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We attempted the first std course of week 1. I had all poles opened up very slightly. When we weren’t successful I opened the last couple channels a little more. First time didn’t say ‘feet’ for the frame and he was all ‘squirrel squirrel’ then went back and said feet and he purposefully looked for and got his contact. Granted, the second time wasn’t in the full sequence, but I think I’m just going to have to plan to use a word for it.
Funny thing – I closed up the channels I had opened further and got out treats and worked weaves. He did great then and I could have a lot of distance.
The full course was a little above our pay grade, but I’m so happy with his willingness to work and his jump commitment.
I mislabelled the weave training, but you can figure that out. LOL!
There was an actual target. He doesn’t pay that much attention to it here does he? LOL! Am going to work on target away from the equipment and bring up the value for it. Thanks for your input!
OK, so my verbals (for Spot)…
Release is OK
Gradual turns are left and right.
Wraps: right is duh, duh, duh, left is ch, ch, ch
back side slice is push
back side wrap is around
drive forward on a line is go and sometimes it’s go on.
threadle at jumps is in in
tunnel mouth bypass/threadle is pass
I don’t have one for the weaves – I can’t even really visualize how to use it at the moment.
2/o 2/o is place
running frame contact hit is feet – I tried without a word and he had trouble.
turns off the frame or out of a straight tunnel are the same as for jumps – left, right, duh duh duh or ch ch ch depending on the amount of turn. Sometimes I use a name for a turn out of a tunnel.
driving on from a straight tunnel is go on and the next obstacle name.have added zing for a reward thrown ahead to drive on to get.
way to go is the lets go together and get a reward
get it is used for both starting a tug game and a dead toy on the ground, also used for directing to a treat on the ground not driving on away.
get your leashie is to get a leash at the end of a run especially during relay and for our new transition to trial exercise.I have one question – I want that ‘zing’ to be a drive on looking forward reward, so I don’t think that’s appropriate for this week’s transition to trial game. Think it’s still ok to use get it to mean get a treat and grab this toy either in my hands or on the ground? I guess I could change the word for grabbing the toy in my hand and still use get it for either toy or treat on the ground. Is that too gray for them as I add more reward words? It’s worked in the past because I really used only one reward word. It meant they were now able to interact with the thing to play or eat whether on the ground or in my hand, so kind of a release from a self control behavior of not grabbing things before given permission. I hope that makes sense.
OK, it’s just me. I looked right past the pdf – the purple link on my monitor was very hard to see – I have a glare on the screen earlier today.
Below the crcd code was a set of what looked like it should have had pics – I was trying to click on those and that’s a no go.
All is well now – thanks!
weird! I noticed him bouncing more on a couple reps but didn’t make the connection. Thank you! Will work on that.
We did the teeter sequences. I started with reminding him what a target was. As we progressed through the exercises, if he gave me a really good teeter I stopped and rewarded. When he was turned extra far to the side I stopped and reminded him to look for his target. I included those reps.
Question – if he’s going to the end and doing a 2o2o but turning to the side a bit is that something you’d work really hard to fix or is straight on necessary (read as – I’m lazy and i don’t want to do all the work to fix this!)
I tried to not use ‘go’ and not use a negative marker, but still did some. Seems like on these tight sequences where he’s not moving fast I feel the need to cheerlead. And, when he went backwards on the teeter I just flat out forgot to not respond. Admitting you have a problem is the first step, right? 🙂
On the last teeter sequence, we pushed to the back side of the second jump. I did a wrap and an slice rep to see which I liked better. Not sure if it was because he was tired from doing all this or if the wrap was a little less motivating, but he seemed better on the back side slice from what I could tell. What do you think?
Here’s the teeter sequences…
I set up the sequences with the weaves first – will do the first few with the teeter next. I had just taken the dogs for an hour walk, so toward the end of these I didn’t have that much dog and switched to treats to keep his interest. I had to modify one thing on a couple exercises where you ran it with a slice after the weave to the outside, but with my dw in the way I had to wrap to the inside with a FC.
I tried not to do too many reps of each – one set I repeated more than a second try, but I tried not to obsess and have him lose interest.
Apparently I didn’t pay enough attention to the fact that the jump straight in front of the weaves wasn’t bidirectional. LOL! Didn’t realize I took the wrong side of it a couple times till I came in and started posting these. He was a good boy to do what I asked of him.
I totally understand not giving release looking cues without really releasing now. Will there come a time when you proof that later when the training is more solid for those unforeseen things that happen at trials?
And, if my dogs are distracted tomorrow and smelling the ground as we train I think this might be why… (only watch this 30 sec video for entertainment if you have time – it’s not really course related, just fun!)
OK, gave it a second try with Spot on the teeter with a target. On one rep the target had shifted back under the board and he turned to me. Will keep the target out for a while when I’m asking for harder teeters. I added a word to get a treat thrown straight away and before adding it to the teeter, just did reps of it on the ground this morning. I’m assuming he can release on that word. ‘zing’ in my case – one of my students has lots of words for different treat placements and I’ve worked with her dog enough that her word is engrained for me. LOL! So for progressing to the sequences, should I use the weaves only or do you think I can do the teeter with a target for that?
