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The wing nearly falling was her stepping on the leg, and I think she did eventually put 2 and 2 together to realize that was her bad (not bad as in naughty, but meaning I think she realized she was in control of it, and was just a whoops, not a random thing falling on her) but yes, I liked her pretty chill response to it.
I have two of those jump bumps, so yes, she can have a 6’ bar for the exercise next time! Or should I place them side by side so it’s still like a 5’ bar?
And I would totally have guessed CB to be 22”+!
So I tried threadle slices again today, though camera was set up terribly. Posting it any way, mostly because that first rep was pretty funny. She tried to head straight for the toy and I giggled and she was like “oh, I forgot something” and came back and touched the target. And I used get it and toy toy interchangeably, no stressing and she got the context any way. 🤪
Also started the backside slice exercise, which went pretty smoothly (finally an exercise that didn’t make me feel like I’ve never trained a dog before!) Indeed my jump bump is very short, only 3’ which is very evident in this exercise but I think fine while there’s very little speed coming in. If she was a pony of a BW (like CB size) it might be too easy to skip it, but I think it’s ok given her current small size (not yet 18” tall).
I was able to go rescue this out of the recently deleted files. I didn’t even want to watch the rest of this session since her brain wasn’t in it at all (first attempt at the head turn exercise). You can’t see much but you can hear her. The cookie tosses towards the distraction she took a looong time gazing in his direction. It seems mostly alarm barking to me, I don’t think she actually registered who it was she was barking at. It feels like a BC flavored meltdown.
As far as noise, I think the video enhances certain sounds. The music is generally up just loud enough that I can hear it while working as long as there isn’t other noise. In some other videos traffic noise makes it sound like the vehicles are REALLY close but I’m at least 200-300’ from roads. Any noise that she seems to be reacting to I THINK is the rustling of birds under those bushes which the video definitely does not pick up. Because BIRDS! They might fly away and that’s exciting! So it’s the tiny little noise (and somewhat intermittent/sudden noise) predicting movement that she’s picking up on.
And as far as markers, yeah I had always thought they used context as well. Sort of like when I do fitness training, I don’t generally say much at all by way of markers and my dogs still somehow figure out when I want them to stay in place and when they should follow the lure no problem. So it’s definitely freeing to be able to focus on fewer markers! I’ll have to give it some thought as to what ones to really keep since this attempt at having a bunch is just not working and is just frustrating us both.
What you said above all does make sense, it just doesn’t make it easy. Like the meltdown she had this morning when we were out working in the yard in the few minutes I had before work, and my boyfriend left the house for work, sending her into a barking frenzy. I totally understand it’s normal, but I was planning a low distraction session and spent two whole minutes getting her brain back instead. Meltdowns aren’t her norm, I’m not super worried, but she’s had enough of them that I really question if I’m handling them right, and they are mostly about people. Terriers can have meltdowns too, but they usually save them for big important stuff, not random little things like she does!
Two sessions from yesterday, first attempt at threadle slice foundations. This one left her very confused I think. Placing the toy on the ground and then feeding her for ignoring it seems to make her think she shouldn’t go for the toy at all. Or she just couldn’t find it and needed some motion from me towards it to get her to go to it. One other session where I’ve tried this she wound up trying to bite the target in my hand looking for her toy. I’m getting frustrated trying to use the different marker cues: tug is get it from my hand, toy toy is get it on the ground, but I’m crappy at using the right one, sometimes nothing comes out because I can’t remember the word, and even when I do use the right one, she doesn’t seem to have any clue what the difference is. Is it even worth continuing to have two different cues for the toy? (Plus a third, “get it” if I throw the toy)
And then something a little faster and more fun, more handling around my “barrel” with the preplaced toy. It felt way messier live but actually funny to watch the video. Again, I’m not sure how positive she felt about this session, does she actually understand the concept? Yes, she’s (mostly) leaving the toy and following the handling to the barrel, but does she actually understand the cue that means get the toy or is she just grabbing it (out of desperation) because I’m not specifically calling her away or stopping her in any way?
And today we worked at the town green again, leashed and in a somewhat enclosed space around a flag pole. The benches and shrubs partially blocked her view of any one who might be approaching so I could pick up the leash if needed before she knew any one was there. Left is still her better direction and I think that side looks good, right is still tough.
I guess a nice little segue into my next question is exactly what you just commented above… yay! I get to practice in lots of different environments. I think I’ve identified a really big distraction for her as being things that enter the environment during a working session. Once she is an a location and has sort of taken it all in, she’s pretty focused. Like the barn aisle I worked in the other day (don’t think I posted it here but on my FB page). Pony heads hanging out of stall doors (which honestly I’ve never seen a dog NOT at least look twice at disembodied, floating horse heads the first time they see them) and she’s running under them like they aren’t even there. But if something (human, dog, bird, etc) enters a space unexpectedly she can’t stay focused, hence why I was VERY careful in the entryway of the training building. I understand it’s totally normal for dogs to find sudden environmental changes distracting. But I struggle a little to find a way to “slice” that practically. I tried tonight to have one dog crated, work her a little, release the dog out of the crate to a snuffle mat, then work her some more but I feel like that is a very different scenario as I am breaking off her engagement, bringing the new thing in, then re-engaging her. Natural environments I won’t have any control over the distraction as far as distance or how long we might be sitting there waiting for something. Thoughts on how to “slice” that safely when I don’t have a class environment? Clearly the middle of the town green from a few weeks ago where she wound up running up to a stranger and jumping up to lick her face (who greeted her warmly right back thank goodness!) wasn’t the right answer!
