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Hi!
We did sequences 1 and 2 and the bonus sequence from the live class. It was too hot to attempt the warm-up sequences again, but I tried to apply everything you mentioned to these. specifically, I tried to keep my arms lower for the brake arms, and it felt more natural. On sequence 2 with the circle wrap at 2, I was showing her the line to the other jump. She corrected to the backside, but it took her a while to know where we were going. How should I have shown that differently from the other sequences where it WAS the other jump? I felt like if I turned my shoulders more towards the jump, it would have broken connection and gotten me an angry dog, lol.
<<Remember to throw the toy miles away here too, lots of reward was dropped near you.>>
I was successful a couple of times with this, but not every time. On the last rep, I realized I threw it really close, so I took a couple of steps back (not really on purpose, but my brain was telling me I was too close to the toy). Does that count? 😂FYI- I mislabeled the last sequence as “Sequence 2, attempt 2,” but it was actually the bonus sequence at the end.
This is our attempts at the Hot Topics from Package 2. I am obviously not at home in the video, and the sequence has already been taken down, so I won’t get a chance to do the last couple of sequences, but I am very happy with how well she did on all of these!
We had to review the German turn and the threadle wrap (which I am now thinking I called a circle wrap in the video, whoops!) a couple of times, but then we were able to apply it to the whole sequences at speed. I’m not sure how much ahead I really got doing the threadle wrap since I had to support it a bit longer than I would have liked, but we really haven’t practiced that one too much.
I did a terrible job throwing the reward away from me. I’m going to get it right at some point, lol, I swear!!
I apologize for the dog barking about halfway through. She was probably 60 feet or more away from the camera, but it sounds like she was right next to it. Ugh! She’s not my dog, so not much I could do about it in the moment. 🙃
Hi!!
We finally got to play some package 2’s games! It has been sooo hot, even in the morning. Kat also hurt her shoulder last week (wiped out pretty hard when she was being a goof), but she looks and feels good and has been given the all clear by her chiro.
This is a video of the lazy game parts 2 and 3, wraps, and “fluffy” blinds. We didn’t get to do the front cross thanks to it being hot and the rain was rolling in. We’ll try that when we do the other half of the games in this package, though. I’m most excited about the forward focus she’s giving me when I ask her to look at the jump!! That’s a skill that we’ve just started working on in the last couple of weeks with set point, and I think the lightbulb has finally turned on, and it’s transferring to the obstacle and not just her toy!
Hi!
<<She went to the other side of the tunnel at 2:14 and that is also rewardable out on the line, even though she did not make it all the way out to the jumps>>
I didn’t really think of that as a way to split the behavior, but it totally makes sense.
You gave me lots of good things to think about. I don’t know why I can’t get the reward placement thing down when I’m running my own dog! I see the right placement when other people are running, haha.
This is our attempt at the Live sequences. I have never really used brake arms purposefully before, so it felt a bit awkward to run with my arms out, lol. When I was trying to get the 180 or the wrap out of the tunnel, I got a few refusals (a couple are not included). I didn’t intend to do a front cross on the very last rep for the wrap instead of the tunnel exercise since that sort of defeats the purpose of the exercise, but it was too hot to run it again. We didn’t do the last sequence either for the same reason.
<<There were a couple of spots that I think she doesn’t fully understand the skill (see below) so in those spots you don’t have to keep going: when she gets the skill or even part of it, throw the reward to really build up the skill. That is more important than trying to run the complete sequence.>>
I rewarded her several times when she struggled to take the jump, but this is obviously still a hard skill for her. I actually played the lazy game I have set up for Katniss for Max Pup to work on this skill. I never played that with her, and I can see that being a really helpful for her. She did well with the jumps for the most part (although she did skip a couple), but she really didn’t want to go in the tunnel initially even when I was right on top of it. I really don’t get her sometimes! She was perfectly happy to go out to the tunnel in the Live sequences, but when it was super easy to get in the tunnel and I was there to support her, she wouldn’t go. She’s mind boggling, lol!
Hi!!
This is our attempt at the 2nd jumpers course from package 1. There was only one attempt that I did not include, so this was pretty much all of our work on this course.
There were a couple of spots where things didn’t go as planned, and I tried to keep going although it was tricky in a couple of spots like near the weaves since there was really nothing else to send her on a line to.
Would our “conversation” at 2:35 be an acceptable TTFJ moment? I felt like during the run I was clearly telling her to get out to that line other than the decel and eventual stopping since she would not drive ahead, and when I watched the video, I still felt like I was showing the line. After she stopped barking at me, she did go take the line like I had asked her. There were also a couple of these at the #10 jump and #11 tunnel.
I know she missed her weave entry due to poor handling and on that same rep she didn’t finish the last couple of poles.
