at 1:15 where she didn’t send was because my arm came up? (It was a “what’s the word?” moment as well I think, since I was switching from the tight cue to jump cue).
Quite possible it was slap cue->obstacle cue->turn cue. It comes down to the old struggle about releasing a dog from a stopped contact (since this was from the teeter)- I never REALLY know where he’s going and handling becomes reactive instead of proactive. So in addition to tunnel exit challenges, will need teeter exit challenges (and even start line scenarios, since similar things happen off of start lines, like that opening from that first class course I posted of Roots).
Glad you’re keeping me thinking and consolidating our struggles a bit!The leg slap is an actual trained cue that I’ve taught him, not just a “cross your fingers and hope it works” cue (clapping still is this). It’s a “come to me and stay with me until cued otherwise” cue, I use it for discriminations by giving it then immediately cuing the closer obstacle (where the verbal alone might go back to that old habit of the verbal cue is recognized as just a general release cue), somewhere that I need to dramatically change his line or for good old snookering past jumps. It works BETTER than most other verbal cues. I think he just prefers trained visual cues over verbal ones. Once we figured this out, an instructor I was previously working with helped with creating a system of a few other visual cues to help (mostly keeping which arm I’m using for different things consistent).
The ISC is Jeremy Manno (Belgium) at the Fieldhouse, pretty sure he will be there in person.
I chose these 3 runs (out of the 8) because they had a consistent theme to them. I totally need a JOFT t-shirt.
As for setting him up further from the jump, he’s a bit of an ETO dog and also worries about dogs behind him and other things in the environment. Setting up close to the jump and using his “mark” cue helps him stay focused on the jump (and therefore tune out all the things he’s worried about). I’m also suspicious his ETO contributed to this worry when I set him up further away. He’s happy at that distance, so I stick with it!
The second run where it was the sequence after the teeter, I think part of it was I had to use a leg slap/attention/come with me cue to make sure he didn’t go in the “unauthorized tunnel” sitting temptingly close right ahead of the teeter. And after that cue, he needed a big obvious “take the thing” cue to get him to take the jump. It’s subtle, and maybe doesn’t show from this distance, but as far as my handling I feel I had to do A LOT there (like synchronized swimming, everything looks calm and peaceful on the top but underneath it’s chaos!) So it was less stuff in my way, and more limited brain bandwidth on my part (did he hold his teeter criteria? Is he looking at/considering the tunnel? Oh god, gotta cue this jump with a new verbal, what’s the word again? Now where the heck are we going?) Same might have occurred with the next one out of the weaves… Oh god, it’s a soft turn on that jump, which way is he turning again? Which cue is it? (I did use the right one, jump, but I think I called the next jump hup, and it was just a go on to the A-frame, but my brain was still left behind on “what word is that again?”)
Will take a look at the new sequences next week. Busy work week this week, and going camping until Tuesday, then he’ll need a bit of recovery after all the hiking and kayaking. Maybe we skip the ISC trial that following weekend and do some training!
And since you invited us in this week’s email to share trial videos, and with work, judging Friday, and then going camping for the weekend we won’t be doing any training for about the next week, here is a small compilation of 3 runs (we were 0 for 8 on the weekend, which is unfortunately not uncommon). I left in good stuff too, just to show I’m not a total idiot, just can’t keep it together for an entire run. Unfortunately most of the errors occurred down at the far end of the arena and it’s hard to see this “dirt colored terrier” any way so this might not be super useful but might as well try.
First run was MS agility on Saturday. Yay for sticking teeter criteria, even if I had to creep into position. The off course occurred I think because I have to do a pretty slow jog in order for him to hit his dog walk, but I thought I accelerated well enough after for him to carry on to that second tunnel. Not sure what else I could do. He even has a tunnel threadle cue (barely ever need it, and I’m clearly not giving it, verbal or visual) and you know how damn hard it would be to get a tunnel threadle there if you wanted it! The bars at the end I THINK were influenced by the sun coming in that door. Future trials we will probably close the big back door at the end of the day when it’s bright out.
The next one was SC agility on Sunday. Another yay for sticking teeter criteria! But boo for flubbing up what comes after. He was probably looking at the tunnel, but I hate having to figuratively wave a giant flag in his face to get him off a tunnel (especially when the previous day I couldn’t get him to GO to that tunnel). The part after the weaves, in hindsight I should have run the other side and rear crossed the tunnel as the handler’s path supports that next jump better that way. After pushing out of the weaves into the tunnel I had to cut away at too much of an angle to not run into the start jump so he came out paralleling that angle. And yet then I got the opposite problem on the next one.
Last course was the last run of the weekend and I kind of walked out, went out into the big field and had a pity party and contemplated quitting agility. Simplest thing: just take the jump in front of you, it’s RIGHT THERE. And we couldn’t do it.
