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Hello!
Thanks for the info about the Max Pup classes! I will let my friends know about the other options!! I didn’t know you’d let people upgrade to newer versions. That’s pretty awesome! I’d love to have access to the new version of Max Pup 1! I purchased it a while back to do with Nox, so I did it as self-study with Katniss before enrolling in the live version of 2. I know you added some resilience-based games to the newer version that I’d be interested in. 🙂
We played the tunnel threadle and tandem turns game from package 7. I refreshed the tunnel threadle (not in the video) a few times before I started the first session, and after that, she did REALLY well with this skill! For the “tandem turn,” I used the threadle wrap verbal since I wasn’t really turning with her, so I’m hoping I did that correctly. I suppose there might be a time and place to use an actual tandem turn, but it seems like the threadle wrap produces a more efficient line for the dog (and tells them earlier where the next line is) and gets the handler out of there earlier. Based on your previous comment about tandems turning into threadle wraps, I decided to go ahead and use the wrap here.
Hi!
<<One suggestion for her is to start her further back so she has more room to take off for jump 1. She has a strong stay (yay!) so you can put her 10 feet away from 1 for now so she can take a big stride before takeoff.>>
That will be a big adjustment for me setting up a dog at the startline! I always put Nox close enough that there isn’t a stride before the first jump. She’s much less likely to knock the bar if I help her out with the take-off doing this. I will try to remember for Katniss, though!
Katniss and I have tried the double crosses game a couple of times since I tried it with Nox at your workshop. It was still really hard since she’s so darn fast, especially since there’s no hang time for a jump in the middle to give me just a bit more time. It seems the key was to move the last wing out just a little and do a few reps so she’s not quite as fast. 😂
This is the zig zag grid. It went pretty well (as long as she looked at the jump, lol).
Also, I had a question about the self-study Max Pup classes. I know that you update and add to the classes each time you run them live. Do you ever replace the ones available for self-study to reflect the new content? I have a friend who is hopefully getting a puppy soon, and since you are getting ready to run Max Pup 1, she won’t be able to do it live until the next time it goes live, which will be a while I would assume. Another friend (Kristin with Tala) wants to do the Max Pup 3 as independent study, but I know she was hoping for the updated version rather than buying the older one (I compared the list of lessons to this current class, and there do seem to be quite a few differences, at least in the names so I’m presuming content as well). I just wanted to be able to tell both of them if they might wait for new versions or if those are the only ones that will ever be available. Thanks!!
Hello!
I finally got to run another set of sequences with Nox! With school starting back up last week, everything has gotten crazy (including the dogs, lol)!!
We worked on Hot Topics from package 4. I videoed at least a couple of “walk” throughs for each of the 4 sequences, so the video is a bit longer than usual. I ran the first one a couple of days before that I didn’t include because the video quality wasn’t good (was getting dark), so technically we didn’t do the one-and-done on that one. The issues we had from the reps not included were dropped bars. She was taking them ALL out. Unfortunately, you really couldn’t see enough detail to see why.
Hi!
Thanks for all the tips on the teeter games! We’ll keep working on that for sure. I have the whole teeter class in my self-study library, but I’m thankful for the feedback since we need to make some adjustments. I love her confidence, as you mentioned, but some of her antics scare me, lol. I do plan to go back and do the whole class once this class is done (or perhaps Max Pup 4 depending on how much time I have to do the classes now that I’m back at work. Boo! 😂).
We worked on the lead outs in package 7. They went pretty well overall I think!
We also did the Turn Aways game from package 7. These went better than I thought they were going to since we haven’t done many turn aways together, and I’m pretty new to them myself. You can definitely tell that I had to think about what I was doing a few times, haha!
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<<Teehee! It is my job to bug everyone about that LOL!!>>
I just wish I could have you at all my training sessions to tell me in the moment to reward the dog and to keep going, haha!!
We played the Bang Game again. It still needs a lot of work!
