[net.sand]

Hi Tracy
Yesterday was another rest day. We did one of our in person classes Tuesday night and wish I had recorded it to show Dublin wrapping a chair and going under a pole with fleece and cups hanging. The instructor was thrilled how he was going so close to the chair and ignoring the gap in the fleece curtain lol. He just didn’t care about the cups or the fleece and was getting to his wrap to get cookies. Sad to say lots of chicken and we ended up with more tummy troubles. Stopping all chicken and moving to beef and rice now.
Today we did some of our wrapping and I tried to keep the bowls by my feet or behind me. These were home made pumpkin treats so my mechanics were a little off breaking them smaller. Plus my marker was off on a few. He was a good boy.
We also did some goat work on plank and a little obstacle course. The cot was new and the Cato plank was higher
I thought all went well

[net.sand]

Hi Tracy

Thanks! I was very happy with the toy play. I will add a bring it and try to do more praise. I have fault of being quiet.
I do wonder about the teething but I see what you mean for arousal and decompression. He is latching on and wanting to chew more of the tug toys than he did before so maybe both. I am looking for some new teething toys to maybe help there. For tug maybe one with more of a ball?

Today we did some tug on the wobble board and folding in with food. I thought the wobble board went well. I still need to remember to keep toy low. Omg I stopped the toy play and tried to do break after the wobble board and he kept getting on it. I finally had to do a scatter of treats to quickly pick it up lol
For the folding in, I added new marker of take for getting food from the dish since yes should mean from my hand.

[net.sand]

Hi Tracy

Poor Dublin! You might need to alternate training days: one day is training with some food, then the next day can be toy-only stuff so his body can process the treats and not get overloaded.

this time is was my fault he had a beef cheek to chew on when we visited with some friends at a brewery. I should’ve taken it away sooner.

I see what you mean for the tugging and the praise. I think his wanting to chew the toy is what surprised me instead of retrieving it. What should I have done differently then? He normally is very big into coming back with the toy.

Today we did more toy stuff. I added in the marker tug to get the tug in my hand. Also did some foot targeting with the “Tug”. It’s hard for me to drop the YES sometimes. Overall I was pleased. I wasn’t sure he would bring tug back and then latch onto the new tug.

We also did a small field trip yesterday to my MILs house. There are no pets there but lots of different things for him to look at and a creaky floor lol. He did great leading me around from room to room. After we had explored we played tug and did toy races. Again he did great. We walked a little outside but he didn’t seem to want to walk down the sidewalk past the house. I just let him lead me back to the garage and inside. Sorry no videos.

[net.sand]

Hi Tracy

Thanks. It has been slow progress and I hope I am doing his introduction to our house ok. He gets very fomo not being around the other dogs.

Yesterday was a break day for Dublins training. His stomach is having trouble again so he is on chicken and rice. I thought today we would try to see if we could go further around the cone using a toy. Well I have learned hungry Dublin and chicken rewards trumps toy.

[net.sand]

Hi Tracy

You can replace the go verbal with what you’d like your wrap verbal to be. Go will indicate a straight line, so we can name the turn even at this early stage. You were using ‘get it’ when you switched to the other side which is helpful here for sure! And the wrap verbal will emphasize the line when the bowl moves to a really hard spot and is visible on the other side of the cone.

Yes I realized when I changed sides that I had messed up the 1st side lol

I will add in extra cookies for the collar grabs too.
So do you think I am ok to try to go next step and move at little around the cone?

Omg love the egg McMuffin story lol.

Helper dogs.probably too much info to share here. Sad to say being around my other dogs is work in progress. Dublin wants to play all the time and they don’t like it. Frisco has corrected him appropriately and now Dublin licks at him too excessively and still jumps at his face and claws him. Frisco has not done a correction since. Aspen won’t correct him. Aspen will play but gets tired and try to leave. Brighton is starting to be a little better. At 1st the corrections were very scary but Brighton backed away at least. I am managing a lot. Separation and leash time. Treats in turn to reward sitting nice by each other. Not sure my husband is on board to help do outing with ours. I will chat with him about taking Frisco out since he is most confident. I will also check with some friends. Lol wish I could do road trip to see you. I am looking for new job so I have the time 😂

[net.sand]

Hi Tracy
Thanks. I will try to work on the additional markers

Today we tried the collar grab and folding in again. He was very hungry so not sure about the folding in with food lol

I think I need to add in some more noise for him. I am finding times that he is getting startled. For example we went to Dicks sporting goods. Had a nice visit until some boys were testing the basketballs. He stopped to look at them and determine what was the noise. Then went forward but was still good distance away and watched. The boy lost the ball and it came rolling towards Dublin and he got spooked. I wasn’t positive what to do. He did recover but I want to be better prepared next time. Another example was snow plow coming down our street when we were in the yard. That time he ran back to the house and we went in.

[net.sand]

Hi Tracy
For the wrapping should I continue to use that pop up then? LOL I didn’t even notice where the bowls were duh.

I will try the plank again and see if I can help him for those turns. It is interesting that those left turns were harder. That’s opposite of the cone wraps. We have actually already been doing sits, stand and downs on the plank. It’s one I use for the older dogs fitness.

