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Hi Bobbie,
we haven’t posted video the last couple of weeks, but Leo and I have been working on relaxation conditioning, shadow handling, and find my face at home, on the road, and at agility class. Especially with the Find my Face game, Leo can stay below threshold at about half the distance we used to need at agility class, so I’m very happy with his progress.Thank you for this class, it’s been really helpful!
Ruth and LeoHi Bobbie,
here is a video of Shadow Handling in a novel location. We are behind the training barn after agility class in this video, and at the 0:15 second mark Leo gets distracted by the smells on a horse riding trail. Once he voluntarily lifts his head (at about 0:32) I move him a bit away from those smells and he does a good job of staying engaged after that:After class, we stopped at a small one-ring agility trial to practice Pattern Games ‘find it’. This is the location where Leo will be doing the majority of his trialing. He did great with not escalating but was distracted enough that I did not progress to the “find my face” game and stuck with just the ‘find it’ game:
thank you!
Ruth and LeoHi Bobbie!
>>So what you can do is give him a treat when he comes to you, then toss another- sometimes in one direction and sometimes in the other. Ultimately, we want him to default on coming to you.<<
Ok, here is video of re-working Pattern Games part 1 – I am giving Leo treats when he comes to me, then tossing another to one side or the other. He picks up pretty quickly that the goal is to check in with me, not go from side to side. He gets distracted a few times by dogs being walked past, plus you can hear a murder of crows all cawing nearby too (I filmed this right at dinner time when all the neighbors were out walking their dogs), but he always comes back to the game. On about 3 occasions in the past he has left the front yard to go chase after dogs, so it was great to see him choose to stay with me. In this video his arousal goes to about a 3-4 on the “Leo-scale” when he sees dogs nearby; his tail curls tightly over his back and is a good barometer of arousal.
At about the 2:20 mark, I switch to the “find my face” game. Early on he spends some extra time sniffing the ground, which might be his way of saying “hey, what are we doing here exactly?” but he figures it out soon enough : -)
thank you!
Ruth and LeoHi Bobbie,
<< …practice RC like this for two more sessions, then stop sprinkling and place one treat down at a time. >>
ok, will do.
In the meantime, here is Pattern Games part 1. We were at agility class this morning and I practiced this with the agility barn in the background behind me (with barking dogs – and he managed to ignore the barking dogs which is usually a huge trigger for him, yay!), and there are horses in stalls making occasional noises behind the camera.
“find it” is our verbal cue to get food tossed on the ground.
note: this was a baby recall game when Leo was a young puppy, so he has a lot of experience with trotting back and forth in front of me (I would say ‘come’ and then mark as he got to me and toss R+ away to re-set). At one point in the video I shift the bait bag in back of me to make sure his focus is on re-orienting to me and not looking at the bait bag (since I won’t have a bait bag in the ring). Also, he is patterned to go back and forth, so later in the video I started tossing treats to just one side, not both. Despite that he kept up the back-and-forth movements; not sure if that matters?
thank you!
Ruth and LeoHi Bobbie,
here are two separate sessions of Relaxation Conditioning we did today. My face isn’t visible in the videos but I was watching TV and not looking at Leo. He is used to offering behaviors like ‘chin down’ when he is on a mat, so for RC work I have to sprinkle food at a high rate to keep him from offering behaviors.
thank you,
Ruth and LeoHi Bobbie!
>>Can you post videos of you guys training at home and in class? I would like to see how much of a difference there is compared to the video of him in the ring.<<
my external hard drive where I store most of our agility footage is not cooperating with my laptop this week : -(
so I went out today to video some agility where we are farm-sitting for the weekend. In this video I show the free range chickens that are in and around the yard we’re using for agility, and in the background is the LGD with his sheep where Leo has taken lessons. He LOVES going out to see the sheep, so I was impressed with his ability to self regulate knowing they are in the background, and his arousal during this short session was a 1 out of 10:
at class, Leo is usually at about a 4 or 5, but I can’t access the footage I have. I’ll be back at class on Monday and will get some video to show the escalation in arousal, which is still nowhere near the level you saw earlier with him in the ring at a trial. And, despite his excessive arousal in the ring waiting to get started, he does have focus once we get started, but I could tell his arousal in the moment was higher than optimal, so I signed up for this class *before* we completely break his start line stay and ability to run. Here’s the rest of our run, from the earlier video I posted that just showed the start line over-arousal issue:
thank you!
