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I’m so glad you joined me online Pat! I didn’t know Soozie had a little bit of sport mix in her!! I’m already loving the videos I have seen. 100% you can take these exercises to team practice and work on them there too!
I didn’t think that was a terrible session at all. You took a lot of feedback and came up with a solution – so great job! I thought you had the creative idea of bringing in an object to target since the hand cue STRONGLY meant something else. No sense reinventing the wheel!
The only confusing part for her was when you cued ‘touch’ with the hand and she threw a paw twice and got rewarded twice and then you offered the target pad and cued the same “touch” and she did the same behavior, but didn’t get the expected reward. I bet if you put a tiny bit of pnut butter or food smear on the target pad then you will get more head/nose action. You can also hold it higher so it’s more in your favor or getting nose versus the paw. But I saw a lot of little nose punches and she’s a very quick study (hopefully she uses that smart brain for good and not evil LOL).
For Flyball, I like to use this nose touch similar to a collar grab. If I need to place a dog, I will cue my hand where I need them to stand or sit so they come into my hand and position themselves. Also is rewarding of coming into you, especially as things are being wild like the runback.
I don’t think you need much distance. These were perfect!! I actually like to see some variety in the recall length. Sometimes they are really short, sometimes they might be long. If you only did long recalls… they aren’t as exciting and the dogs lengthen their strides (versus these amazing quick steps of acceleration). Keep these up!
I loved her toy play as well – nice tug drive. How is she with another dog out? Focused??
YAY – getting that first video done is always the hardest!! I’m proud of you.
When Soozie gets to you, I would give her more treats than what she went to eat to reinforce being in your bubble/zone. Getting back to you fast to get the BIG present is the best. The goal is two fold.
1 – A dog that you don’t have to hold the entire time in the runback. Can look up at you, take in the environment, but has a history of getting lots of rewards near you and you can easily call off if she were to think about visiting a teammate or other side.
2- Super insane fast recall when she hears “Soozie HERE”
Great job Maverick on completing a box turn WITH loaded ball in a mat time environment. I know the loud calling and tug swinging you are talking about, and that’s hard for some seasoned dogs as well. So I don’t fault Mav, we will take that information that we might want to proof him with a little bit more arousal at practices.
Perhaps on a future practice turn, everyone can scream/cheer and charge the atmosphere with intensity so he is like WTH IS GOING ON but he can still easily accomplish the one jump to the box, or the head to head recall. That will also help him with managing arousal that you are worried about with other dogs too. The idea being, we bring his arousal up and make him a little high on purpose (in a controlled setup) and he learns to work through it, so when he does inevitably get high in the Flyball lanes it is more natural for him. Versus being the first time he is like WOWOWOWOW.I hope that makes sense – I love the quote “Practice in the state of arousal in which you want to compete”.
Looking forward to seeing him over 2 jumps to the box! I also was to see him racing to the box head to head from up close (10′ from the box) and from 15′ from the first jump. I think we have previously been having you be at 10′ from the jump – but he might do better from 15 since he’s larger and could use that extra stride.
And you can likely scrape the hit it board, do Velcro on the box a few times. Then start loading 50% of them for a turn. And then if he’s having no issues I would load them all. I tend to go back to velcro if they are distracted by the racing head to head (the idea being if we make one thing harder by adding a dog, let’s make one thing easier by adding the Velcro back).
Looking better! If I could be super picky I would have you stand in front of that red bag, still can do the hands on him like you did. He would be turning in front of you, instead of beside you. This would create a “tighter” on and off the mat, versus doing the wider arc. Here is a video that captures some of that early training and you can see the progression of what’s to come. Sometimes if I know WHY it’s a way, that makes more sense to me.
FloJo wasn’t a traditional Flyball train – so there is a lot of creativity with props in there you can ignore.But honestly Frankie…. if from your agility experience you feel like you can teach the turn with a specific setup from the agility world – I am going to encourage you because that feels more natural to you. I am never going to say one way is right or wrong, the sports lean on each other a lot.
This was an excellent adaptation for the backing up stairs – do you mind if I share this in the future!??
Where did you get those black blocks – or did you make them?
He reminds me a lot of his dad in the feet! You can even just do backing up on the flat to the 3 stairs. It’s not as important now from a fitness perspective of doing more stairs, more from a mental capacity of being brave, trying new things, and realizing that their feet exist in the back.
A+ for calling off his playmate as well – that was very nice!! And your enthusiasm to encourage him back towards you more than makes up for the running. Great job!
It’s so nice that you have a strong training background – it makes you an excellent and receptive student!! Which will translate into an amazing Flyball trainer!!
Mat work – Looking lovely – she beat you to the mat one time and looked at you like…. when will you say yes?? She’s ready to start adding the turn. If you wanted to keep her on the Cato board for the turn (honestly until she goes to the box) I am fine with that.I’m starting to prefer that actually.
Tugging – you can tell she’s either building up endurance or it was that teething pain. She came out really strong and then lost some steam. Her switch game looks terrific!!
Yay for the lead foot – keep an eye on it. As you train the turn I would still do both sides since she is so young. We don’t want her to be a year and have done a billion reps to one side and be off balanced.
For straight on the mat I loved that he was almost pouncing on it to target it. You will see in Unit 4 sometimes the dog will throw themselves onto the mat.
For the turning one – I don’t mind the pole idea – I thought that was smart to utilize something he already knew to teach a new skill. You faded quickly and he understood. I noticed that the last two reps he did amazing with you being one step closer. So I would start the next turn session closer to the mat, and then you take 1 shuffle step back to the treat and train each time he is successful.
The end goal for this mat is to be the box face. So the course that Know Me would take would be similar to start at treat/train – go to the mat – back to the treat/train. Looks like a teardrop. You could turn the treat/train around backwards to have him be setup to come straighter to the mat and you are placed between. So he would technically be on the inside of you (so for the right turns he was doing here we would have you stand on the opposite side (sending with your right hand). If you stayed where you were I would expect him to turn left into you). Hopefully that doesn’t conflict with his agility training. Let me know if that doesn’t make sense.
That retrieve of one tug to the other tug is already really natural looking. Yes I agree to start putting it on a cue because when you turn that back and start adding movement away you will likely start to see some early spitting.
You use “YES” to mark his pickup, so you might have to pick a different word like trade, strike, etc. I use YES as a marker word when I’m training and also for marking the switch of whatever is in the mouth for whatever is in my hand. Sometimes it is trading the ball for food, tug for tug, ball for tug, etc.
100% you can use the manners minders for this exercise!! I think that’s a great idea if you dog has a strong foundation understanding that the moment they did a thing, it made the treats fall out. The continuous motion forward isn’t a huge focus, as we will shape it into a turn. Focus is mainly on committing to the mat and getting all 4 feet on it consistently.
A+ plan to proof what he already knows at mat time – and then progress him at the next practice. I can’t wait to hear how he does!
Good thing you had some distractions or I don’t think he would ever take his adoring eyes off you. I think he’s ready for a little more of a challenge – perhaps the backyard or front yard? You can also do this in a Flyball practice utilizing a circle of people (give them a heads up about his danger bopping LOL) and he gets to say hi to 1-2 people but then you scream HERE and take off running in the other direction (similar to the Unit 2 version of this one).