Markers and reinforcement
Get It! Is the same for me. Thrown toy or food. I think he has this one. It was one of the 1st things I taught him.

I am thinking to use Tug for toy reward in my hand to grab and tug with me. I have not used toys as much with the other dogs. At least not consistently. I hope to do more with Dublin since he likes it so much.

SHHHHHHHHH This is a toy reward presentation for when I am moving and the dog can grab the toy in my hand and keep moving because I will be letting go of the toy. I don’t have anything like this in my markers so I need to think about it. I think I have used get it for this one too.
Yes- Cookie room service lol. Cookie to his mouth. Is it ok to deliver no mater where he is? Vs having snacks?

Catch! Couldn’t this be get it?

Find it. For when I mess up and drop the cookie he was supposed to get with the yes LOL.

Scatter- Drop a bunch of cookies on ground as reward so I can do something else or end session

Today we tried some of our toy mechanics. Someone once told me to have two identical toys to try the toy swapping so I did that today with him in the 1st exercise then I tried it with different ones. I have tried swapping or musical toys before but I had always dropped the 1st toy and he didn’t want to change to the new toy. These sessions went better than my earlier ones for sure. Drop was with a higher value cookie.

[net.sand]

Hi Tracy
I found an old pop up crate to use for the wing wrap. Thought I had tossed it since it has hole in the door. A little crooked but seemed to work. I put the toy on it and he had a little trouble going past but worked it out lol

I also raised the plank up. I think he did ok. When I was on the one side of him he seemed to step off more. Perhaps he was getting tired too. Probably should have done play break.

[net.sand]

Hi Tracy
Thanks! He was flying over everything even more later after we played tug on the floor lol. Agree this seemed self rewarding for him.
So if I get the longer tug does he seem good to tug more then? There is one larger ball that I can put on the wobble board but I think he likes this one. I can increase the wobble later.

For the plank goat games he is doing well at this height plank to move and do turns. should I put it up on something to raise it? I can also support the two ends of the teeter board to create a little higher plank.

I will try to get a picture of him watching the videos. He is the 2nd dog I have had that watches TV and stuff. Aspen goes crazy watching even cartoon animals.

Next wing wraps. Do you want us to stick with tall cone or if I can unload my pop up hamper use that? It is round and about 2 feet tall.

[net.sand]

Hi Tracy
We set up goat obstacle course today. I had the fit disc under the wobble board but it moved. Sorry should have used towels but he seemed ok overall. The Cato tip plank was either lowest or one above. He has been on all of this equipment already. The rocker board is upstairs so I will do that in another session. He offered all of this equipment again after I stopped the camera too 🤣. He is like the energizer bunny golden goat.
Oh have to share. He watches all of your how to videos when I play them 🤣

[net.sand]

Hi Tracy
Looking over the next goat games. Dublin will do wobble board and will climb on my donut. Do you want me to show those or try something different? I have not tugged on the wobble board. I also have a fitpaws rocker board he will go on. Small peanut I have not tried and have not done anything with paw pods. I have the Cato plank too which he will do.

[net.sand]

Hi Tracy
I think that helps with the blind to decel. I will try it again next time I have more space.

We tried some of the collar grab and stealth folding it in. The between the legs with the collar grab is something I will have to work more on LOL. My mechanics were very off. Oh and this was the 1st time with some string cheese. His slower response to eating it was entertaining.

[net.sand]

Thanks Tracy. We had a great time. I think letting the two puppies play 1st helped him acclimate but he did well before that coming in to say hi to Tammy and Beth too. They commented how confident he seemed.

He was also really good about ignoring her, after the first bit of hugs and kisses 😆 He is a very happy social dude, so having to ignore a person and drive to you is great for self-control!!

he did great. I think he would have done better if his leash had been removed sooner. Some of the interactions was removing the leash too 🤣

For the blind to the decel I think I am still confused since I have the toy in the off hard for the turn. Do I switch the toy to that other hand to try to use it?

Today we went on an outing to one of the local agility trials. Said hi to people. Watched dogs run courses. I forgot to bring my toy in so we safely chased a plastic bag. Was another fun day.

I think the next lessons drop tomorrow. Do we need to work more of the other lessons to move on?

[net.sand]

Hi Tracy
lol yes he was starving. Glad I handled it ok. Glad you like my cone 🤣
I will add more play breaks in.

Today I did a rental with a friend at Dash. Got to see Tammy and Beth’s litter of BC puppies too. Dublin played with my friends BC puppy prior to these sessions and I was worried he would be too tired. Other then handler and helper messing on the blind session I am pleased. He had never been to dash before. We did focus forward and blind cross. I got confused on how to do the blind to the deceleration and turn. Need help with toy mechanics.

[net.sand]

Hi Tracy
I found the hamper thing but it is storing some of my daughter’s old toys so I need to empty that. In the meantime I created a taller cone 🤣. I started the session holding a bag of treats. That was hard for him especially since it was past his lunch time. He started the game. Hopefully I handled that ok.

Next we tried some sends with food again. I tried to engage him more before as per your instructions. See some good and then I think I did something wrong and he was following the hands with the food.

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