She knocked the bar on jump #3 a few times. I felt like I started my front cross early enough to show her we were turning, but I guess she disagreed. I did the front instead of a blind because I thought it would help her collect before the jump and NOT drop the bar.
I think we’re going to move on to the Live class Brake Arm stuff next rather than trying this course again. I’m ready for something different, and I really need to mow my grass, lol. I am very interested in the Brake Arm info!!
Hi!
We played the One-step send game. I had a hard time not running too far past the tunnel, lol.
We also did the mountain climbers game. I don’t love the techniques I’ve used in the past to teach teeters, so I’m excited to try out your way! I decided I am too short to pick her up from the top, lol. She was trying to eat the cookies in my hand while I was trying to pick her up, so that didn’t help either. But she seems fine turning around on her own although I feel better if I put my hand on her to make sure she is careful with her foot placement.
Finally, we did another round of the plank games. I put the plank on cinder blocks and made sure to have her jump on and off from the middle of the board. She didn’t seem to have any trouble with the added height. 🙂
We haven’t tried the lazy game again yet (too hot to do much outside!), but we’ll give that another try soon. I will move the jump out, not give any help for the middle jump, and I’ll use some cheese. To answer your question about what “search” means, it’s typically just one cookie. I think she was just having a hard time finding the cookie, and a couple of times, I think she was finding a cookie she missed previously. I do need to work on that skill more outside of the agility context. She does not generally snuffle around in the grass while we’re working except to eat the cookie I throw.
<<The class goes into the teeter foundation and some RDW and some stopped contact foundation, so you can start with these games here and then finish the obstacles themselves later in the summer. How old is Kat? Maybe start weaves in late summer/early fall so you won’t feel overloaded at all?>>
She’ll be a year in a couple of weeks. I’m actually not even sure when I’ll get the rest of my weaves to start that training. My husband got me a set of 6 poles for Christmas not realizing I will need all 12 pretty quickly. He got the 3-in-1 Clip and Go ones that can do channels or 2x2s (I didn’t even know they existed, lol). They are a bit different than other channels I’ve seen, so I’m hoping they work well for teaching using channels (something I’ve never done before!). Unfortunately, they are sold out at the moment, so late summer/early fall might be perfect, haha! As for the teeter and contacts, I’ll do as you suggested and play the games in this class before worrying about the rest of the skills. We have just started really working on introducing jump grids anyway, so between this class, grids with both dogs, and CAMP with Nox, I’ve got PLENTY to work on, lol!!
Hi!
I was not happy with the work we did on the first jumpers course. I probably could have written most of what you said to me and saved you the time, lol. I KNOW I’m not supposed to go back and fix things, and I KNOW that it frustrates her when I stop. Yet, here we are, haha!
<<You reacted and put her into a down stay – that is likely to be perceived as a punishment to the dog >>
I can see why the dog might perceive that as a punishment even though I have used it differently than a lot of people. I’ve never yelled “down” at her like some do, and I always verbally praise her and throw cookies at her when I reset the bar. I then will often do a cookie scatter when I release her on the way back to restart. I didn’t put all of that in the video, but even with that, I suppose that it would still be negative to a dog who finds moving her body to be very rewarding. I don’t always put her a down (as in, it’s not a planned training response), and I’ve always thought of it as a way to stop the barking and keep her from leaving to run the fence and bark at imaginary dogs that could maybe possibly be outside in the neighbor’s yard. But I don’t want my training to be perceived as aversive to her, so I will stop doing this.
<<There was some confusion on jump 11 – it is a front side>>
Yep, it sure is, lol! Clearly I need to read the course map better. I thought it was a tricky line, but you’ve given us plenty of other tricky things to do, so I didn’t think too much of it. I should have at least checked the map when I was struggling with it so much, haha. (I did actually try to get her to do a threadle slice instead of a wrap in one of the attempts I didn’t include in the video, and I just couldn’t get from the wrap at 10 to the correct place in time.) It went much better as a front side. 😂
I took some notes before going out to train again (you can see them in the video as a reminder to myself for what I was working on when I watch it again later, haha). In the first rep, I didn’t show her the line to 4, and she curled in and barked at me, so I made up something else and then rewarded. She was still a little mad since she knew it was wrong, but probably not as mad as if I had stopped or argued with her about going out to the jump.
At :52, I was attempting to do a rear cross and turn her to the right, but as you know, I struggle with those, lol. She stopped, so I was able to do a wrap to the left and throw her back over the jump to go to the right instead. Hopefully this is an acceptable means to “keep going”?
She did her weaves beautifully although I’d like the threadle to be smoother to the jump after. She has a trained threadle, but it’s not something we’ve worked on for a little while. I think I was worried about getting the front side of the jump, so I was pulling her back too far before turning her instead of letting her find the line based on the trained skill.
