Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi Tracy,
Thanks so much for the comprehensive feedback! I decided to do a few short segments today to practice the advice you gave. I didn’t want to do too many weaves because obviously it will be hard on Rusey’s body.
I started by just practicing weaves to TT. Ruse got it right first time but I didn’t push the button quickly enough and she came to me lol. Second time she came in, but the third time she nailed it again.
Next I tried to do the blind when Ruse turned into the tunnel at 4. I forgot to give her left turn cue for tight turning out of the tunnel coming into 5. I had a second go at it, with the command, but I don’t think it was very tight.
The third section I tried was to aim for jump 12 and do the blind cross. I lost connection and turned too early the first time, but Ruse nailed it the second time.
I finished with trying to put that together but got hooked up in the weaves again so I just ended after Ruse did weave to TT.
Tomorrow I think I will re-number and give Hero a turn.
L.
Hi Tracy,
I will teach Ruse the nose touch with a target on the seesaw and see how we get on. She’s pretty quick at picking things up. Lol, yes, I think Hairy must have been reading our discussion about scratching the target hahaha. I always seem to train something inadvertently.
The weaves are closed for Hero but they are my 2x2s and are quite heavy but are not pegged. He can push them when he weaves so maybe I will peg them on course for him.
>>First rep – he was nice and tight on the backside at 2 (I think you wanted the backside there, it looked like you cued it) and all through the rest! And the weaves looked GREAT
Yes, I cued a backside.
>>Second rep – on the forward send to 2, it was hard to hear if there was a turn cue and also the forward send doesn’t cue enough collection for him there – you can try more ‘brake’ arm with the outside arm when he lands from 1, to see if that helps get more collection there.
Yes I did cue a tight turn tst tst tst. I am not sure what you mean by brake arm with the outside arm? That is my dog side arm? I think I was holding the arm back at 38 s so that he would come to me to do the weaves.
>>you had a moment of disconnection over 7 at :31 so he lost his train of thought and looked up at you, dropping the bar.
I wondered what happened there!!!
>>I was thinking of jump 4 (the one after the weaves)
Oh, it didn’t occur to me that I could slice that jump from the front side lol. That would have been way easier and faster. Would I just do a front cross or a blind to cue that from the weaves?
Today I did some jumping on course 1 with Ruse. Watching the video back I am very disappointed in myself. Ruse struggled a little with independence in the weaves which was of course the challenge here. She was pulling out early and I wasn’t sure why. So I did what I would normally do and lined her up to have another crack. She missed the entry twice before I realised I either needed to hold her and make it easier for her to see the entry or I should send her back over the jump before hand. I chose the former. Then she nailed it and I just carried on. I should have rewarded the heck out of that!!!! And I did that twice during the session!! Training is meant to be just that and high rewards for success of the things I want repeated. Bad trainer!!!
I also had some trouble getting her over jump 12 because I didn’t cue the jump well and I turned too soon. There were multiple handling options and I was going for a blind between 12 & 13, but realised that this actually pushes Ruse really wide because I am running in full extension to get there and when I turn I am giving her little direction and losing connection. I tried it as a serp but ended awkwardly with her threadling across my feet. The early front cross was ok.
I did the same exercise with Hero and he also failed the weaves popping out at 7 on the opposite side and missing the last two poles. So I broke it down for him and opened up the end poles and he nailed it. Should I get the treat trainer out to help with independence in this section?
L.
Hi Tracy,
I did the same couple of sequences again with Hero, once with the slice (hopefully I sliced where you meant) and once with the wrap. I also did this exercise with Ruse but I haven’t had a look to see who is faster.
With Ruse and the Seesaw, do you think training a nose touch would be ok? I don’t know why Hero scratches, I didn’t teach him that lol. Does the cue I give “slam” mean you go to the end of the seesaw and when the seesaw hits the ground you do a nose touch, or does the second part of the behaviour have to have a different cue? I will spend some time trying to teach this.
I’m thinking to set up one of the jumping courses tomorrow to have a crack at with both dogs maybe Sunday. Or would it be better to tackle an agility course first?
