Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hey Jo!
Working on figuring out why I didn’t get a notification on this thread you made! Sorry for the delay in responding.
I didn’t use the mat for Mose because he didn’t have the foundation for it. He knew the Cato board to target before the box, but didn’t know targeting the mat for his back feet like I teach in my foundations course. I love the mat target training – I feel like it easily transitions from mat on the Cato board, to mat on the slant board, to mat on the box (I don’t do vertical wall board).
Working on that online Cato – I feel like such a juggler right now trying to squeeze 48 hours into a 24 hour day!
I’m so sorry I didn’t get a notification on this post!
Is the ball on the slant to give him a visual cue of where to place his head and his feet? And are you releasing from the similar position/place?
If you are doing hit-its and seeing inconsistency that isn’t uncommon – there are so many variables and the criteria is “get your feet up” to which it sounds like he is meeting it.
It’s so great to see another video!!
When you do another run from further back like the last one – I want you to move about 10′ back from where you were standing (might put you where jump 1/8 would be if it was in). Yumbi didn’t have enough speed while entering the jumps, had to toss in a double stride between the jumps, and was then still accelerating into the box. She had to toss in a .5 step to get closer to the box because she landed short of the box. She is thoughtful enough to fix it on the fly, but it doesn’t make for the cleanest turns.
For the clean catches and rotation off the box in those up close clips – would you have the time and ability to send a quick session of the same setup, you releasing (not the one where you stood to the side)? I want to see what she looks like with a U shaped prop setup – keep one gutter in front of the box, then place one on each side of the box parallel to the lanes on the outside edges of the boxes. So if the box loader looks down – the props make the letter U. If the reps look good you can back up and add more distance as well – that overhead view from the box loader was super helpful (sometimes the side looks great but I don’t see how wide she comes off the box). I have a theory for Yumbi I want to test – and that will decide which future homework/prop setup you have.
I like adding some spice to the tugs is bringing back that joy. I challenge you with a special one – I want you to video different play styles with the tugging and watch them back. I’m wondering if you had more play styles that will help continue the tugging relationship as well.
-Tugging and slapping and shaking around really hard and fiesty you have footage of.
-Tugging and using the finger tickles to the front of her chest (think “I’m going to get you motion”) that’s a little more teasing and less effort on her part.
-Same as the above – making sure the front feet stay on the ground.
-Tugging and having her pull the tug so it slips slowly out of your hand like she is ripping it away from you. Then you hand over hand choke back up on the tug to play and engage again – little more of a give and take on both sides.The pieces together – BRAVO!! Doesn’t it feel like fun Flyball?! She has all the pieces and now as you add in other dogs and the slant board with the ball to this picture – she will be confident because you already taught her the little pieces.
Feel free to add that prop with the cato turn work/slant work as well. I liked everything that I saw. Keep up the work and on both directions. I can’t wait to see you both in person hopefully soon.
Tugging –
I would stop asking for the tugging. GIR did a very similar thing, and we decided to stop adding pressure and just let him choose. Sometimes he had a stuffie he wanted to play with, sometimes he wanted a tug or ball, and often food was the winner. Kiki sounds very similar. I’m betting if you stop asking, she will one day ask for tugging. Make it insanely fun, but end quickly. Leave her wanting MORE (versus her saying, okay enough I’m done). I also love to have an arsenal of tugs, furry tugs, bottle, squeaky, grunting, you name it – I find the novelty can often keep a dog that isn’t intense with tugging into the game. I challenge you to have a timer on your phone/watch or a handheld one, and limit your sessions to 2.5 mins. See what she thinks of that. I average 5-6 mins for a full training session with most dogs.Kick Back – try these two alternatives and let me know if neither work for you.
1. Send to retrieve tug
2. Kiki returns so tug on the tug. 1-2 seconds of tug (fast), say YES!, give cookies.
3. Ask her to tug on her tug.1. Send to retrieve ball.
2. Kiki returns ball. 1-2 seconds tug on the ball or moment it touches your hand say YES!, give cookies.
3. Ask her to tug on her tug.Backing up – nailed it. Loved the individual steps!
Pivot – WOW on the pivot on the flat – that was really neat. The inflatable was much more of a challenge – which makes sense because inflatables add difficulty.
Bow – smooth! Looked great.
RSO – Mat – Tug = Those first two reps are TERRIFIC. She slipped on the floor when you switched directions on the lineup. I don’t know if you saw that in the video. So she stepped forward and you took it as her not listening and tried getting her back into position. But she was really upset you thought she was bad. So I would say anything with her training – you will have to be her cheerleader. Mediocre effort = low level cheerleader. A+ effort = throat sore from woohoo cheerleader. It will be so exhausting because everything will take something from you. But if you do it for a little bit – I am curious to see how it builds her up and she might be a little more eager to try and toss things at you. You have the perfect understanding of this exercise and I’m glad you let criteria slip a little after she struggled switching directions.
Mat time – I did not think this was bad. At all.
