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I have a box for my a-frame, but it’s not quite as tall as the whole yellow portion of the frame (when I set it up on the frame it’s about 3-4″ below the top part of the contact area). When I trained Wager it was the whole length of the contact, but the person who helped me train him said that she liked a deeper hit so she shortened hers and therefore I did too. I”m not sure if I like that – might be a bit gray to have a line defined by the color change and a separate boundary for the box for a new dog starting out. What do you think – encompass the whole yellow or a few inches below is ok?
OK – I’m doubling up on comments here (see above).
We are definitely not ready for the intermediate and adv pill bug stuff, but here’s our wing wrap progression.
I know!!! Me too! I’m sure we will have a different set of challenges, but so far I’ve not gotten another set of Wager type challenges. SO happy with this pup. 🙂
Thanks for all the advice – will start putting that into practice.
OK, sorry about that! Not sure how I missed it. Must have been looking at that lesson before caffeine. LOL!
We were at a UKI Classic this past weekend and while it was quiet I started working on homework with Spot. As you’ll see in the second video the quiet didn’t last, but he did a great job IMHO of keeping it together when it got more distracting.
First video – 2o2o targeting. I did most reps without restraining him. I find when I restrain he comes off. I did a rep or two with a hand on his collar so you could see.
Second is our diagonal line rc foundation stuff. It got busy here. I was so happy with how he responded to the dogs going by. 🙂
<You can also try the diagonal line foundation where he is in a stay (my dogs all find this one to be much harder) which is also a good stay exercise>
I know I should know what you mean but I don’t. >:( I may just be tired and it will make perfect sense in the morning.
Well, I started working on the 3 new ones. Some went better than others.
First was the ‘go’. Apparently that ‘play with any toy’ stuff is working. LOL! We just need to do a lot more of this. After out little oopsie on the pill bug game I’m a bit shy of him running into me. Took me a couple of reps to get a bit of confidence back after he cut me off. Anyway, here’s our first attempt…
Next is rear cross baby level. I was pleased with this. I did some 180s and I see you did 360s, but he seems to get following my hand pretty well in all 3 of these.
Last – um, apparently I need to work the plank more and need to get down low for this. Also need more value for the hand touch. I think we just haven’t worked the preliminary stages of this enough yet. Anyway, here’s out try. I started out at his side and then tried straight in front of him. Would love to know how to make this go better at these early stages. Thanks!!
Please see exercise above, but I realized I haven’t answered your question about preliminary decision on contacts. I am thinking running frame and stopped dw if his striding on the frame is such that it’s fairly natural for him.
Here’s our wing wrap stuff. At first we could play with a toy, but it didn’t last long. Wager was a big distraction, but they had been at the kennel all weekend and I needed to get them both out and didn’t have time to drive them back and forth to my land individually. Anyway, here’s our first attempt to transfer from a cone to a wing…
Well, it was wet at my land, my course was muddy, but I got the new stuff done anyway. 🙂
Pill bug – One thing I can say is Spot is resilient. Yes, I landed right on him, not a squeak! I thought for sure he learned the lesson of don’t come to that side of mama, but next rep…sigh. I traded hands with the toy. I’ll work on better connection in the future. I do need to add a disclaimer – ‘No animals or trainers were injured in the production on this video’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w846_tBPDx4
Plank work – Since I couldn’t get to my dw plank, I used an old plank – it’s only 8″ wide so the fact that he could stay on it was commendable IMO. I left in where Wager goes running off to chase a heron away so you could see how Spot refocused. I think when we have a bit wider board he’ll do better. Anyway, first effort…
Wrapping a cone – We have worked on this in the past but not lately. He seems to remember pretty well. We still have trouble with toy play after treats. I tried to go slower as you suggested. Because this was kind of long once he started playing the first time I edited out the rest of the play time, but second attempt he wasn’t interested and so I left that in.
At the end I put a little clip of how he plays when no treats are involved.
We did out first set of exercises yesterday. Here they are:
Focus Forward: I found if he was looking forward at the toy and I said gooood softly he would cut his eyes to me. If I said ready ready he wouldn’t. Hope that’s ok.
Hand Touch: I tried to play with him, but it was 83 degrees and really humid and he was tired and hot. And with treats around he still prefers them although I can usually get him to play if I keep trying. seemed like he wasn’t going to this time, so I just tried other stuff between touches. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IejY5MD1u0
Foot Target: Well, I forgot my target so I used my jumper cables. He seemed to generalize to it will. Again – had trouble with play between. I always think I should redo when it is a better time and we are doing better, but I guess I need to just show you when it isn’t really working well and get all the good advice I can get for those times. We went way longer than we should, especially with him not wanting to play and get back to being excited. As you can see in the background a big storm was headed out way and it was our last chance outdoors for a few day. will stop sooner next time.
Totally agree! I was the first time he’d seen a MM so now will work on getting him off of it now that he knows the joy of it. LOL!
I worked on a few things before leaving my poor baby at Catherine Laria’s kennel for Christmas. (first time away from mama, eek!). He loves it, btw, played with 2 other puppies his size and age yesterday and Santa is coming – will be live streamed on FB Christmas morning. But I digress… LOL!
Anyway, here’s where we are on front foot targeting. Will work in a bigger space next time. Was happy that he actually was still interested enough in the toy to not go immediately off it when I set it on the couch on the 2nd or 3rd rep and brought out the cookies. Still is more a cookie dog in these training sessions but I think we are gaining ground. Anyway, here’s targeting…
We worked on tugging up against me – he really likes this and does it on his own often.
He’s funny about a retrieve so I’m so happy to have these exercises breaking it down. He chases and will put his mouth on whatever I throw, but often will drop it when I move away or call him back, so I really like this game where he’s only needing to make a minor attempt to come toward me. I plan on playing this one a lot. 🙂
OK, I said I’d share the bravery day video once I got it. I showed the ‘course’ first then cut to Spot’s turn. The iPad was just sitting at one corner so didn’t capture all of it, but you’ll get the idea how he handles weird and unstable surfaces. She walked around with crutches too – prepping for CGC I guess. Once you get to the manners minder you can stop – that’s the last thing and it goes for a bit longer than needed. Didn’t realize my last trim didn’t go till I had downloaded to YouTube.