L.
Hi Tracy,
Hero and I had another go at the sequence today. I understand what you mean about get my arm way back, I still don’t think it was far enough but I tried rewarding with my right hand to turn my body further. I did a couple of practice turns on the wing to get started. Hero was much better. Can you see though after taking jump 1, he rounds the wing extremely wide. How do I help him more with this even though I was giving a tight turn cue? Is it a matter of actually just doing lots of tight turn cueing on a wing with good connection so that he understands what that cue means when I can’t be there to help the turn with my body?
I pushed on and did the second sequence and Hero seemed to be understanding the cues again, except the tight turn when he had to push out to number 2 by himself. He is finding the weave entries and turning on the other obstacles. When I didn’t take an extra step to jump 2, he pulled in and went for the weaves. I guess I was giving an early turn cue and he understood and came in. Timing is everything!
Is her criteria a hit-and-go?
Yes, I want it to be ultimately, but in the interim I think I need a release cue, otherwise she just does flyers in the ring. I captured the whole session today because I definitely need some help with this one. I was helping her out with reward placement after the slam, then releasing to the TT. She does know the target behaviour, but as with Hero, she is starting to not drive to the end and touch the target. I must be doing something wrong for both dogs to be doing this. Hero I can understand, because the behaviour is new and he needs more work. But Ruse has balls of steel and she usually goes flat out at everything.
I don’t think you need more coffee, I understood what you meant about only being a little behind her to begin with to help her out 😉
L.
Hi Tracy,
It’s good to be back! I started skills set with Ruse today. I chose to show you the first and last reps, plus one in the middle and what happened on the very next rep after the fail. We did have more than two failures of jumping off the seesaw though. I pretty much tried to stay in the background and wasn’t sure how to make it easier. Rusey was having so much fun and was very excited. This is extremely good practice for her as usually I am trying to be level with her and my slow down in motion usually makes her do the same. So it was good to hang back and see what happened. I had the TT out front so she had something to aim at, but this could have been part of the problem as she absolutely goes nuts for that thing. But if I had thrown a ball she would look back at me.
I wasn’t sure if I was only supposed to do one vid with one dog per post, but I did have a go with Hero and the sequence with the weaves as well.
I put the TT out front at first and just had him drive to it without me to remind him of his job. It seems like he has not forgotten since our weaves class yay!
Next I started the first sequence with the weaves in it. I very quickly realised I was not giving Hero a tight turn command from the weaves and he was just exiting and taking the first jump he saw. I fed him for coming to hand, then gave him my tssss cue which is tight left. But I had to break the sequence down even further when Hero took jump 4 and carried onto the wing and then back into the weaves. We had two failures, so I broke it down even further and spent some time just doing tight turns on jump 4. I realised watching it back that I didn’t give the tight turn cue early enough (he is fast!), and I should have put my right hand across my body so my chest pointed at the wing where I wanted him to come around and connect with me.
L
Hi Tracy,
We will keep on practicing all the crazy things! Thank you so much for your help. Hero loves these games, now to take it on the road……
Cheers,
L.
Hi Tracy,
Thanks for everything. I am sad we didn’t make all the course work with time off, lameness etc. I have mum staying at the moment and we have had flooding so it’s been a bit hard to get things done outside. I will definitely keep working on the plank and then back to the seesaw as we have been doing here. I will rewatch the videos to help.
I really appreciate your input. It only takes for me to do a couple of dumb things to throw the dog off lol. I will have to sign Hairy up for more courses in the future!
Cheers
L.Hi Tracy,
It is pyrfect timing for me to get the plank out because it is supposed to be very wet outside all weekend and into early next week. Hero is very efficient at determining when the food will be delivered, which is probably why he knows my delivery system so well.
L
Hi Tracy,
Most judges will allow some form of training in the ring. It’s our time which we have paid for, so a long as we don’t take longer than the normal run, it should be fine. A lot of people will take a toy in the ring, do a series of maybe 3 obstacles and then leave. I have also seen people do a startline and then leave. Usually we would ask the judge before the class.