I saw her wondering a few times – but I didn’t see that as a stress response or a quit. It seemed more unclear on what was expected. And can we compliment her for how well she is driving away from you to the box. Right now she’s going a$$ over kettle at the box when she gets her ball versus decelerating and getting it cleanly – so we will keep an eye on that. I’m not overly worried about it transitioning because her mat work looks so good. The only change I could think of is maybe shorter distances for her catching you (like maybe only work from box to where jump 1/8 is) so that’s less of the environment she has to scan and move through. But honestly I was impressed with how she handled that.Also – I was cracking up when she literally FLEW out of the side and into the camera view at the beginning. She is a hoot!
She really nailed this one. And because you did both sides you now have a really nice figure 8 you can use as a warm-up before sports!
You can start to add in Ready Up, Hands go down to hold, and send her to a toy or tossed cookie. The continue building into the pattern that will look like real Flyball soon.
She seems to be very committed to the right. I honestly had an impossible time with my last dog picking her turn. She most often turned left, but would go a little wide like Soozie versus a pinwheel whip back turn. And so I just trained her to do a box turn box directions.
1- She stayed balanced because we didn’t just do one side the whole time
2- She showed me which turn she was able to decelerate into the box better
3- She showed me that once I added the ball one way got sloppy and the other stayed clean/high.At the end of the day because all things were equal in the testing experiments, I picked the turn that gave me better deceleration/setup for the turn as well as gave me the higher feet. And her turn is magnificent so I did not ruin her teaching her to get a ball off the board and box in both directions.
PS – at the end of the day, I have seen enough people pick a direction, train that only, and then when we add speed it’s very clear that was the wrong direction and owners feel like the last 3-4 months were wasted. I didn’t want that – problem avoided when you just teach both!
He’s quite the latent learner – I can’t wait to see you both running soon!! This is a fabulous foundation he has and he has a complete understand of all the pieces.
That Klimb was a great way to add incline and height for the beginning of the hit-it board work. I will also share my instructions on how to make the hit-it board in case you have someone handy.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-XMlpFSWMLbI3NGXb76X1aIZbsYPzztxTw1kN211irk/edit?usp=sharing
Majority of them you took the time to set him up to stride into the Klimb. Be careful not to have him too close to you (and he has to step away before he can lineup and then fit himself onto the board) like 0:32 and 1:33. He does it, but it’s harder and we want to make it easy.
You can certainly add in more running/racing him off as well. He’s still young and growing so I wouldn’t do a ton of these while we wait on those growth plates (and I love that you are doing both sides so he stays balanced). Give him a few reminders of these games over the next 2 months and then we can really start to ask for more power and speed!
Those passing drills are a ton of fun too if you have a friend with a docile dog – I thought you would enjoy hoping they would be different than your normal agility foundations.
That last rep was perfect!! You held the one you wanted her to out still, brought the next one to life, and cued the YES. She switched perfectly. She seems to have a really nice grip and I can’t wait when you start adding distance + motion to this exercise next to make it even harder!!
Apologies for taking so long to respond!!
Target Mat – Don’t stress about picking a way. We are going to do both for now so you have a balanced puppy. So I took away that decision and you don’t have to worry haha.
Pointing to the mat with one hand, rewarding with the other. If I have time, I will sometimes point, and then toss the tug into that hand quickly. Either of those options are fine – you looked good from what I could see. We are going to pick her turn based on collection and rotation of her spine. Good job keeping it on the cato – you can use that until she moves to the low slant board.Bow – I trust the form was better on the flat or you could even use a Cato or similar platform. She seems very good at “place me and I’ll hold it” so she was set down with wide rear and didn’t reset. With her breeds – she will be more likely to have that wider stance in the rear so you do want to work on exercises for stabilizing the rear pelvic limbs.
Toy Retrieve – 100% supportive of the gutter etc. You have all the time in the world to teach jumping. This keep away behavior – I see it now. Here is your plan. We are going to change the training loop for her. It will now be
Send to toy – bring back toy – cue spit to eat cookie (Or tug and then release/cue spit at the same time). Then start to tug again.You can do this just like the two tug game, except it’s one tug and cookies. She tugs with you….. and YES spit the tug and get the cookie. Game can’t start again to win the cookie until we tug again. So now her desire will be to give you the tug (or at least engage near you) to get the cookie.
You have to decide whether you want your criteria for the retrieve to be a hand target, little bit of tugging, or just close enough in your bubble. For now since she knows two tug game – I would opt for a little bit of tugging and then your criteria can always slip just a little.
So in the video when she left you, she recalled and got the cookie, then you sent her to bring it to you, then you tugged, I would have added in the “YES” here is the cookies you wanted. It’s not going to make her want cookies over tug – if anything it builds value for tugging cause she’s getting double the rewards. For softer dogs that you want to build tug drive – it’s a way to have them “WIN” the tug with hard pulls and then the cookies come out. Makes them want to be tough. So many different applications for this modification to the game. Let me know if that helps or you have questions!
This is the first time I have seen her open up and RUN. She’s going to be so fast – wow!!
Her recall is stellar – there were like 18 other times she had auto-check ins with you. But she’s not blind to the environment. She was taking it in, observing, and then quickly looking back at you to see what the next step was. Well done executing this game.
As a Flyball dog, I can just see her hanging out with you in the runback not running amuck, as well as blazing back after she got her ball because she heard you call her! I cannot wait!!
