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Answer your first question- yes the food was on top of the machine. I carried it out and he watched me set it there. This evening I changed things up… I carried out the treats, brought Checkie back inside and gave him a scatter, then played with my other dog (the audacity!!!!!) so Checkie came out READY TO BITE THINGS. 😂
But first in the morning, we did goat tricks on all the random stuff I could gather in my garage lol. There were a few moments I think I forgot I was rewarding duration and small approximations and I was like “do the thing🤯” but I think overall I did ok and HE did great!
Ok back to the evening session where I placed the treats before bringing him out- you’ll see he’s not trying to get it at all in the belonging. Trading toy for boring tiny kibble is working great so far. We worked on the driving forward to a toy and added in standing up then some baby toy races- it’s pouring rain and my yard is half flooded so I can’t actually get enough throwing distance/human speed inside but when I can go outside again we’ll do some races for real.
Next we tried prop sends. I read your feedback and rewatched demo videos and… CANT TELL MY LEFTS AND RIGHTS, omg so embarrassing. Despite da mama having issues he actually did really well, I used a pointy finger to send. There’s a moment in here where my Aussie had some words to say and we both kinda froze but if you can’t hear the barking on the video, that’s what happened there.
And then we added in some motion to our decel games- I realized I’d only worked this on one side! So started with a few stationary reps then tried to add motion. The small space in here is a little hard for me to judge (kinda like running up to the gamble line then slamming on the breaks hahaha), so I think when I can get this game outside it’ll be easier on my brain.
We did one good session in the morning, and I had the best intentions of doing a second training session today but that didn’t happen😄 we did our very first neighborhood walk (I live in a city urban/suburban mix)- it’s raining here so I figured we’d have a quiet walk and I was right. He was SUPER CONFIDENT, really excited by all the wet stuff and new smells and woohooooo! A little scared of a distant motorcycle sound, but two cars that passed us had almost zero reaction beyond tail up ears forward watching then moving on himself, so I think it’s the engine noise and not the actual moving vehicle that concerns him, and there was a big scary landscaping rock but after my other dog peed on it, it wasn’t so scary 😂 no video again, so here’s this morning’s session of games!
First off we attempted some toy play- and that evolved into a few great reps of driving forward to the toy, yay! I used kibble for the trade which is less exciting.
We then transitioned to prop sends.. and I used the kibble which just wasn’t working and we weren’t reading each other well and this was sort of a fail and I should’ve stopped waaaay sooner. Gonna put this game away for a few days and come back to it a bit later because I’m frustrated with myself🤪
I then got the proper cookies and did a few quick reps of hand touches with throwing the reward different angles, and decel into the turn with no food lure in my hand.
Also I collected every long or furry toy I own and the collection is definitely too small- would love links for buying some of the fun long whippety fur tugs!!! I cut the big rubber ball off the one tug (the one that smacked into the laundry machine) and re-tied that toy, that was the tug we played with during this session.
We took yesterday off from playing the games- except for the forward focus to a toy, he loves to play with his toys when we first get up so I’ve been adding some chest restraint, get the toy- no video, I haven’t been that prepared LOL.
This morning we did the two bowls then added an upright (best I have is the folding jump from clip and go). Here’s both videos-
And then we tried sideways sends to the prop and it was a major struggle lol. I think he thought the ready game was the send, then was confused why no reward, then when my hand came into play he just stared at it.
And this video includes the end of the toy play from the prop video, but then the big heavy ball on the tug smacked into the dryer and he had a big sad. Including the video because I’d love your feedback on how to deal with this type of thing going forward. I feel so bad it happened while he was playing tuggy 🙁
We went back out to the same place 10 mins later and he happily played wild tuggy with the same toy (this time I held the ball end!). I tried to upload video of him tugging but YouTube thinks it’s a “short” and won’t upload properly lol
Another fun day of training! We did a lot today but in small doses, much better for all of us 🙂 He had another resilience walk – he saw and heard a passenger train from far away, that one was a bit scary, he needed to stand up on my legs and watch but he recovered really well. I suspected he might have been nervous of a train because he’s shown some worry (not scared just not fully confident) when he’s near cars moving when we’ve done parking lot outings, so I was prepared to support as much as needed. Bikes, NO PROBLEM, other people not petting him… missed opportunity to make new best friends, but he’s doing realy well focusing back on me for cookies. No video, I can barely manage puppy and leash and myself LOL, sorry!
Really trying to back off the smack da baby stuff, you’ll probably see glimpses of it throughout, my older Aussie loooooves handsy stuff and gets really engaged and excited, so it’s pretty engrained in me and I have to very consciously stop doing it. You’ll see in here how much he loves ready ready dance!!!