I don’t understand retraining vs a reset. I thought the reset was training if she failed the start and that rewarding backwards with the catch was teaching her where I need her to stay in position since if she doesn’t know if she will be rewarded backwards, she would stay and find out. ALthough I know dogs are masters of routine and predictability, I can see how I might be giving the game away with some subtle movement I only do when I am going to reward backwards vs release forwards.
If she has to be reset, how would you train differently so that a reset is not required?
We did the setpoint exercise at the very beginning of this course. Is that what you meant? Interesting about her shortening her stride. I don’t know if this is learned or an adaptation she has made to be able to jump. She did have a ovarectomy at the end of January. Could abdominal surgery cause this? Of course I don’t know what she did before hand. She probably just has a weak core anyway. I think yes she needs to do a lot more core strengthening in this case.
L.
Hi Tracy,
Argh, me and my wavey hand lol. I put the MM ahead today and did some bang game down low. Hero was still looking mostly at me rather than the MM. After he had some success with the bang game I did one rep of crazy elevator from the tunnel. I tried to remember to lower my hand and deliver a treat to the target before doing the countdown for slam. He was really good. Next I pushed my luck and did a full seesaw with him. I had him running from the tunnel and I tried to run with him. I was yelling slam slam slam. I’m not sure if this is correct because usually I would only say slam once for all the other games, but I really wanted him to know what was coming. He wasn’t pyrfect, but pretty good and not scared. I did a jackpot, rewarding just in front of the seesaw. He released almost before I could tell him to after he had hoovered up all the treats.
L.
Hi Tracy,
Yes we are having lots of errors at waits on the startline. When this happens in competition I reposition her and lead out maybe two steps, but consequently our leadouts have gotten shorter and shorter when sometimes I need a distance because she can be fast! What else can I do to improve this. I feel like she doesn’t want me to leave her there, she just wants to go go go. She understands my release word I think.
Today I repeated the grid exercise. Yesterday the jumps were 6 of my feet apart. Today I set them at 5 of my feet apart (in the same shoes). I think she does need some help stretching out.
L.
Hi Tracy,
I wanted to do some more grid work with Ruse so we went onto the beginning of the ladder. It was getting dark, so I hope you can see. I had a lot of trouble mostly with Ruse waiting in position. The video was really long so I had to cut out some of the work I did throwing treats back to Ruse to catch. When we competed the other weekend, the wait on the start line was the first thing to breakdown.
L.
Hi Tracy,
I am back from my trip and Hairy had a holiday at the groomers lol. We did some good stuff tonight. I made the target skinnier like you said. We warmed up with regular elevator and moved onto crazy elevator with the tunnel for momentum. On the second rep Hairy came off the seesaw but I was making him reach way to far forward for the treat. I was trying to coax him to come further towards the end of the seesaw. When he runs up the seesaw to the crazy elevator he tends to run just over the pivot point and then come down to the target carefully.
L.
Hi Tracy,
I had limited time tonight but I did a quick seesaw session with Hero. Warmed up with a rep of bang game and then two reps of downhill. Then I did two reps of crazy elevator from the tunnel because Hero seemed to enjoy the first rep. I did note that on the second rep that his left paw comes off the seesaw and then he puts it back on before we do the slam. He didn’t have any trouble though. Why is he slipping his paw off the side? Is he trying to gain balance?
L.
Hi Tracy,
I tried the Diamond game tonight with Ruse. I thought she coped well. I had to edit out all the video of me walking it 1000 times so I knew which way to turn lol. No wonder Ruse has a tough time on course.
I think I did the first couple of bits ok with the tight blinds ok, quite tight. She definitely came to the correct side, but she carried on the next wing by herself even though I had food in my hand. She’s so smart. She didn’t have a problem with the race track to the tunnel.
I had only watched the video once before I went out and I forgot how to string it all together. I did one little sequence that I kinda just made up on the spot lol.
L
