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She is so good once she figures out what the current game is. Even when you were cueing her to wrap the other leg she knew what it was. Next steps would be lineup, collar grab, toss the toy, then ready set go to release to the toy (or ball). Build more of driving away from you!
Well ignore my previous feedback – when she is on the equipment and was forced to have more weight on the front legs – that fixed her tendency to bend that right leg. These looked perfect!
Nice play bows – got some nice extension in those hamstrings too.
Try feeding with your other hand sometimes and see if that helps the front feet to be more square. She tends to want to bend that front right one, and to be super picky I would like weight bearing equally.
I love that you are working both sides! Pick the higher rear feet (that are pointing downwards instead of upwards). That’s going to be the easier rotation and more confident turn for her. (And I’ll be happy to keep helping you pick if you like!)
PEEK-A-BOO Champion 2025. Tell her the medal and ribbon is in the mail! I loved how she was so good with your pressure and maintained that eye contact when she was in position.
Next up is a little light holding, tossing a toy, and sending with a ready set go! That was you can work on driving away from you too!
She has come so far with her turn and figuring out where to put those back feet confidently.
You could mix in some reps where you put a toy/tug on the slant board (like 3/4 of the way up but not all the way at the top) and send her to grab something off of it. It’s nice cause you can do that low slant and your board is big. Just make sure you have the prop pulled out just a little bit so she doesn’t go to steal. I don’t care if it’s slower or sloppy – just so she can feel what it’s like to pop up, reach in with her head to grab something, and then push back off. I don’t do too many hit it’s without something because I want the head reaching in, versus just slapping feet on there to get it over with and the head is looking up the whole time.
This cato session was fabulous!! You can see the light bulb going off and that she is actually targeting with her rear on purpose now!! I loved seeing her with that extra stride so she had a little more momentum (that might be a common theme when you start to do box work – she will look better with more distance and momentum in). She has a one track mind – so when she wants to zero in on the toy – you did a great job just moving to reset the brain so she could think about what might unlock the toy. I thought about suggesting holding the toy more to your side or behind you to see if that gave your quicker success…. but I’m honestly really happy with the rate of success – she seemed to get the idea faster than when you were using food.
Take a look back at my comment on July 30, 2025 at 9:21am for the notes about adding in a prop next to the cato (so she has to go over it).
From this one she had a hard time when she was keeping her eye on the cookie in your hand that was behind your back (that she was expecting as her reward cookie but it didn’t get placed on the ground as expected), then she wasn’t looking ahead to the other hand for the final/next cookie.
2 things to try:
1) Give a tinier and tinier piece of cookie for that toss behind you, but still do a big flashy hand motion. Since that visual is going to be the go ahead cue. When you are ready to fade the cookie behind you still do the hand signal/lure (no cookie) and then bend over more and exaggerate your cookie hand through your legs to pull her through. This way once she is behind you she will start looking towards the final cookie and drop the ‘getting behind’ you cookie.2) Do a lineup cookie on the ground behind you – while having her toy in the other hand. She does the lineup, you hold like a flyball hold – then toss the toy and release her to it. That might integrate some toy play sooner that she will enjoy.
Go ahead and turn that Cato sideways (so she has more room to turn and swing her rear up). She is really starting to understand and fascinating how she had a little bit easier time to the right. You also gave her a quicker rate of reinforcement because she did a few short successful turns in a row so that have also been why it was clicking. Keep doing both! I love how her rear is pushing up and the direction of how her back feet are turning – going to have a lovely turn here very soon!!!
I found it fascinating that if after she got her cookie if she looked back up to you, made eye contact with your face and held it, she successfully hit the jump on the next rep. The times where she kept her head down she went between you and the jump on a sniff/find my own thing.
Similar to last night in fitness – I would be curious if you did give a tiny bit more vocals to get that immediate engagement after a treat or reset… would that lead to a higher rate of success with head up=taking the jump. And if the vocals work, you can ask her “jump” so she starts to associate the word and the action.
I messaged you about adding the height on the tuck sit – I’m hoping that we can get this tuck sit into proper form!
Patience and praise is going so far for her!!!! I loved when she walked by the Cato and then took a minute and was like… hmmm…. let me try… this? And it worked and she flew back to the Cato to do it again to get that excitement from you again.
If she were mine – I might add some “props” on one side of the Cato now (touching the Cato), just so she can see that different in the visual that will come in the future in a context of the exercises she knows how to nail.
Then once she is like okay that was weird but I’m still fine I would take the props away, turn the Cato sideways, and start to shape the turn. Still going slow and waiting for the back feet. Then I would likely add the prop back in so she is hopping up over it slowly. That is going to make her transition to the slant board (and a prop) much smoother.
The mat work was fabulous. You got terrific distance/commitment and rotation in the rear was exactly what I want.
Since you are worried about the contacts/mat work confusing her – you could go ahead and move to a slant board super low. And then go ahead and start angling it up higher and higher. For her journey in particular, you can do her box turn in 3 parts:
-Slant board starting low and then making it steep as the box (3-4 sessions). Make sure a prop is included for some of them so it’s not a shock when we add the ball in the next step.
-Slant board + Ball on Velcro – starting low and then making it as steep as the box (4-6 sessions).
-Velcro ball on the box (typically starting on outer holes but she’s small so you might be best to start on the inner hole).Hopefully that is helpful to see the upcoming progression.
The jump games look terrific! I would love to see you releasing from 10+’ behind the jump and as she drives ahead (awesome for leaving you) you throw that tiny toy ball as hard as you can ahead of her. It’s heavy so it should makes it’s way out in front of her. You are basically marking the moment she is committed. I don’t care if she brings it back over the jump for that – but you can encourage it like you were doing.
Backing up – I was doing these the other day and put together it’s just a combination hiccup exercise – so to do that many in a row was epic! It’s a terrific core exercise.
I want to add in this bonus one for Jinka in particular – there is a similar one coming up – but I want you spending more time on this for her. It’s going to make her box turn push up stellar.
Zero spits with that two tug game with motion! Did you notice that she always turns into the orange hose no matter which way you set her up. And the right turns are more on a dime, where the left ones are the wider zooms.
When you stand and call her to you, you face her. When you run before you cue her to the second tug, you have your back to her. If you wanted to work on “bring me the tug and we play with that one” without switching, you could try adding in some of that movement away from her and see if that helps her make the decision to zip to you faster. I’m personally not worried about it – but I have a dog like her that’s VERY similar and when I do want to stand there and call him to bring his tug it makes me bananas when he slowly sharks in a circle making his way to me eventually.
Here Game distractions were awesome – your older little dog wanted to play the game too! I love working multiple dogs tugging side by side, I feel like it simulates a lot of that nearby tugging in the runback.