Ruth and LeoHi Bobbie,
Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate it!<<It’s up to you. I am on the fence about it.>>
I am open to working with a VetBeh at some point. There are none in Washington state, although there are some down the road in Portland, Oregon (3 hours away) and I know there are remote consults available as well (including from your own practice vet-to-vet). I am constantly suggesting clients go back to their vets or to a vet behaviorist to ask about meds, so it’s an issue I’m comfortable with.
That being said, I’d like to try Solloquin + this class for a few weeks and see what we get, then revisit the issue. If the measure is quality of life overall (not just performance in or around the ring), then Leo has already shown progress over the last months, and he has not gotten into a ’10 out of 10’ arousal state since the day last spring I took video at the skate park (from my previous post). These days, away from agility trials, the most he will escalate to is pulling on leash towards the occasional dog (not all dogs, just dogs that show an interest in him and are closer than about 10 feet), and I can get him to disengage and move away with verbal cues and by wiggling the leash as a tactile cue. He does not get aroused around loose cats, bicycles, moving vehicles, or other typical triggers that are often problems for border collies. When allowed to interact with other dogs, he is very appropriate with greetings and with play, and he can hang out and chill with dogs in our home that don’t live here. He is good at ignoring dogs who are afraid of other dogs; I was going to put a photo here showing him ignoring another dog behind him, but I don’t know how to insert photos in these posts. Instead, here is a video of our trip to the pet store today:
My goal for this class is to train routines and condition relaxation and coping skills in order to get him into the agility ring without stressing so high. It is mainly just the entering and waiting to start that is an issue; once the leash comes off he has a good start line stay and has good handler and obstacle focus (for a baby dog) without paying attention to the judge, ring crew, or other dogs outside the ring (I have video if that would be helpful). But of course, if you’re seeing issues away from agility as we work through the course I will appreciate any feedback!
>>Have you done BAT with Leo?<<
I do BAT-like protocols with Leo that incorporate a bit of voluntary LAT as well (I am open to suggestions on how to tweak or change what we are doing): I put him on a long leash and we stay as far from other dogs as he needs to casually notice but remain sniffing or doing his own thing. If he orients towards a potential trigger (a dog who is approaching and who is looking at him) I wait for him to voluntarily disengage, we move away, and I pay for that behavior chain with food or play.
I will have time in the morning to practice the relaxation RC exercise and will get a video for your feedback. I have done a lot of work with Leo to voluntarily remain on the mat, but he is often trying to offer behaviors like ‘chin down’ to see if that will get me to R+ with food. I am looking forward to changing how we practice mat time based on the homework instructions so he can become truly relaxed!
thank you!
Ruth and LeoHi Bobbie,
>>I recommend you pause on entering trials.<<
Yes, we’ll do that : -)
Here are baseline videos for assignment #2, Measuring Resilience
Video #1
This is Leo at a 10 out of 10. About 6 months ago we were on a walk and came across a skateboard park. Leo became excited and by the time I pulled out my phone to video, he was over the top – in the video he is panting and vocalizing with short staccato high pitched barks. I was fumbling with both the leash and phone and wasn’t moving away fast enough, so I ended the video so we could leave. He immediately de-escalated once we got more distance.Video #2
Yesterday at agility class. We are able to park in back of the barn away from other dogs, and only one dog at a time is in the barn running, so we can avoid going over threshold at class. Today I deliberately walked him past the barn opening in order to get baseline video – when he went over threshold and pulled towards the dog running inside, he was at about 4 out of 10. Once he disengaged and we walked away, he was back to loose leash walking. I will avoid walking him into arousal going forward!Video #3
this is the video I posted earlier from a recent trial. Leo is at about a 7 here; he was not vocalizing, but he was pulling, jumping on me, and bucking around quite a bit.thank you!
