[Gaby B]

Hi Tracy,
I looked at the 2 repeater course options. The FastTrack course is intended for pups 9 months and older and since Carly is just now 6 months old, the obvious choice is Supersized course. Unless I’m mistaken (please correct me if I’m wrong) the Supersized course is the same course we’re currently in.
So, what I think I’m going to do is continue catching up in our current course, taking all the time she and I need to learn the games, and then in the Spring take the Max Pup 2 class. I know I won’t have the ability to upload videos for critique after mid December, but I feel that we’ll be able to finish it on our own, and be ready for Max Pup 2 in May. The weather should be a lot nicer for going outdoors to play games then too. Carly is not impressed with the snow. She says “I’m from Florida, what is this stuff??”
Thanks for all your help, have a wonderful Holiday season, and we’ll see you in the forum in May.
Gaby

[Gaby B]

Thanks. I’ll keep you posted.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Gaby

[Gaby B]

Hi Tracy,

A couple of things….
First, there have been a few bumps along the way with my knee replacement surgery (Nov 14) and recovery, so unfortunately I won’t be able to attend Friday’s workshop at LevelUp. My recovery isn’t going nearly as well as PoweR’s mom. But I hope to take one of your workshops in the near future.

The other thing….something you mentioned in the live classroom last night about repeating this class or the variation of it. I wanted to get your thoughts on what would be most appropriate for Carly and me. Carly just turned 6 months old, and between her health scare a few weeks ago, my unexpected hospital stay, and now the knee replacement we’re about 4 weeks behind in this class. I want to get it right with her foundation training, I’d rather take it slow and do everything correctly and not focus on how quickly we can get through everything, if that makes sense. On the other hand, she is a quick learner, and I’m fairly confident that once I can get back to training (hoping for next week in limited capacity), we could catch up before MaxPup 2 starts. Thoughts / Recommendations?

[Gaby B]

Played the Rocking Horse Game outside today. I tried to incorporate transitions, slow and fast, not sure how well I handled it; she went wide on the left wrap both times. Video below:

We also worked on the threadle game and the Go-Out game. Videos below:

[Gaby B]

<Fantastic! I knew the find-the-jump element would be super easy for her so I love that you worked on the other elements too! You can keep doing this, and take it outside so you can add more distance. Bring the Cato board outside too!>
Weather was nice and backyard dried out enough where I could take her out and play the Parallel game; brought the Cato board out too. There were lots of distractions … wind, hammering behind us, but for the most part she was able to work through it.

[Gaby B]

I think we’re making process on the Parallel game. I’ve introduced her to the “Station (cato board), and she really likes it. So we start at the station, go to the start of the game and return to the station afterwards. She gets a high value reward (chicken) for coming back to me after taking the jump bump.
Video:

We also did our first attempt at the Rocking Horse game. Same routine…start at station, play the game, get reward and end at station. I think she did pretty well for the first attempt, I could see that she questioned it a little. We’ll practice more.
Video:

Thank you for the tip on an end-of-work routine. Definitely don’t want her to play keep-away after a run; I’ve seen that happen many times, especially with green dogs. I’ve started giving her high value treats any time I put the leash on, paired with the verbal “leash”. I will also surprise her with more training following putting the leash on, in future sessions.

[Gaby B]

So earlier today I was grooming one of my older boys and as usual when I groom I have Carly in the room with me. I always put out different fitness equipment to let her explore. Today I had the wobble board, the rocker board, and the donut with donut holder out. She checked them all out, but all of a sudden I see her with her front paws on the donut, and her back feet moving to her left then to the right all the while having her nose in the donut hole LOL I’ve done some back end awareness with her, but not anything that involved the donut. I so wish I would have had my phone to video it.
Just when she frustrates me with her anticipation, she amazes me in other ways.

[Gaby B]

Some video’s from tonight’s training session:

As soon as I took the leash off…I guess I shouldn’t have named her Carly (Simon) “Anticipation” lol

Still anticipating in the beginning, but not ping-ponging and making some good choices:

Some videos from the barrel game:

[Gaby B]

Thanks so much Tracy. You’re absolutely right, it makes it very hard not to get frustrated and to feel like I’m having a productive training session.

< And just to be sure I know what is happening: once the ‘work’ begins, she keeps doing the work work work work work work even when you are trying to reset her to come to you> Yes, that’s exactly it.

I will try playing with reward value and also the station behavior. I’m actually already working on teaching her a “Set-up” (sit between my legs) and will incorporate that as well.

Thank you for the videos and suggestions. I’ll keep you posted and send videos.

On a side note — I saw that you are coming to LU for some workshops. I can’t do a working session with the new knee, but was thinking of auditing one of the workshops. Thoughts?

[Gaby B]

I need some help with maintaining connection. What happens in every training session is that Carly starts running in circles and cutting behind me. This starts as soon as we enter the training room. So now, I put a leash on her before we walk into the room. But as soon as we start playing the training games, for example, on the Parallel path games, she will ping-pong back and forth without connecting with me. I’ve tried calling her name as soon as she gets the tossed cookie and she will come but only after making a quick circle around me.

Also, on a side note just to let you know….we’re a little behind, first Carly was sick a few weeks ago, and then I became ill and hospitalized for a few days, and we’ll be even more behind as I’m having knee replacement surgery on November 14th.

[Gaby B]

I don’t know why links to the YouTube videos won’t save in the message. But here are the embedded videos:

[Gaby B]

I decided to put out the regular regular tunnel instead of the rainbow play tunnel, and Carly had no problem with it at all. She likes the tunnel, but LOVES the Manner Minder LOL. When I brought her out into the yard and she saw the tunnel and MM, she immediately went through the tunnel and made a dash to the MM.
She wants to go back through the tunnel to come to me, so I really had to move off to the side to call her, and have a high value treat (hot dog) in my hand.
I also noticed that she does not like to be restrained by the collar or chest. Instead of the opposition reflex, she just sits down. I don’t know the best way to handle that.

Here are some short video clips from our session today:

[Gaby B]

Box question….what size PVC did you use for your box?

[Gaby B]

The toy races are looking strong! After you won the race on the 2nd video here – what happened on the next rep? Did she win by a mile? You can throw the toy even further to see how far ahead of you she will drive 🙂

Yes she did. I will try to throw it further in our next session.

Rainbow tunnel: Her breeder (Janet Barber, Jandale Shelties) had one like it in her puppy play yard. Probably why Carly likes tunnels so much. Hoping it will transfer to the regular tunnel.

[Gaby B]

Trying to resend videos.

Race to toy videos:

Tunnel videos:

Hopefully these will come through.

[Author]

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