We also tried the angled entries game. It was… nerve wracking, lol. Is there anything I should be doing to make sure this game is safe for her? She wants to get the board as fast as possible, so she’s jumping the boards. I know that once the teeter is trained, I’ll want her to run to the end at speed, but it kind of freaks me out when she’s stopping so fast in the air. As you will see in the video, there was one time when she just jumped off the end to get the cookie she dropped. There was a lot of face palming in this session, lol.
Hi!
<<When that happens, don’t stop there and withhold reward. Keep going and reward the next thing, because all errors are handler errors 🙂>>
HA! I knew I was going to get called out for that as soon as I did it, lol.
The screen grabs are super helpful! It’s easy to see the difference.
For the double crosses game, I completely messed up the directions on that! I watched the video and took notes, but by the time I got outside to play, I guess I jumbled it all up in my head. I could not figure out how I was supposed to get both crosses in that fast and why on earth I would want to, lol. I watched the videos of the instructions again, and then I tried running it; it still went very poorly. I got some help from a friend today, and although I understood what I was doing wrong, I still couldn’t get the timing right. I’m going to try to fit in one more session of the game this week, which I will post if I get time to try it again. That is a HARD game!!
We played the serpentine games. I think they went pretty good overall. This is almost our entire training session; I took out most of the clips of us tugging since that takes a pretty good amount of time (way more than the actual training in a session!).
Hi!
<<If you leave too soon and she doesn’t take the jump, just keep going as if she did. That will ultimately be more useful for teaching commitment because you can reward somewhere else for taking jumps, rather than stopping and rewarding when she barks at you and doesn’t take jumps.>>
That makes a lot of sense! I will keep trying to break this bad habit. I think if she didn’t turn in to me and scream at me, it would be a lot easier to make something up on the fly, but I feel like I’m going to trip on her, and it’s so hard to get her to look back at the obstacles once things go poorly. I’ll keep working on it, though!
<<Also – is ‘back’ your verbal for both the backside slice and backside wrap? If not, remember to use your backside wrap verbal at 16 🙂 If so… we need to get a backside wrap verbal added to help her know the difference.>>
Sooo…. No, she does not have a separate verbal for wrapping. Nox is the first dog I’ve had who even had a backside, and when I learned it, I didn’t know anything about having two verbals. Katniss is learning both. I do want to transition to having separate ones for Nox, but when I’ve tried just sneaking the new verbal in, she is like, “What the hell does that word mean??” and gets mad, lol. I need to break it down and teach the cue outside the context of a course. I’ll be adding that to the list of things we’ll work on this fall/winter.
We ran in an AKC trial this past weekend and had a BEAUTIFUL FAST run (78 points!)! Unfortunately, the livestream wasn’t up yet at LUDS, so I didn’t get a video of it. We had a decent Premier Standard run other than a poorly executed blind cross that caused a knocked bar and a pissed off sheltie. 😂 Then we had a really nice Excellent Standard run, which is in the video below. Unfortunately, she lost her footing on the dog walk right before the ending, and she ended up jumping off. Thankfully, she landed on all 4 feet and was nice and low to the ground, so I don’t think any one joint took too much impact. She was ready to keep going and seemed fine (the chiro that checked her out agreed)! But, the reason I’m including all of this in my post is to say that I had multiple people approach me throughout the day to tell me what a difference they have seen in Nox and to say they can tell how hard we’ve been working. I owe so much of that credit to you. 😊
Trial VideoAnyways! Here are our attempts at the Package 4 Standard courses. I walked the first course a bunch and then videoed myself running it a couple times. Unfortunately, my phone was getting full and all I got was me walking to the start line, lol. I deleted some things, but I knew if I ran it several more times, I would not have been able to do as good of a job actually running Nox as if I was fresh, so I did just one more run-through before the real thing. She took the dog walk instead of the 2nd tunnel, and that made it really hard to keep going, so we did start over after a short break. I totally forgot to turn on the camera, so I only have the final attempt. There were I think 2 runs that didn’t get videoed in the middle.
