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AJ is the perfect helper and distraction dog! You can level up if you set AJ a little further out in front that would be terrific to teach KitKat to push PAST her and drive ahead to “win”.
And her impulse control with a tired brain looked amazing! I wanted to make sure to connect the dots that when you start your box work up close – you will say Ready, Set, Break to send to the ball when you are asking her to go past you (and if someone says Ready Set Go dogs are usually smart enough to generalize).
Four feet in a box – stand, sit, and down haha. You can tell she is quickly mastering the fine motor movements. EArlier the legs were more stiff/straight and she had a harder time controlling momentum to stop in the box when she came in with speed.
2-toy switching – the more engaging you were, the less likely you were to get those little regrips. I am guessing when you are standing that might help too as you can use your motion to add to that excitement. Growling really jazzed her up too! I’ll be keeping an eye to see if she loves that rougher play style with the pushing her side (that’s one of my preferred methods to play as well and it’s hard to fade it out with dogs that don’t love it as much as we do). I think she did like it in the recall video last time so it might have been more with you being stationary that it seemed to coordinate with the regrips. The behavior of “switch” was perfect.
Ready Set Break – New Achievement – you are the ring toss champion HAHA. You can also add in a fast 1-2 steps on Ready into Set which will have a pause, and then Break. That’s often a nice intermediate I find before being able to really proof that sit/stay. Food is perfectly fine! Whatever she wants is what we will use as the reward in the moment and I love that you aren’t making her tug with you notice less enthusiasm.
Side note – bravo on keeping everything balanced. Every exercise I have seen you work both sides and all directions which is excellent for mind and body.
Impulse Control – food – great job. She was intensely focused and didn’t make any errors as you upped the challenge. Then she did that hardest nose punch I’ve ever seen. When you did your “It’s your choice” hand open and she went for it I had the same thought that you were asking for a touch again as well since you had just done a bunch of movement games. I love asking for what I want (or at least giving more clues from my body language/hand signals) so I would have been fine with a “wait” or “stay” etc so she knew it was going to switch back to impulse games. Love her moving back and forth between those so well.
Typically a youtube link pasted in here works best – I wish there was a way to download the raw videos directly but right now there isn’t one. With the WeTransfer I have to download each video to watch and it is taking me 3-7 mins for each download.
The jump Commitment looks terrific! Several times there was the decision to do it all by himself it looked like! Will he drive ahead of you without tossing the toy first?
With the over and backs – think about it like a hit-it on the box (except this is on the flat). I think if you tossed that cookie a little further to the edge of your mat you will get a little stronger push off the rear back over the prop. This exercise really helps engage the proper muscle mechanics. Push up with the rear to get up, engage the core to rotate back, and push with every muscle to snap back quickly.
I agree with wanting to have the focus to stay with you as you go near people (especially because this smart cookie knows she is going to likely lineup to get to do the fun thing again). I like to have the handler do a verbal “go lineup, or go see” and then the releaser is immediately calling to lineup. If the body slamming isn’t getting better – the releaser could turn their back (so it almost looks like KitKat can do a recall to the releaser). Or the releaser can toss some cookies out in front to save their shins, and then ask for the lineup. We tend to teach the open leg wrap around “middle” and then transfer it to other people. So if you had a group of 2-4 people you can call her between each other and ask her to lineup/middle nicely by wrapping around the leg. Doing a cookie toss behind the leg and one in the middle position is 100% fine too!
And on the “shorter” recalls, you can still run the only difference is releaser is just letting go after you take 2-3 steps past the dog instead of 15-20.
For the other exercises that you have been working on but you aren’t happy with yet – still share the video! Maybe I can add a quick change or fix that will make all the difference.
Here Game – once you say come you can give a little encouragement when she flips and looks at you. I think I often give a YES to be like that’s exactly what I wanted now put whatever I have in your mouth. I was also laughing when she got to the spot you had called the previous times and she turned before you called… and waited for you to call HAHA. She is wicked smart.
Recalls- perfect engagement lining back up into position. And a lovely sit-stay – you got some great distance. Every now and then toss in an unexpected short recall – those really get the afterburners to kick on!
Her bouncing and taking out her holder’s balance was hysterical. She looks like she would make you laugh at home every day.
The toy play is awesome – you are so interactive and lively – she is 100% into it. Inkblot is probably my favorite of the nicknames cause she disappears into the void black. I’m looking forward to seeing your Unit 1 videos trickle in!
