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Here is the second video. iPad was definitely acting stubborn and glitchy yesterday about copying and pasting the links so no surprise it messed up.
And I’ll try adjusting her setup distance to be closer for the minny Pinny next time. One of my other projects is teaching a line up at my side so I can be more precise about setting up without so much luring.
Balmy but still snow covered today. Set up the minny Pinny exercise and added the jump bumps. I thought in the session that going left looked pretty good, but to the right she was having a hard time figuring out the striding, but watching the video back she wasn’t always bouncing going to the left either. Don’t know if maybe I should try making the pinwheel a little smaller next time? I’m also not 100% certain I see which “jump” is the 90 degree turn as each is a 90 degree turn and by the end they’ve done a 270. Or is that the goal? Do 3 90 degree turns in a row, and later we can gradually expand it out into a real size pinwheel?
Then we did some more with the spins and added the forward send without the spin. I was pretty happy with this session until I noticed how much she was sliding around. This section of the yard is all pine needles, which is why the snow is melted, but pine needles don’t make the best surface for doing tight turns. So might have to limit what exercises we do here going forward.
And the birds were just as active today, but I think she seemed less distracted simply because the exercises were easier. I think she’s an “if I know my job, distractions don’t matter” kind of dog, but if she’s unsure about a task, then she will find a distraction to displace onto. Which is good information, if she’s distracted then she probably needs some help figuring something out.
Not exactly perfect footing but figured anything she did in a training session wouldn’t be worse than she’s been doing playing in the snow on her own.
Finally made a little progress on the tunnel threadle turning to the right. What finally helped was being able to do it from a sit stay, sort of whispering the cue (which is already a low “shoo” noise), then releasing with the full verbal cue when she looked at the tunnel. We’ve done some work indoors with a focus forward cue while maintaining a stay which I think helped her understand to look forward without releasing. Started very close to the tunnel, and worked back. Then the double whammy part went much better. I marked a few times when she turned the correct way and she pulled out of the tunnel, but I was still pleased with those reps.
Threadle wrap on barrels I thought was going to be a breeze, since she’s really made those seem easy indoors in a small space, but she said otherwise. I never even got to working on the harder side as this session was quite a bit longer than this edited video: I cut out a bunch of her just offering to go around the wrong way over and over regardless of what I did. So I guess threadle wraps are just going to go on the list of things we aren’t going to figure out before the end of this class. 😞 This part of the yard is a bit more distracting and we dont work here often, but it was the only snow free area. In hindsight I don’t think it’s any less slippery with all the pine needles and pine cones. I don’t think the distractions or the footing was any part of why she was struggling so much though.
Rocking horses with spins went well. Waiting for the cue to start is overrated in her opinion though.
Unfortunately threadle slices for the manners minder are still not going well. She still does not seem to understand. Even that first direction that went fairly well, she really didn’t want to come in to the hand and does some avoidance. This is probably our third attempt doing this with the MM and it’s not getting any better. 😔
I think the part of it that’s she struggling with is the cookie toss to dead toy with no motion from me. She can go cookie toss to toy in hand or toy on the ground that I am racing her to. She does see me place the toy (and seeing me place the toy is actually starting to get her excited, in a good way, ears up, looking at me, no collar hold needed unless I’m throwing it, not getting stuck staring at the toy), but then the connection to the toy is lost with the cookie throw. Not sure her stay is quite good enough for this, especially when it’s an exercise that I think has some stress tied to it at this point. And same with throwing the toy, since there’s some stress here already, I’ll probably get some jumping on me. I think I like the idea of changing the picture and doing it with the manners minder and just taking the toy out of this exercise until she figures it out and then bringing it back when she’s fluent. Thanks for the ideas!
Another sort of new place: the office at the arena we’ve been visiting. I taught a fitness workshop and stupidly rented the arena for myself immediately after, but the workshop ran over and I lost my arena time so I worked in the office instead. The person renting the arena at that time had a very vocal JRT who I think also had a squeaky toy at one point, so she got exposure to working while listening to all that from the safety of the office!