I worked with Wager on the transitions stuff again. Once we were walking out to the jump and he was focused on me I didn’t include all the time walking out – it’s a long video, breaking the 3 minute law by a couple seconds, sorry. Only had one old habit Wager moment and it was when I traded sides. I started back with super easy ones because I was adding a new marker phrase. ‘Way to go!!!’ I used the leash as a reward a couple times and he already has a go to your leash phrase from team in USDAA ‘get your leash’. He was able to start to figure out the treat cue was different than the leash cue but doesn’t seem solid yet. We’ll keep working this.
And, this might be a way to fix the releasing himself to his leash on course – the dreaded run to the leash instead of the last jump. I can throw the leash, use one cue for it and a different cue for the food reward and teach him to bypass the leash for treats unless he gets the cue for leash play. This is a really good exercise!
<< So for clarity, if the leash is the tug toy, you can also have it be the reinforcement. That helps him know what he is working for, and when/where. >>
Couple questions about this
– does he need to be ‘controlled’ on the way out or can we play tug on the way out before we stop and sit/do trick or whatever?
– If I’m using the toy to tug as the reward, then do we just play wherever we are when I reward or still pretend the run out of the ring?I like your idea of leash off before the sit. He’s so conditioned to amping up as soon as I take the leash off once he’s sitting. In the old days I needed to make sure he was going to stay in the ring with me, so I didn’t take the leash off till he was sitting, now it’s a habit that i don’t need to have. Wouldn’t it be fun if we could break that old trigger and have a controlled Wager at the start line? 🙂
I’m pleased with how Spot is coming along. It must be all that great instruction I got on his foundation and progression to sequencing. 🙂 Will add a target for a while. Thanks!!
I did these over two days. Day one Spot was out there alone, day 2 Wager joined because my hubby was on a call and Wager was too loud to stay in the house (jealous butt!).
I actually did the transition to trialing with Wager since he has such trouble with start lines. I rationalized Spot being naught as a distraction that would make Wager be a bit more like he is at trials. About the third rep I took of Wager’s lead and when I moved he did too. He stayed focused on me, so I did the release to reward, but I didn’t try to add any more difficulty past that much till he showed me he could stay still. Anyway, here it is – I should have added some circus music for Spot’s antics in parts. LOL!
Spot did the independent sends to teeter and weaves. Day 1 with the teeter went pretty well, but Day 2 with Wager out there he had a little trouble getting focused. On Day 2 after he had a hard time being forward on this 2o2o I put a treat on the ground at the end of the teeter. He really wasn’t perfectly straight in any rep, but was better than the first rep. I think I’ll put a target down for some reps or a manners minder and work this more.
We then did weaves. I didn’t include the first rep where he didn’t stay in the weaves. I was just reminding him what weaves were and he popped out. Tried to fix it and he still popped out. Turns out there was a sticky weed growing right where he needed to put his foot at pole 10. As soon as it was gone he did great! LOL!
One question – he completes his weaves each time but then looks to me. I’m assuming if you are moving that far laterally you’d want him to turn that way toward you to move on down the course, but should I throw his reward earlier to prevent that?
Was a great class!! Thank you for letting me join. 🙂 There was definitely some stuff I needed (and still need) to rework with Spot. I like some of the new approaches you took here. You’ve kept us going in a down time and Spot is very grateful too.
I love the changes since the last MaxPup and I have found some things that Wager is doing too to fill in gaps in our foundation. Thanks so much for letting me play! The dust is settling and I think I’ll get some videos of the ones we’ve done so far that need some input soon. 🙂
I”m back in action! Slow action, but moving 🙂 I worked on the tunnel stuff. Started with 2 toys and went to treats when he was hot and not happy with a toy. He went out there and started offering a tunnel a few times before I could get him to aim at the wing which was pointed toward the fence instead – I didn’t include that on the video. It made me think, I’ve not asked him to do any funny starts much so far. You know – aiming away from a course, etc. Anyway, at first I had bars on the ground at the 90 degree turns, but decided I really shouldn’t ask him to do more than a soft turn vs wrap and adding some place specific to go on to (a jump on the ground) is a little above our pay grade. We’ll continue to work on these.
You can’t see it, but there is a wing I’m sending to to wrap around before doing the exercise.
Here you go…
Thanks! I think that positive punishment I got associated with a fc without a good decel will be enough to remind me not to do that again! Ha!
Looks like I”ll be getting some good practice on those small skills for a while. Yesterday was ice and 2 crutches. Today down to 1 crutch. I think I might have torn that cartilage a little more. Sigh… No way to avoid surgery when it gets stuck like that.
BUT, this dog will send like a dream with all the work he’s going to get with me not moving much. Only thing I have to figure out is how to get him to bring me the dang toy back when I throw it. :-/
Was looking at the tunnel stuff for this week. Do you think I can do this with my tunnel shortened a good bit so I can be more stationary? Do young dogs need the time it takes to go through a longer tunnel to process the info they get before going in?