Oh how interesting that the cookie toss in one direction has impacted her turn on the Cato! Do you get the same results even when you stand 90 degrees to the Cato and really lure with the cookie/tug? That might help her not want to take an eye off you. Then have you slowly back away – but even if you only get 2-3′ away… that should be perfect. I’m excited for you to add back in the prop and then move to a slant board!!!
She is thoughtful and KNOWS her task! I would keep alternating food and tug so as it becomes very fluent with food it makes it even easier when she is higher from using her beloved tug.
She is really great at going out over the jump and driving ahead away from you! This is going to be perfect when you need to send her ahead of you to a ball/box and when you add more jumps. This is the hard stuff!!!
If you start setting up a little more off center instead of straight on can she still make it? I like to make it more challenging like it’s an agility send from all angles. It is almost like a bobble off the box and they have to come back into the jumps. I will say releasing from those angles I have to run back to the jump to be centered with it to help them come back over the jump.
As for coming back with the toy over the jump – I don’t stress about that too much. You could always just run up in front of the jump so it’s not part of the coming back game. You could run sideways so she is not seeing it as a choice on the way back. If you have a second jump you can make it a double wide in width and that might encourage her back – standing right on it like you were doing and running when she is committed to it. I feel like you could also add gates and click/reward the going back over with the toy and then slowly fade them out.
Thank you for your patience and the nudge! I watched 2/3 videos and then got sidetracked with spring break mom duties.
How has the rear foot targets to shape the turn on the Cato/elevated platform been going?
I know when you throw it she doesn’t immediately come back (likes to chomp/chew the toy for a few seconds) but she does come back to give you the toy. So I want you to keep working on this. Make sure you have a low/medium level of excitement for encouraging her back to you, but when your hand and the toy connect it ramps up to a HIGH level of excitement. I also want you to think about what is her favorite way to interact with you? Is it tugging? Is it when you throw something? Notice this week what she engages most with you happily, and use that as a reward system.
So if she liked you to throw it again, you could do a tiny toss, have her bring it to your hand. Then you go wild with excitement maybe a few seconds of tugging and then you either throw that toy or whip out another toy from your pocket. Then repeat the cycle that it is back to low excitement. This cannot look like a chore or work to her. The idea is to make her so game to unlock that excitement from you that she hurries back to give you the tug (so she can get what she wants again!)
YES!! Those were really nice and clean. On and off and she’s grabbing much quicker too. Over the next few sessions see if you can go even steeper with your wall board (as much as she is comfortable with). Fighting against gravity is hopefully making her snap a little more too (grab fast or drop!). She did have to pump herself up on that one but she DID IT – really nice to see her showcasing resiliency and working through it.
When you take the slant board to practice eventually I would lower it down a lot to build confidence knowing you can always make it a little steeper after each rep.
This is much improved and those first two were very smooth with a small reposition on that third/final one.
If possible I would pull the prop out a little bit. Because of her small size I want her to push a little bit harder off the board back to you. And when that prop is out you can lower the ball to where it would be on the box – hoping she is less likely to 2 foot turn. I am hoping that by getting her head a little lower, her rear will be more level with her front feet.
Another alternative is that you could even add 1 book to raise up the height of her rear if that doesn’t freak her out. To help her position her rear a smidge higher and help her be in the position to really push off strong. This higher rear will also help keep that foot reposition out of the picture. Try those and send another video please.
She had a lower rate of success with ball grabs (compared to the clips I saw on Facebook with the lower Cato slant). Is the Velcro on this board harder to rip off?
It might be worth make the slant a smidge lower, and let’s AMP HER UP! I would likely tease with the ball, then drag her backwards so she is still pointing forwards, and send. Or have her come back with you hands free and get really silly and then send her when the energy from her is high. She did two that had stronger ball snatches – we just need her to be confident enough to do that consistently. We can’t quite get the front feet reset fixed while she isn’t committed to snapping on/off as fast as she can.
Remember how you used to put Ravie and Combo in a sit/stay and you were at the board to point or race them off (at least I have this visual in my head). That might also help her be excited to snap off – but right now she would likely 95% leave that dumb ball every time. This could be one of the ways to drop the foot reset when she is getting that ball close to every time.
Another short term fix you could do is add a second triangle tube prop – to eliminate the idea of doing to two footed smash and grab.
And does she better with a bring it on the flat if you say bring it or get it? It might help her after you get her excited to then be like Bring IT Bring IT!