As far as the threadle slices, I’m still not sure she “understands the assignment”. It’s like as soon as I bring out the note pad hand target, toss the cookie away and then present the target, she is like “I have no clue what you want”. Sometimes she will look up from getting the cookie, look right at the target and then walk away and sniff (probably edited out of the video). I really have to encourage her to come to the target and then she needs encouragement to go to the toy when cued. So the reps you see in the video, I feel like I’m doing a TON of work to even keep her in the game compared to most of our other exercises. Back track to doing it without the jump bump? I never really progressed to doing the strike a pose game while having the toy preplaced on the ground.
The threadle wraps she was suddenly better turning right than to the left today. I thought that exercise went pretty well and added movement and a toy right at the end.Tried some tunnel threadle work at the arena today. The banging you hear is the vents blowing open and slamming shut in the wind. Unlike some other noises that the camera picks up, these were indeed LOUD, and when they open very wide they also let in huge patches of day light on the ground at one end of the ring which is what she stops and looks at towards the left of the camera.
As for the tunnel Threadles, turning left went great (easy side for her) but turning right she couldn’t figure out. Do you think more her or me?
This was a warm but WINDY day the other day. I’m sharing it more for the moment half way through when the wind really picked up and she spooked at the small ornamental tree just off the camera to the right bending halfway over in the wind. Not a total meltdown, but maybe because she realized it wasn’t an intruder and was just a tree?
If you couldn’t tell, I’m not a fan of agility tv either, but just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something with not having had a herdy breed before. As you mentioned, a different breed doing that same behavior would be looked at very differently. And as I mentioned I DID find an application for a similar thing with a terrier. I will now be able to feel justified not participating in it.
“I think it is an unhealthy place for herding brains as well. Or any type of brains 🙂 And as far as I know, there is no decompression/reset that is associated with watching exciting things move, so there is not a lot of value there. There is a definite ramp up in arousal associated with it though, but not in a direction that I think is useful or healthy, as you mentioned.”
I guess the one thing that I can see about how I’ve seen it used is that for the visually stimulated herdy dogs, being asked to stay fully engaged with the handler and NOT watching would actually cause more frustration and the level of arousal the handler would have to provide in order to compete with the movement would wind up increasing the arousal too far and certainly be annoying for others ringside and fatiguing for all. So it’s used as sort of a replacement for engaged chill. If you can “chill” and be disengaged, but still engage when I need you, you can watch. The reason I called it a reinforcer is more when it’s used as a premack- engage with me, take a cookie (which the dog would likely not find reinforcing around that kind of movement) and I will release you back to your agility tv. I HAVE used a similar version of this with my 3 year old while hiking. He had a tendency to be a screaming maniac (can we see a theme here?) at the slightest rustle of leaves that might signal a critter to be chased. Asking him to fully engage with me (heads up heeling, doing tricks, pattern game, etc) would be exhausting to do on an entire hike and “engaged chill” (in this instance, just walking with me on a loose leash when the critter is present, he does do a version of engaged chill for most of the walk when no critter is present which is mooch along sniffing the ground on his long line) is just not possible. So I did teach him a “watch tv” cue, meaning he may stare at the moving furry thing all he wants until asked to do otherwise. I may ask for him to look at me or do a simple behavior and then send him back to watch tv. If I do get pulling at the end of the leash or vocalizing, I need to change strategies, but find I rarely need to use these any more as playing this game took the conflict and frustration away. So it replaces “engaged chill” when he just can’t offer that, but certainly just walking with me and ignoring the wildlife would be even better. So maybe that can be a place for it? When engaged chill isn’t going to happen and full engagement isn’t totally appropriate either? But whenever able, engaged chill is better? Because as you noted, I agree about it being a waste of bandwidth and may contribute to depletion (certainly if I have a long walk with an unusual amount of stimulators, my 3 year old’s ability to quietly play this game dwindles towards the end, but it’s either play this or he doesn’t get to walk at all because without it walks are way too stressful for all!)
Had a training party with some friends today and Beat got to hang out while other dogs ran. She’s definitely turned on by watching dogs running these days, but she was still able to do her pattern game, some hand touches, and sending to a Klimb all on leash. Towards the end I even did some sit stays and releases to a thrown cookie with the leash dropped and she was great. So YAY!