Onto the training games! We practiced the decel and added in the turn!
We played with the wing wrap two bowl game. Really happy with this!!
And send to prop game, LOVE the ready dance woohoo!!
Just to see how it went, we tried the driving ahead game with food because he was struggling with wanting the toy today. I was then able to get play so we tried a couple reps of driving ahead for the toy- and I think my smart little puppy needs me to be really careful with my markers, because “get it” means GET FOOD, not get the dang toy! So when I used “toy” he went to THE TOY. Maybe coincidence but I’m still happy, he doesn’t really know/hasn’t really been trained for toy markers, but he’s started to pick it up because I add words a lot in everyday life. Also really pleased with the collar and chest hold- he’s also making progress on having his martingale slipped on over his head without trying to eat my hands (FOOD????) so all good things there.
And then later in the day we started the blind cross games. I’m LATE, ha ha story of my life, but he is so earnest, love him. I did more reps than I should’ve because I remembered about rewarding differently… but this was the only game in this training session so we managed. You’ll see I have my personal videographer out here too 🙂 I didn’t realize she was following Checkers and not me when videoing, so some of my handling and timing might be a little hard to see but I think it’ll be ok.
Thanks!!!!!! 🙂
Yay ok, so this morning we did a much shorter session. We played two games today. I used the exciting treats still (will go grocery shopping today for cheerios!!), but I also used the real fur toy. Checkers reminded me that he’s a vermin hunting dog and he REALLY LIKES FUR LOL. Anyways he was really able to go to that toy much easier. You’ll see I also got right down on the ground with him to make it super exciting LOL.
I really appreciate the insight about “appearing” ready to train but really not in the right brain space for it- soooo important for me to remember.
We did two bowl/baby wing wrap game. He enjoyed this one! He stares at my hands, a LOT. I think I can try to use more “get it” tossed cookies in everyday life, we use cookies to reward things like coming inside and going in the crate.
And then we revisited the send to prop game. I really should’ve stopped sooner- I feel like his best reps were in the first half. But I did that “just one more” thing, argh! I was really trying to reward only the reps where he actually looked at and went to the prop, instead of stumbled onto it while following my motion. In hindsight I wonder if I should’ve used a reset cookie on the reps I didn’t reward to try to limit frustration/confusion?
P.s…. he’s SO DANG HAPPY ALL THE TIME, I love watching his videos back, it makes me happy. I love this puppy 🙂 🙂
Thanks for the ideas about limiting the time!! I think I’ll try just setting a timer first.. I can’t usually focus with music playing 🤪 And because I went so long this morning we’ll take the rest of the day off but going to try to incorporate feedback for tomorrow morning!!
He seems to never want to turn down a training session but I really like to give my puppies full brain resting time, if we do outings that day do you also train? On days with no outings do you train multiple times that day? Just getting some ideas of how to juggle all the things…
As for food being high value: ALL FOOD is the BEST FOOD. His regular kibble is a little less exciting but it’s tiny and he can’t find it when tossed. I seriously haven’t found anything he doesn’t go nuts for. Yesterday he jumped up on the table to get a, what I thought was boring, chew I placed there😂
Thanks for the feedback!!!! I’m having so much with Checkie playing these games. Had to take a couple days away from training the games for life reasons, but we were able to practice some resilience walks in new places (no video but he’s a pretty all in, confident puppy so far who recovers well).
I attempted some of the games this morning … I think I trained for too long, quantity over quality happened today😂 you’ll see in some of the videos he was able to get on the toy and some he couldn’t stop thinking about his food which is something we will keep working on for sure. Some of my mechanics are, well, a work in progress 🤪
First here’s the hand touch using get it cue.
And we played collar grab. I don’t think he minds the grab so much as not being able to lunge for the cookies immediately, lol
Here’s the decel foundations- I struggled a LOT with the direction of my cookie tosses, I cut out a couple in the beginning where the cookies became completely inaccessible and I was down on my hands and knees helping him get them🤪
Send to prop game.. I thought this went really well when I could get him to look away from POSSIBLE COOKIES in my hands LOL. He loves his snacks…
And goat tricks! This was the first thing I could find in my garage to play with.
I also videod some attempts at toy play for the forward focus game. This is a long video but it shows a lot of trial and error. I didn’t steal the toy from him at the end but traded it, not sure why that cut off. In hindsight I should have tried cookie trades when he was super into the toy, but I didn’t think of it in the moment because he hadn’t been able to switch well earlier.