Ruth and LeoHi Tracy,
happy weekend (altho the concept of a ‘weekend’ is a bit silly for anyone who works for themselves lol).Mother Nature graced us with a couple hours of sunshine for Earth Day yesterday, so I got out in flip flops again and then ditched them for bare feet.
Here are two videos for Week 6 “Rocking Horses: Turn Aways”. I didn’t have time to go to a local park, so we’re a bit squished in our front yard and it resulted in me showing some bad lines to Leo, especially for the rocking horse parts.
this is baby level Lap Turns. (“sshhhhh” is left wrap cue and “check check” is right wrap cue):
and this is baby level Tandem Turns (crum! I used the wrong wrap verbal a couple times, but I know he’s cueing more off my body language):
thank you!
Ruth and Leo>>Quad Cities
darn! location is do-able but timing is off, i’ll be going earlier in the summer.
i do have mid July on my calendar for Argus tho (hope that trip is still happening?)thx for training tips above. when i’m focused on my dog i often lose total track of where i am, and i didnt realize until watching the video how much i was crowding Leo. cones/markers on the ground (and moving the wing) are good and helpful ideas
after next week’s final live class, how long will we have to submit video? After that we will keep practicing on our own and will be back for MP3! I am having so much fun training in these classes. Leo is my second agility dog, my first BC was a puppy 10 years ago, and in retrospect she was asked to learn how to jump and organize herself at the same time we were both learning handling maneuvers, and there were many years of frustration involved. I’m so glad to be breaking it all down into smaller pieces this time ’round!
TIA,
Ruth and LeoHi Tracy,
here is Week 6 “Mission Transition!” It took me a few reps to get my timing and location down so I didn’t either pull Leo off the jump or push him around to the backside, but he was brilliant anyway.
thanks for your feedback!
Ruth and Leo
p.s. I’m planning to take Leo and visit family near Chicago/Wisconsin/Michigan this summer; do you have any workshops planned in that part of the country?Hi Tracy,
can’t wait to get out and try the RC work again with your advice above ^
It’s been snowing/sleeting/windy the past few days <eye roll> so we’ve been stuck inside until today.In the meantime, with less room to move than the open park (we’re in the neighbor’s fenced yard and working around the kids’ slide), we tried Week 6, Proofing the Get Out, both baby level and advanced (adding FC and RC).
I totally forgot to pay attention to keeping my feet going straight ahead for the Go Outs, so we’ll have to do this one again, but here are our first attempts. Half way through I changed the verbal from Get Out! to just Out! (sounded too much like our ‘Get It’ = get the thrown toy cue), and I also experimented with using both inside and outside arm (inside arm felt more natural to me):
thank you!
Ruth and Leohi,
thanks for the comments ^above!Here is Week 4, Wind in Your Hair part 2 with Rear Crosses. The audio isn’t working well in this video, so you can’t always tell, but with each rep I *was* saying ‘left’ or ‘right’ well before Leo got to the jump.
The Go-Go-Go went great, and turning right went pretty well, but turning left went poorly, so I ad-libbed a bit and did some ‘minny pinny’ type work to get Leo to turn his head left. I should probably go back to some real minny-pinny practice with dog on the ‘inside’ and turning away from me before trying this again?
thank you!
Ruth and Leo
Hi Tracy,
>>So now your challenge becomes: as soon as you see the lead change, do the next cue so your cues will be quicker and earlier.
ayup, I could feel myself struggling with that in real time, even before I got to watch it back on the videos.
should I tinker around with distance between the wings (to give myself more time), or leave as is? They were all at about 5.5-6 ish feet in the video
tx,
Ruth