I know she probably has the course memorized by now, and it wasn’t “clean”, but I’m still super happy with this run!!
Hi!
We moved on to the jumpers course, and it was not pretty, lol. The first attempt is broken into several parts because I kept having to stop because she was just so wound up. In hindsight, perhaps I should have ended the session and tried to do some pattern games or a snuffle or just come back to it later. She seemed extra barky and unfocused. When she screams at me constantly, it makes it difficult for me to focus on good mechanics and all the pieces of what I’m supposed to do (throw the reward far away, keep my arm back, decel, don’t decel, etc.). When I stopped her after knocking the bar a couple of times, my goal was not necessarily to mark the bar coming down but rather to try to bring her back down mentally. If she starts taking off miles before she should, it often leads to more of that if we keep running when she’s in this arousal state. I don’t think it was effective, lol.
I couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t do jump 8 until after I watched the video multiple times and then later that night it dawned on me that it wasn’t a backside for her, and that’s the verbal I kept giving her. I think she was smarter than me and was confused about what I wanted. I got the other side of the jump a couple of times (not included in the video), which would make sense for a backside from her perspective I supposed. I finally realized that “jump” or “out” would suffice and she took it without a problem. I’m not really sure why she wouldn’t do her weaves with me far away. She used to be really good at weaves from a distance even with me behind her, but my best guess is that we have spent so much time working on jump grids the last few months that we’re a bit rusty with everything else. Since she wouldn’t do them independently, I couldn’t get to the right spot for a proper threadle. I tried handling the jump as a backside, but it put me so far behind that I didn’t have time to get to the right spot for the next section after the tunnel (again, I don’t think that rep is in the video).
Hi!
We did sequences 1-3 again with your suggestions.
I don’t know why I didn’t think to use my threadle cue on jump 3 for sequences 1 and 2! I could see her head turn to the correct side of the jump as soon as I said it. 🙄
For sequence 2, I tried staying a little closer to 2 and 3, and that part went well when I was showing her enough information. However, we struggled with forward focus out of the tunnel (0:56). This is a common problem for us. I can get the forward focus on the first obstacle consistently, but I often can’t get her back off of handler focus during the run, and she just stares at me and barks while curling in. I feel like I was decel’ing and maybe that’s what pulled her off the jump, but because she was barking and staring at me as soon as she came out of the tunnel, she wouldn’t drive forward to the jump, and I ran out of room by the time we got there. I could not get her back on obstacle focus. I know I can throw or place a reward out there, but that doesn’t help me during a bigger sequence, so I’m not sure how to fix this common occurrence.
For sequence 3a, I layered the jump as you suggested, and it did work as long as I was in the right spot (imagine that!).
For sequence 3b, I tried to connect better to get a tighter turn after 5, but I’m not sure that I did a good job. It looked about the same to me, lol.
We also did sequences 4-6. I think they went well overall. I noticed she had a hard time jumping #3 in sequence 4, so I tried to give more physical support on the second attempt. She still jumped early but maybe not quite as much?? For the sequences where I did a blind after the serp opening, I think I waited too long, and that gave me a very big turn since she thought she was going to the tunnel. It didn’t feel that wide when I ran it (I guess because I couldn’t see her behind me, lol), but when I watched the video, it was very clear. I think I’m worried that she’ll knock a bar if I blind and leave it “unsupported,” but she does tend to do much better with jumping in collection on the wraps and backsides, so I can probably give her more independence in those spots.
I plan to move on to the jumpers course next rather than do another round with sequences 4-6, especially since the main point was the forward focus, and I think we have that down, at least for the first jump, haha!
Hi!
<<handling from behind as needed, so you can support jumping AND get the hard challenges AND get her to drive ahead.>>
That is exactly what I need! It’s been a difficult change of mindset for me to shift from figuring out how to get ahead of her and doing a lot of blind crosses and big lead outs to walking courses to be there to support her jumping efforts. I can do this on a jump here or there, but it’s proving difficult when it’s more than one in a row since I obviously can’t run as fast as she can.
We got started with the first 3 Hot Topics sequences. Nox is very good at looking at the first jump. I do not really know how I taught it, which is unfortunate because I’m trying to teach it to the puppy, lol! She does not always continue to stare at the jump, but she always acknowledges it if I ask her to.
The challenge we had was on the first 2 sequences, she kept taking the backside of #3. After the 2nd time, I changed the angle of 3 slightly to make it a little easier, and I set her up at 1 so that she wasn’t taking it on such a hard slice, thereby changing the line from 2 to 3. It seemed to help, but there were a couple of times when moving to the 2nd sequence where she took the backside again. I did not get these other two reps on video, which I realized when I went back to watch them, lol.
Hi!
