[Lora Abbott]

lol, I’ve been trying to narrow down what skill/s we actually NEED for years and I can’t really find a pattern, other than when his teeter was getting REALLY bad (it’s decent now, needs maintenance, but not a total retrain like it did a few years ago). And I mostly train before work, so it’s not hot, but I can generally only train one dog each morning, and honestly Beat gets the lion’s share because it keeps her sane. I’ve had a few early morning appointments this past week so have had to skip the morning trainings. 😞
As for ONE skill/verbal I will try to add, it’s less of a verbal that I NEED and more one that I need to just get RIGHT. Soft left/right turns. I constantly screw them up with Beat, and sometimes don’t even realize I got it wrong until days later (so honestly, I doubt she’s actually learning them since half the time they are used incorrectly). So it’s probably in all of the dogs’ and my best interests that I just be consistent with them all on this one. They’re probably the easiest to just slap on and start using because most of the time they are obvious but the occasions where they might be useful are rear crosses, which I’m terrible at and he might appreciate a little extra information to help him know which way to turn when I disappear behind him, and eventually how much to turn when I add in tight turn verbals (we currently don’t have a tight turn away cue, it’s mostly rear cross him and then scream!) So tight turns might be the next ones.
Thanks for being my sounding board with this! Can’t wait to see what next week’s exercises look like!

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 2 days ago by Lora Abbott.

[Lora Abbott]

I’ll probably wind up using Beat’s new verbals with him, but not sure he will learn them just by associating them with handling. I’m sure he will hear the word, but not sure it will ever become a cue for the behavior without the handling if that makes sense? The few verbal cues I have managed to teach him, I had to really isolate: new cue (verbal), then old cue (visual of the handling). For instance, the good old front side vs backside exercise where you sit or restrain them in front of the jump and try to give a verbal with no other cues, no matter how much I really thought I had paired it well, the verbal cue was just a release cue to do the behavior he had already decided it was based on my lead out (or even lack of one, I think it also contributed to his start line stress- he had learned like half a dozen different “release cues” and none of them meant anything more than a general “ok” release word). I worked on this for *6 years*. Rather than become LESS dependent on my position and movement, he became SUPER sensitive to position and other cues since I was trying to remove them completely from the picture!!! I finally had to remove all visual cues by sending him around a wing or through a tunnel and start saying the verbal before he could see the obstacle or my handling, then when he came around and could see the handling, he had already heard the verbal. So I can certainly do this for the new verbals, but it’s time consuming for each one. Since he already is so sensitive to movement and position and is dependent on me handling halfway decently, and adding new verbals makes me a WORSE handler (only so much bandwidth, yeah I know, we are working on this!) it seems it’s a very fine balance? So I guess my point is… I know I need to add some verbals, I’m open to working on ME, but where do I start so I don’t break my brain or waste time on ones that he won’t need?

As for the heads up, I guess yeah, his name sort of is that. For tunnels, his name is a “turn towards me after the tunnel” cue, and turning towards me is pretty much for anything that he can’t see from inside the tunnel, even if the line is still relatively straight ahead like that backside at #8.

And he can DO tandems with handling, as long as there isn’t anything else really as an option. Now that threadle wraps are every where and the expectation is that the dog does them very independently I feel like he can easily confuse the two if there are multiple jumps in view. So getting the front side of that jump after the A-frame with a tandem would be difficult because he’s going to look for a backside jump.

Sigh… so much for me work on, so little time.

[Lora Abbott]

For 1- I was releasing with his tight turn cue. He doesn’t have directionals, so tight is just “turn tight towards me.” And turning tight has always been a bit relative with him for being a small dog. Turning right and threadling 2 is not my favorite option as the turn on 1 is not likely to be very good and it would wind up being a lot of lead changes and “oh crap is he coming in for the threadle or not?” handling so not sure I would be able to leave any sooner. I like the idea of the serp to the blind, that might be doable, even turning left or right on 1.
For jump 4, I only have a backside verbal, exit from a backside is just handling. Um, have I mentioned how bad I am with verbals? And how much THIS dog in particular doesn’t actually care about words any way? We are a good match lol. I generally have a decent “bad lap” like this even from a good distance away. Not knowing exactly how far up the line I’d make it, I was hesitant to wrap to the right as if I was very far behind, I’d have to really push the line to get him to go back out to that jump before the teeter and his angle to the teeter approach might have been bad. With the “bad lap” it was a straight line to the teeter that I could support from any distance away laterally that I needed.
I was super pleased with his turns 8-9, those have been hard to do!
Off the aframe, I don’t have a tandem cue, and with having introduced the threadle wrap visual and verbal cue, he struggles on a tandem like this where I might also ask for a threadle wrap, so I tend to avoid them and just blind. Have I mentioned we don’t do well with verbal cues? lol.
On the map, getting a FC on 14 seemed doable, but the way I built it the angle of 16 is much different (since it was the dog walk approach) and doing the German on 15 set up that line better. The only part I didn’t like in my second try was him falling on his face there (well, I guess and the pushy teeter criteria). I assume I was a bit late with the decel on that rep compared to my first turn?