For the 2nd course, I was training with friends, and I didn’t want to video them walking the course, so I only have the one run-through of myself before the real thing. Other than one spot, this run was really good! I started her over in the middle to clean up that one section.
Hi!
We will keep working on the bang game to make it more fluent. I love how confident she is with hopping on it!
We played the Tight Blinds to Wraps game. I think I was a bit late on several of the turns, so I got wide turns. It’s been interesting to figure out the timing for Kat, who actually has much better commitment in a lot of situations than Nox. But of course, she’s still a baby, so I also never know what I’m going to get, haha.
Wingin’ It: Tight Blinds to Wraps
This is the Double Crosses game. These were fun and challenging!
Hi!
*I’ve posted slightly more than the 5 minute cap. We only ran the 2nd course two times, and it went pretty well once I cleaned some things up on the 2nd round, so please feel free to focus feedback on the first run.
We took another shot at the Jumpers course from package 3. I think my biggest issue on the 2nd and 3rd runs last time was I was physically tired. I had mowed the grass, moved everything, and then set the course before running her; this was also on a day last week that was pretty hot. I clearly don’t have realistic expectations, lol. Good lesson to remember, though! Don’t run if I’m exhausted or it will be a disaster, haha.
<<I think that is too long of a lead out into a blind for her to be able to visually process your position and her jumping >>
I’m positive that this is why she knocked the bar. Any time I am ahead of her, a bar down is much more likely. I have to drastically change how I run courses with her because of the physical support she needs on jumps. If she wasn’t so darn fast and opinionated, it wouldn’t be so hard. As you know, she wants me to be right there by her jumping, but she also gets mad when I can’t keep up with her and tell her where to go next. And she doesn’t like countermotion, so I have to wait longer than I’d like to before leaving in a lot of situations. In this opening, I don’t think it made too much of a difference, but I do think I could be farther down the line to show the threadle wrap if I was able to do the blind since it keeps me in motion. I also felt like I had to wait longer to move so that she didn’t bypass jump 2. It always drives me crazy when people do a nice long lead out and then just stand there until the dog gets to them and then they’re no better off than if they had run with the dog. That’s what I felt like I was doing, haha. Since we were turning back the way we came eventually, it wasn’t too big of a deal.
On the first run, I stopped after the tunnel because she had a pretty nasty fall on the jump prior to it. She landed on her head, and I wanted to make sure all of her body parts were still attached. They seemed to be, so we did continue with training. I think this goes back to the issue I just mentioned with me being ahead. I don’t know that I could have connected any better with her being as far ahead as I was or I’d have been running sideways like a crab, lol. But if I waited for her to catch up, I would have been so far behind for the next line.
She did much better with the threadle wrap at 7. I did the middle of the course a couple of times that I didn’t include video of where that wrap was really nice. And even when the turn was wide as in the reps I did share, I was happy we weren’t getting a refusal, and I know we can tighten that up with practice.
<<She had questions on 9: you were sliding her then flipping away on the flat and it was not that clear so she barked at you 🙂 You can clarify that line for her by doing a blind cross (German turn)>>
That was how I wanted to run it, but I couldn’t ever seem to get there on time because of the big straight jumping line before it. I was worried about leaving her to sort out the jumping on her own and take out the bar right before it since that was an issue on the first round I submitted. I did finally manage to get one in on the last rep, though! Even without it, I think I turned her a bit better on the flat most of the time.
Around 1:45, I was attempting to use brake arms because on some of the previous runs, she turned very wide and thought she was going in the tunnel. I really don’t want to discourage any forward drive that she shows me, so I’m really trying to get the hang of brake arms so she knows ahead of time where she’s going, not to mention it’s obviously better on her body to know earlier. Brake arms are still very new to me (just learned about them in camp a few weeks back!).