I sort of call the “get out” the “shower curtain” maneuver, but it doesn’t have any sort of official verbal or visual cue, just make a wall out of your legs and arms to force them to turn away, shout the verbal for the obstacle and pray lol.
Here is some of the strike a pose with a jump bump. Two sessions, one in my yard this morning and the other this afternoon in a small entryway at another agility training facility where I was seeing a patient. (Which is why I had to do some taking her by the collar as other people might have come in at any moment.) Once you get to having the toy on the ground, when do you cue them to get it? They don’t have to touch the target any more, but I also don’t think letting them just take the toy without a cue is good rehearsal either. In the first session she was stepping on the jump bump a bit, which I presume is fine at this stage? She didn’t in the second session but there was also less speed.
Another chilly session. I think we finally have the collection cue in place so she is at least driving in to my side and coming around the correct side, maybe not always the tightest, but acceptable I think. It’s hard to decel any earlier.
Then did the next stage of the rocking horse exercise and it did go better with more distance and motion.
And finally the get out (or push as I’m calling it). Not sure I have any sort of cue for this currently with my dogs? But I’ll give it a go with at least teaching the foundation.
https://youtu.be/HAQNIf1LLMo?si=jqAOlppEV_e27Wkr
I think we finally cracked the wrapping exercise. This was our first try at rocking horse after doing some unvideoed work with wrapping and handling to a toy. I realized on that last session that my position needs to be more visible to her as she comes around and also off of her line more. You can see the first rep of this I forget and stand right in the middle of the objects and if I had tried to sequence these I don’t think we would have been able to have a “hallmark” moment until way too late.
I assume at this stage it’s perfectly fine to just swap hands that you carry the toy in so you aren’t trying to send them with the hand you have the toy in? I feel like ideally we get there, but probably too much for a puppy?
Warm and passably dry today. Here is some work on the parallel path game. The jump bump is 4”, taller than I would have liked, but I think it’s fine. I think I was getting my marker out at the right time. Interesting that the few failures she had were right after restarting after reloading? Not certain why
And this is our second session with a tunnel (first was over a month ago). She had some moments of being not sure about things, not sure if it was the distraction of the other dog mooching around, the arousal of the toy, if she was just tired (did this after the parallel path game above), or if it was just the collar grab part she was avoiding. She had gotten good with that, so haven’t been rewarding lately but… adolescence.
Got to work some collection sandwich in a warmish barn aisle tonight after seeing a patient. There’s an agility class going on in the main arena so you can hear dogs barking, and yes there’s a turkey in one of the stalls that you can hear at one point in the video. And I left in her new trick at the end of the video- first time doing it outside of a training session specifically working on that trick 😉
Seems that she can turn left ok, but turning right she’s finding hard. I don’t THINK it’s a lack of connection on my end but wanted to see what you thought.
Had JUST enough space in the living room for this. Too cold to go out today, never mind the crusting of snow on the ground. I have introduced the basic “follow the magic cookie hand” for the lap turn and tandem already, one of the first fitness/coordination exercises I do with puppies, “can you follow a cookie on your nose and turn your body?” So she got that part pretty quickly. And I think with slightly more space to toss a reset cookie she wouldn’t have gone to the prop so often, I think sometimes she turned around and the prop was just RIGHT THERE. A few times she did see the cookie hand and still went for the prop, but more often she just saw the prop first with no time to correct.
Finally had a handling session working on the rear crosses with the prop that felt GOOD this week. (Had one yesterday on that same town green where she worked so well last time, but this time she left working to go jump on a person, so we won’t be able to work off leash in public any more 😔). I guess still more than two “failures” so I should have done more just going with her on the parallel path?
(You can hear my timer going off at the end, but since we stopped for a play break in the middle I went a little past it)Went easy on myself today and did some proprioception work. I felt the Shpile exercise would be relatively easy for us, easy enough I almost didn’t video. I noticed at the beginning though she actually left food to go to her toy. I don’t think she was actually avoiding the shpile, or apprehensive about putting her feet on the things, but just working out managing her arousal in order to do so? Just wanted to see what you thought about it. She certainly improved through the session, so I’m not worried.
I like the reset cookie for handling errors. I will definitely try that! If nothing else it will give me time to process while not causing BIG MAD feelings! I knew it was a long session, but there was that pressure of “we’re several weeks behind” and good weather days are few and far between so I wanted to feel like maybe we at least made a little progress from our one turn and burn session a week or so ago. Then add in it was just a rough day on many fronts and I probably should have just not trained a dog that day!
As for the noises, yes there were some gun shots, but also there was an agility class going on inside the barn so there was also a teeter banging, which I think sounds much louder on the video than it was in real life.
Not the greatest session today. I think I tried to add too many things at once, feeling so far behind! I have done some (unvideoed) sessions of turn and burn and collection sandwich, so tried putting some of that together in the “handling combos” exercise (which never became combos, we didn’t really even get baby level). This is not our home location, but it is where she learned “turn and burn”, and using the same obstacle. This was definitely a lot for her brain, you can see she even left working at the end to go try to see a friend (who was close to 100’ away and with two fences in between us). Adding the left, right and go on verbals was new for her (and the left verbal is a completely new word for me, chose to keep right “tight tight” which is what I’ve used for all tight turns towards me and left is “ski ski”).
I was trying to leave way too early, to try to prepare to do some combos but clearly she isn’t ready for that. But I still got way more failures than I liked, and at the end I tried to get some easy wins with being right up close to the obstacle with the toy right there as well and by then she was just fried and as you saw she left working, so I quit there. So I guess I’d love hints on how to make progress and keep up without over facing? I struggle to keep sessions short enough and the success rate high and still add even 1-2 reps of anything new.