We played the Backside Challenges game. We haven’t done backsides since they were first introduced, so it was a bit hard. She wanted to GO FAST, and the idea of slowing down to take the jump was just silly! I was able to try out the German turn and the crosses after the backside, but it wasn’t very fluent since she wasn’t really taking the backside on her own. Definitely a skill to keep working on!
Quick question about contacts. Do you have any advice for deciding if a person should train a stopped vs a running contact? Katniss is going to be quite fast I think, so keeping up with her is a concern, which makes me lean towards stopped. But I know that to be more competitive, running is preferred by a lot of people, and there’s the idea about a running a-frame being easier on their bodies. I’m not sure how to make the decision, but I’d like to start working on the foundations of one or the other soon. I know this can probably be a complicated answer, but just a brief comment would be appreciated. 🙂
Thank you so much for another amazing class! We are signed up for Max Pup 3, and I’ll be signing up for Camp with Nox. Can’t wait!!
Hi!!
This is the Smile Face: Tunnel Threadles game. We admittedly have not worked on tunnel threadles in a while, and we didn’t spend much time on them. I had one session before this one where it did not go well, so I abandoned the game and went back to the baby level of putting her near the tunnel entrance and just using the verbal with a collar grab. That went pretty well so a couple days later I incorporated it into this game again. It was definitely hard, partly because she doesn’t know the threadle well enough and partly because she doesn’t seem to have a grasp on the difference between a turn and a wrap verbal yet. I tried my best not to rotate towards the tunnel, but I did catch myself doing it a few times. I did not do the whole sequence since I didn’t think she was ready for that yet.
We did the Accordion Grid. I wasn’t sure what her spacing should be now since the last suggestion you gave for the ladder was to go to 4.5 feet, but she’s grown taller and gotten more strength since then. I tried her at 5 feet, but I’m wondering if that’s a good starting place. There is a food bowl with a pre-placed cookie at the end of the line; it’s a bit out of the frame on some of the reps.
Hi!
I am able to move quite a bit better, so I tried out a few more games. Although I posted 4 of them here, I would mostly like feedback on the last video. The others went really well!
This is the Get Out proofing game.
This is the Zig Zag, Part 2 game. She did great with it! The hardest part was not anticipating the stay, which I need to reinforce more before releasing her.
This is the Wind in Your Hair Game- Mission: Transition.
Finally, this is the Rocking Horse Turn Aways Game. I think my arms were a bit flaily (apparently that’s not a real word, lol), especially on the tandem turns. She still figured out what I wanted for the most part as long as I was not on her line. It went pretty good overall, but I’m not very familiar with lap or tandem turns, so I’m less confident in my mechanics.
Hi!
<<Or, the universe is making sure you take your time, no rush 🙂>>
Stop attacking me, lol!! In all seriousness, though, we took a couple days off from any training, and then when she was bouncing off the walls, we did some trick training. I was able to walk without much pain after a few days, so we got back to work on some games.
This is Layering Foundations. It went really well!!
This is the Concept Transfer: Rear Crosses. We still suck at rear crosses, lol. I think I just better plan to always be ahead of this dog somehow so I never have to do a rear cross on course. 😂
Hi!
I’ll keep working on the rear crosses!! I’ll figure it out one day, haha.
This is the Diamond Game. I felt like the “tight” blinds in the beginning were not as tight as they could have been, but I think I was late in showing the cross since I wasn’t trusting her to commit to the wing before I left.
In the moment, I really thought she was getting distracted by the toy in the race track reps, but after watching the video, I think it was a connection issue (surprise!). I also don’t know what the heck I was doing with my arms, lol. I was attempting to use regular connection as opposed to extreme connection, but it seems that I ended up with flailing instead. I KNOW I should have given her the toy or a reset cookie at least and then either stopped or made it easier. This poor puppy! I think the sequences went well at least.
I managed to injure myself at a trial this past weekend (it was such a beautiful premier jumpers run with Nox until 3 jumps from the end, ugh!). I think it’s just a bad strain, but I can’t run just yet. I had already recorded this video before I did that, but I’m hoping I can play some of the remaining games before the end of the class. I know some of them would work, like the layering game, for example. But I might be doing some of them on my own sadly. Between being sick so many times this year (thanks to the germ factory I work in, i.e. a school), the weather, and now this, I think the universe just doesn’t want me to train this pup, lol!
Hi!
We did the Wind in Your Hair game with rear crosses again. It definitely went better than the last time thanks to your feedback. It was still uncomfortable for both of us, though, I think. I really wish I could have gone to your rear cross workshop that you did at LU!! There was one spot where I messed up and then didn’t reward her. 🙁 I kept a funny blooper at the beginning just because she’s cute and makes me laugh, haha. Clearly I need to keep using a leash even in the backyard!
This is the serp and threadle proofing game. It went really well overall! I could see the wheels turning in her head on this one, lol!