On the second attempt, when she got to the weaves, she saw a butterfly and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to chase it, lol. You can’t hear it in the video, but when I was looking at her after she came back, I was asking if she thought was going to actually catch the butterfly this time. She seemed pretty convinced it was a definitely possibility and next time she’ll try harder. 😂
We also did the jumping 2 course from Package 3. The first run was a little messy, but it had some good parts, too. I only ran it a total of twice because I thought the 2nd run went so well! I was late connecting on the blind before the tunnel, which gave us problems the first time as well. I wasn’t confident about doing a blind there, but there was no way she would have turned away after the tunnel and then layered that jumping line on her own. I thought about turning her on the flat after the tunnel and then running with her for the jumps, but I thought I’d be too far behind at that point. There was really only one other problem spot towards the end on the backside before the last tunnel. I actually walked it with the threadle wrap and even practiced just that wrap with her before running the whole thing, but I got on the wrong side for it twice, lol.
Hi!
<<And the cats were not helpful LOL but she seemed to be able to ignore them really well>>
They are always in the middle of EVERYTHING, so she is pretty used to it. She has no qualms about shoving them out of the way, lol.
We did another session with the lazy contact game (no video), and it went pretty well, so we applied it to the teeter bang game. It was a bit messy at first, but I was able to do one rep with a lure and then she seemed to understand it was the same game. I have a question about the target. How important is it that she actually touches the target? I’m assuming she needs to so that she’s not just starting at me, and it keeps her body forward??
We tried the tandem turns again and added on threadle turns. They are definitely challenging, but I’m pleased with how well she did. I tried to keep my arms lower this time, and some of the turns were definitely better!
Hi!
I hope Crusher is ok and will be on the mend soon! It’s so hard when our pups are not feeling well. 🥺
Rather than drag a crate around the house or outside for the discriminations game, I used a Cato board since she has a pretty good stationing behavior on it and likes that game quite a bit. She seemed to get the hang of the game pretty quickly. I was mostly excited about this game because I had a reason to use my tiny 4′ tunnel that I bought a few months ago, lol! Katniss thinks having a tunnel in the house is just about the coolest thing ever. So that you don’t think I ignore your advice 🤣, Nox was in another room even though she sounds like she was right next to the camera, haha. She’s just really loud, and dogs going through tunnels gets her very excited.
We also played the Lazy Contacts Game. She is starting to understand the concept. I am still undecided about what contact method I will use with her for dog walks and a-frames. I will do a stopped teeter contact, though, so this game is valuable to us even I go with running for the others.
Hi!
<<But when you are not working the trading places skill, trying white noise or leaving music on so she can’t hear (and can’t see) along with anything that is rewarding with her in a crate might help her relax so frustration doesn’t build up.>>
Unfortunately, there’s not much that’s going to drown out Nox. 🤣🤣🤣
<< No more rewards from your hand! Getting the reward on the line and off your body will make a huge difference in her understanding of completing the turn.>>
You can see in the video why I don’t like to throw the reward as much as I should, lol. I am at a loss for getting her to bring the toy back without a victory lap first. In this case, since we weren’t at home, she did a lap and since she got near the fence and found a dog in its crate that she wanted to be friends with. The dog was showing her all of its teeth and clearly telling her to go away, but she just wiggled her butt and entire body at her. She is more likely to bring it back after the first few reps, but I really need it on the first rep! I’ve tried just working on bringing it back in a non-agility context, but that is more of the same (if not worse since there’s no “agility” to be rewarded with). I sometimes let her win our tug sessions, but she again runs away with it. It’s very frustrating!!!
We also played the tandem turns game. I started with a cone in the house and then took it outside to a wing. I think it went pretty well!
Hi!