I wanted to get your take on allowing dogs who get very visually stimulated to watch the action. She’s my first that has shown interest in watching (other than my current 3 year old who as a 10 week old puppy SCREAMED bloody murder the first time he saw a dog go through a tunnel, and it was over a year before I could have him in the building when agility was going on so NO watching for him). So far with Beat I can see that she does find it highly arousing and she could end up over threshold if I allowed it for too long a duration, but so far she can watch quietly and is still responsive to cues and will happily leave watching to work with me when asked (on leash, I did not dare take the leash off and have her figure out how to push the gate open into the ring). I know people who have actually put watching on cue and will use it as a reinforcer. Opinions on this? With my terriers I have always felt that it just wasn’t a healthy place for their brains, but maybe different for herdy types?
Tried some threadle slice work and she could get it pretty easily on my right but not on my left. Wanted to see what you thought about helping her out with that.
So here is the next attempt at volume dial. She seemed to do just fine on this one. She was definitely less overstimulated right at the start. The last one she was already tongue out, eyes glazed before I even started the session. This one she seemed engaged and ready. The one thing I changed was while I was setting up for this one (camera, cookies, crating the other dogs, etc) I gave her the toy to run around with and the last one she was bouncing around like a lunatic with anticipation, she might have even been wrestling with her terrier brothers. So while not realistic (can’t let her run around with a toy for 5 minutes before every agility run) being completely unemployed while anticipating work puts her way over the top.
At the end I also remembered to test whether she could jump into my arms while I held the toy, and no extra hands needed for that! No different really than catching a disc in my hand when jumping into my arms.
And then we tried some threadle wrap on a “barrel”. Again, better turning left than right. This is also her first time doing any sort of cued behavior from a sit stay. Wasn’t going to do it from a stay, but she offered one at one point and with the tiny space, it was easier than a cookie toss, and probably a good place to start with one since I didn’t have to go far. We now have several inches of snow, so we’re probably stuck inside (or at borrowed facilities when I’m lucky) until March. 😞
Yeah, she reminds me of my first JRT, Marron, who did not like being touched when she was working. I always called her my “sight hound on stumpy legs” for the number of whippet traits she had (and she’s why I adore whippets to this day!) The rest of my terriers have been big doofuses about body contact.
With the volume dial game, her best one was cuing her to the nearby dog bed so you’re totally right about having a big visual target. Hand target was one of the first I tried but I got VERY half hearted attempts, like a step towards the hand before stopping to stare at the toy while still 2’ away from the hand (maybe from some of the strike a pose work where she’s been cued to the reward for not quite touching the target in the hand?) She could do “sit” because I think it resembled the start line stay exercise, but the point was to have more active tricks that upped the arousal rather than static ones. I could try her jumping up behavior, but did not that day. It’s a little hard to do with a toy in my hand, but I’d want her to learn to do so at some point (as it’s a good disc dog behavior and I’d love to get into disc dog with her, the Rat boys think disc dogging is dumb). I have a cued “feet” behavior for putting her front feet on my leg, also one I’d love for her to be able to do as part of a ringside routine, but pretty sure right now she will think I’m nuts to ask her to do that with a toy in my hand. Should I try a few reps of all of those with food to prime the pathway a bit, then switch to a toy for 1-2 reps, then back to food before she goes “lights on no one home”?
And yes, that is a dusting of snow on top of the tunnel. And as far as noise, I still cannot figure out what that buzzing sound is that sounds like something being electrocuted. I hear it all the time in my videos and yet have never heard anything that sounds like that while out in the yard. The Amazon trucks around here have a similar back up noise, but different enough that I don’t think it’s that.
Attempted some of the tunnel threadle exercise this morning. This was two short sessions (one side, a break for a few minutes, then the other). She got it better turning left (her stronger side) and turning right we had to be pretty much even with the tunnel opening. The one rep towards the end when she spun in a circle and tried to go in the side was actually pretty funny- she was trying so hard! It also went better when I was patient about waiting for her to turn and look at the tunnel before releasing- go figure. She was also struggling with the collar grab, I think it was when I had the toy in my hand. I tried to make the collar grab VERY brief and that still didn’t help. But in looking at the video if I got rid of the toy, she could do it. Which goes along with what I found when I tried the volume dial game the other day. With a toy in my hand she really can’t respond to quite a number of cues that I would have thought she was fluent in. Thoughts on working through that?