[Lora Abbott]

Roots got a chance at the agility course today before it got too hot. The opening was my biggest concern with the big off course after 2. I really WANTED to handle proactively and not stand near 2 begging him to turn. My first attempt was totally unsuccessful. And when I went back to try the opening again, my brain was so caught up in “I just don’t know what to do 2-3” that I am pretty sure I was all wishy washy about cuing 1, so we struggled even with that and wound up with begging/babysitting/standing around handling any way. I finally settled on doing a spin at 2, which I actually really liked!

On my first attempt, I’m pretty sure the missed dog walk and back jump on 4 were all due to the kefluffle about loading onto the dog walk. Teeter has definitely been our weakest obstacle, and waiting for release definitely needs some maintenance right now. Didn’t realize on that first run through that his teeter was barely even legal. 🤦‍♀️ I did a few reps rewarding his teeter stay between the first and last clips, and one at the very end since I was pretty sure he self released on that last one in the video (which I didn’t catch until I’d already released). I also worked the weave entry, reminding myself to be patient as this entry is a hard one for him.

[Lora Abbott]

FYI- Beat has definitely learned to count to 3 seconds after the toy is placed down for jump grids! 😂

[Lora Abbott]

Oh yes, forgot about adding praise as a bridge between the mark cue and release! Even if they don’t “like” it or they find it annoying, it at least is a reminder that they are listening for another cue, not just counting to 3 after the mark cue. Keeps their ears turned on lol.

[Lora Abbott]

Roots’ training day got rained out, so Pick got to work first.

I can’t really remember how much I’ve worked on forward focus on the jump with him. For Roots it was essential to help him with start line stress (he worried about other dogs behind him but having something to focus on helped). I must have done some with Pick since he seemed to understand what the object of this game was, but he struggled to wait for the release after giving him the “mark” cue, especially with the lateral lead out, going behind him he was better. When I tried staying right with him to reward the stay, one of the reps I just said “yes” and I wasn’t even sure how I intended to reward him, so he picked his own reinforcer (BIRD!) lol. Next rep I led back out to where I was before and used “catch” which I’m not sure he’s seen much in this context, but he got a meatball chucked at him so I don’t think he minded. lol. Hints on how to not let the “mark” cue become the release or to have them not anticipate the release?

We did one of the pop out sequences as well. He doesn’t have a super strong Threadle slice behavior, which is how I wanted to handle the last part, so we ended with some work on that, a hand touch to the toy on the ground after the jump (working on teaching it with a target in my hand like in Max Pup, but haven’t done it with a jump yet, so just used the hand touch that he already knows).

[Lora Abbott]

I also didn’t mention that arousal may have been a teensy bit higher as I did this session soon after arriving home from being away at a trial for 3 days. While her days were super boring, she did get a chance to stretch her legs Saturday evening in the arena running with another slightly older girl BC. While these two girls get along well, they are both super high arousal and kinda amp each other up chasing and I did have to end it when they went from sensible play to zoomies and seemed to be getting less “aware” of the danger of body slamming. Sunday she got a nice long walk in a field before we went home with an adult ACD who is much more chill. They ran together, but no overarousal seen. All this to say, yes her brain wasn’t in her usual state, but I didn’t think she was over the top.
And I have switched to a large Holee roller from the medium one I was using. I have a jumbo one too that is her house toy, but it’s less convenient to carry outside for training, but I can try it.

[Lora Abbott]

Going into the last day for feedback, I don’t have any video (I did film the session but don’t really want to relive it) but wanted your input on working on the serp cue. I tried a little “send and serp” work and honestly it was scary. I struggled with where to put the toy. Far enough along the line for her to land and safely take a stride, then pick it up it was way too visible past the jump and she just ran past it to the toy. Two of the reps where she DID take the jump this way, one of them she totally wiped out sideways picking up the toy as she was so off balance trying to make the lead change happen, and the other one she smashed into the wing and actually broke off two of the jump cups (they’re old, brittle Max 200 jumps that need the strips replaced any way, but still, *2* jump cups). I could make the toy more visible over the bar by moving it in closer, but then she didn’t really have room to land safely, or moving it farther away from the serp line and more onto just a slice line but that didn’t really create the “in then out” striding pattern.

Question is, should I take some of the arousal out and just use a manners minder instead of the toy? Or will she have to learn it all over again once the arousal is added back in any way? That whole “state dependent learning”. I feel like this is a behavior that similar to running contacts where the skill needed from the dog is completely different depending on the arousal.