We tried the 3rd sequence with the layered opening from Live Class 2. It went really well the first time! I shouldn’t have tried it a second time, lol. I was playing around with where the best place to stand was for the lead out, and I decided it was not where I was the second attempt, haha. Sorry about the barking dog in the background. 😕
<<she totally thought you were NUTS on the first couple>>
Well, she’s probably not wrong!! 😂😂
I will work on breaking down the tandem turns and threadle wraps skills. I did throw in one threadle wrap in the big jumping course we tried. It went about as well as you would think… 🫣 I couldn’t figure out a better way to run the course without the wrap at the time. I think I might try it again getting on the other side of the #6 tunnel and doing a backside wrap to a blind. I’m not sure if I’ll get there in time, but I think I’d have a better chance of making that work than the threadle at this point.
Hi!
<< It is highly unlikely that she is relying on it, and more likely that you are in a rhythm of timing the verbals that is a little late and coinciding with her takeoff moment.>>
I can’t believe you’re suggesting that I might sometimes be late with my verbals! I don’t think that’s ever happened before! 🤣🤣🤣 I unfortunately don’t think I videoed that particular run when the comment was made. I can’t find it anywhere.
We did the Hot Topics from Package 3 again the other day (I finally got around to editing the video, lol). I did a few reps of training the threadle wrap opening. I have a few more reps than 4 since it was just the opening and there aren’t multiple reps of the other sequences; I hope that’s ok since the threadle wrap is what we’re struggling with. We still need a lot of work on this skill!! I wanted to go back to the baby level of teaching this skill, but I couldn’t find it in any of the Max Pup classes. I honestly can’t remember if I’ve done it with Katniss yet, lol. Is it in one of those classes??
ETA: Nevermind! I was taking notes for the other half of the Wingin’ It games, and I see the threadle wrap games, lol. I’m thinking I should start with the tandem turn game and then go to the threadle wrap? Nox did not go through the Max Pup classes since I didn’t discover them (or you for that matter!) until after she was already well into her training. I really wish I started her as a pup with all of these games, but like I tell my students, you don’t know what you don’t know! 🙃
<<The reward placement will help a whole lot there: as soon as she turns away to the jump (especially on the threadle wraps), throw the reward to the landing side as you start to move forward. You were rewarding, but the reward was on the takeoff spot and near your feet >>
I tried really hard to get my reward placement better in this session!! For the threadle wraps, I threw the toy behind me (although sometimes it ended up somewhere crazy off to the side, haha). I was still getting a lot of barking and stopping from her. Watching the video, I think I see why I’m having a hard time timing the throwing the reward; you said to throw it as soon as she turns away to the jump as I move forward, but she doesn’t ever turn toward or even look at the jump. In the first rep, she only looked the correct direction at 0:08, but there was already stopping, barking, and frustration at that point. Should I be throwing the reward as soon as we reach the wing so it’s more of a lure that I can fade out by delaying it as we progress? Again, I think I really need the baby levels of how to teach this one. 😁
For the big straight lines, I threw the reward pretty far away before she looked at me. 🙂
<<The canine PT folks and massage people say they feel the difference in the dogs when they do too many circle wraps, and they want us to train them at lower heights and do fewer reps.>>
This is good to note!!
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<<Will Katniss chew a bone or lick a lickimat or eat from a toppl or kong?>>
No, she gets too stressed. She’ll eat it and it’ll keep her quiet unless I’m actually working Nox. If my husband is home, she can hang out with him in his office with her favorite obnoxious grunty pig, but he’s not always home when I am training. And he won’t go sit in the car with her piggy with me when I go other places to train. I don’t know why not! LOL!
<<(Taping it closed is VERY important LOL!!! Ask me how I know about the importance of taping it closed :))>>
HAHAHAHA! So far she hasn’t figured that one out yet. Yet being the key word, lol.
We will keep working on the contact games!!
We did the first half of the Package 4 Wingin’ It games. These games were a good test of my connection, haha! They went well overall. I did have to break down the circle wrap skill a bit, but that didn’t surprise me since we really haven’t done too much with them yet. We got through the ladders with 3 wings.