“Since we were chatting about placed rewards… the placed reward at 2:44 and 3:02, etc to get him to come in for the backside was not really a reward, based on his response of “yeah just gimme the cookie” LOL! I think it was more of a visual aid and did help. He gets it and brings it to you but doesn’t really play with it. So to make it more rewarding… use a treat hugger or something where he can immediately get the treat, or you can use a toy on a line and take off dragging it for him to chase/bite/shake/kill 🙂 When you threw it, it was more of a real reward (and he took it on a victory lap for a moment). But you might find that placed rewards are more effective when you ten drag them for him to chase 🙂”
The first one at 2:44 I don’t think he actually saw me place, I remember setting him up and wondering if he even knew it was there. He ran by it, then back to it when he heard my cue for it (and processed it). But yes, by that point he was more into the food. His enthusiasm for toys is SHORT because he throws so much into killing them! Another reason toys in trials are challenging. He does much prefer moving toys, so will work that up. I prefer not to use food stuffed toys, more so because if it’s accidentally left laying around, Roots EATS toys, and he doesn’t need any more incentive to do so! With a dog who DOES like toys, but sometimes gets more food focused, do you think a shaped retrieve (which is what both my Rat boys currently have, they both like toys but never really inherently liked retrieving it so getting it back required food) can have a enough of a transfer of value that it can be 1. behavior-> 2. retrieve toy-> 3. food and still be effective as a reinforcer?
I also have a cue for going to play with the hose, which honestly is his true love, so I can play around with that too. Probably need to be careful using it with nothing else in my hands so the absence of things in my hands doesn’t set the expectation for going to the hose for reward? Because uh, this would be inconvenient in a trial scenario where he MAY just bug off and go for the reward. I *try* to only cue him to the hose after putting his leash on to simulate trial scenarios, but that adds steps and gets annoying.
“Toy placement is a bit rooted in operant conditioning/transactional learning which is fine because OC is a part of learning, of course… but it is actually a pretty small piece of it and ultra control on a toy on the ground might be detrimental to the other elements which are super important! Fascinating, nerdy stuff“
I am certainly intrigued by this!As for toys, all his toys have real fur, it is a requirement. Terriers hate Hollee Rollers and other rubber toys… blech! The most prized toys for all 3 of my Rats have been the buffalo/coyote hide toys from Tug away C U Win. He would probably like a water bottle in a toy, but pretty sure those fall under toys that make noise and can’t be used in NFC runs. I have some raccoon tails stitched to a line. But none of his favorite toys seem to hold any interest beyond a few seconds in trial environments. He is wild for flirt pole/lunge whip type of games, so wonder if I could attach the raccoon tail to a mini one for rewarding at trials. Or we just keep working the food reward zones, especially for the summer when it’s hot and maybe not worth pushing the toy play until it’s cooler. They are “our” trials, the ones I help put on, so almost one a month.
Pick-a-let doing some sequencing on the jumping popouts. This guy really does try so hard! I hope we can work through some of his focus issues in competition rings and be able to trial because he really is so cool!
I’m “slapping on” the “jump” and “hup” verbals here (and even snuck some “ski’s”). Way easier with the 8” dog (he actually measured into 12” for UKI, he’s a flat 15” tall, so we train at 8” and have started doing some NFC at 8” select) and while he’s not exactly running slow, he’s still got the little dog strides to let my brain think of the right words.
First sequence I got in his way and pushed too hard to get 6 and sent him to the backside there. Probably a moment of “what’s the word?” induced disconnect. Also I probably caused the bit of whiplash he got going from 7-8, realizing at the last second I wasn’t handing him the toy and that there was another jump to do. Sorry dude.
Second sequence I was surprised how hard it was to be off his line going 4-5, the bigger dogs would have had even more issues I think. Backside sends with running on the dog’s line are still a work in progress for him and I think he sorted it out very well in this session.
I knew I liked you! I don’t find the toy stealing that offensive either, but of course EVERY other trainer I work with insists it has to be under cue control and just makes me feel like unless he can 100% work with a preplaced toy and NEVER take it unless cued then we shouldn’t even be doing agility. Keeping the naughty feels way more natural for a terrier.
While he loves toys here at home, in trial environments, especially dirt where we trial most often, he’s too overstimulated to play with them. Dirt especially- YUCK! He MIGHT play with a toy in public on turf, I’m judging at a turf trial July 4 and plan to run him on my last course of the day after the trial is over if possible to test it out. Since he LOVES people, I did recently run him using our food reward area, sending him to a person to feed him, then calling him back in to work again. Struggled a bit to call him away back into the ring, but my helper was a bit too exciting and didn’t really understand what I wanted her to do to help him (and because he was soooo excited when he did come back in the ring to me, he still had food in his lips that fell out of his mouth, shhh! Don’t tell UKI, I’m just going to get a different helper and make sure they practice with us beforehand).
So much for Pick being a “maybe”, he’s gotten more working time on this than Roots has!
We worked the first sequence on the four corners drill. Yes, 3+ minutes worth of working on one 4 obstacle sequence! I left in all reps (the 4 rep rule doesn’t seem applicable when just forward chaining to teach a skill?) including him stealing the preplaced toy twice. Self control: not the terrier’s strong suit! He’s little, not super fast, not super confident, so layering has been hard for him to learn, despite the fact that just running away and terrier-ing is his go to stress behavior (another reason that he’s 4 and still doesn’t trial). Also I decided to just “slap on the new verbals” for these soft turns because what could go wrong? (I’m less hesitant to experiment with things with him since he may never trial for reals, so who cares if I mess him up right?) They were all soft left turns (hup, previously would have used jump for both left and right towards me, but now jump is right only). And since it was just one verbal cue I think I did it right! Questionable whether 4 is hup or go on, but moot point probably since I was rewarding there any way, it would be hup if we were continuing on to 5.