[Lora Abbott]

“plus, as the soft turn verbals going into course work, you will see her have those “aha!” moments of responding to them in context.“
If I use them correctly lol, we both know how that’s going

And I got all the way out there, warmed her up, and went to reach for her collar for the first rep and was like “damnit, forgot it again” (had realized I wanted her to have a collar for proofing games when we did the wig wrap tunnel exercise a few days ago). Might try to toss a spare one in my training bag so I will have something with me even if it isn’t her regular one.

[Lora Abbott]

Did a Minny Pinny verbal proofing session this morning. I think she’s still guessing based on whether or not I release her. I tried to wait for the twitch like with the wing wrap/tunnel game, but I don’t think it was obvious with this one and I went with a head turn the right way and eventually it just felt like she swiveled back and forth until I released. Then there was the one naughty one where she went to chase my other dog (not the old black dog she’s a bit afraid of, but the one that is her best bud) who left the bed he was supposed to be waiting on to be closer to the action. He’s an arse if I leave him in the house, and packing him up into the car is time consuming, so I’ve started bringing him out for Beat’s sessions to watch (and then swapping so she watches while he does a few tricks so that maybe some day they can train together).

[Lora Abbott]

Ok good, we have one more week of you reassuring me when I feel like I’m just a terrible dog trainer lol

Because we had that one good session from my last post and then yesterday it felt like maybe we haven’t learned anything the past 6-7 months. I had the straight tunnel set up next to the weaves doing some discrimination work with my adult dog and figured it wouldn’t be a big deal to use that tunnel since the weaves don’t have any relevance to her, or so I thought. Goal was to work on some turns vs going straight out of the tunnel. We spent most of the session just trying to get her to go through the tunnel. It was like she saw the channel between the weaves and the tunnel as the tunnel. I figured that was still important learning, so rather than move the weaves I tried to work through that, but wound up feeling pretty frustrated that it took so much work and we spent very little time on the main focus of the session. Two steps forward, one step back I guess.

[Lora Abbott]

Ok, I did it! A whole handling session and I used all the right verbals! Super simple, just the smiley face with either wrapping or doing the race track around. I DID run/walk each of the 4 sequences that I ran with full verbals, including the correct intended reward marker, while she was still in the house (after I mowed the yard and set up the obstacles). I wasn’t sure walk/running all 4 sequences, then running all 4 would be as effective as walking each one then running it, then walking another etc but in this case it worked. I’ll need to come up with something (ex pen and just listen to her be mad?) while I walk-run for those times I don’t have to go out and mow the lawn first? Pretty sure if I just left her in the house and went out there she would still yell about it. I can put her in the car (it’s where I put the non-working dogs while I am out in the yard with the others) but it’s very far from the agility yard.

Also worked on the wrap vs tunnel cues again, this time trying to be VERY deliberate about starting out with motion to help her and fading it through the session. Stuck with her easy side (turning left and ski and tunnel are more different than tight and tunnel). She still needed motion to help her when switching from tunnel back to ski, but I was able to fade that out again quickly. So overall I was happy with both of these sessions.

Sunday 5/25 is the last day of submissions? I can’t remember.

[Lora Abbott]

This morning I tried the starfish sequences. It felt like a decent session, as the main focus seemed to be getting the tandem out of the tunnel with increasing speed and discriminating going straight(ish) to the tandem or doing the 90 degree turn out of the tunnel. Those all went great.

One thing I didn’t even pick up on until I was watching it later is that in the last sequence, the jump after the tandem is a RIGHT turn, which for me would be “jump” rather than “hup”. I think this is just another example of me having too many words/cues and not keeping them straight. I even walked/talked it out before I ran it and still didn’t realize it was the wrong word. No wonder she really doesn’t seem to have any clue what “hup” means: she skips the jump wing and goes for the tunnel on one start line and one other time on that jump in sequence. I’ve said it when it means nothing too many times already? Guess I’m still struggling with the whole “gotta have a verbal cue for everything” when it just feels like a stream of things coming out of my mouth that maybe don’t mean much to her any way?

And one other tendency I’ve noticed coming on with her that I’ve noticed with many of my previous dogs (so clearly it’s something that I’m training into them) was her looking around on the start and winding up fixated on that bird outside the fence on that last rep. It seems to be a thing that I ask dog to sit, start to lead out and they just start looking around until I come to a stop and then they pay attention again (or get distracted by BIRD!) Something I’m doing to cause this?

[Lora Abbott]

Tunnel threadle session, I knew this would be hard for her! There were a few more failures that I cut out. Towards the beginning I did one that was “successful” but I really patted my leg and babysat it. Towards the end I experimented with showing more motion into and out of the tight turn and she read it immediately. I don’t think the arm cues were excessive, but it did require some steps backwards. Too much or just right?

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