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Good morning!
The lazy game and the tunnel game are looking good! He is already looking ahead more and not at you as much. I think what will seal the deal for looking ahead is using a ‘get it’ marker to indicate that you have thrown the treat. He is a bit torn between looking at the line and looking at you to see if you have thrown the treat, so adding that marker will help him know where to look at all times. And you can also work the connection on the Wingin’ It games.> He already knows 2o2o, so that is the easy answer if we can train him to stop in a trial setting. But I am thinking Bandit will probably thrive on running contacts down the road. So training Copper on running now will be a great tutorial for when we start working with Bandit since I don’t know the process for training running contacts. I would keep the 2o2o for the teeter only for Copper if we move to running.>
This sounds good! And working the 2o2o for the teeter will also provide a good fall-back for the dog walk if you decide you want Copper to stop on the DW too. It is perfectly fine to change your mind at any point LOL!
I am looking forward to tomorrow!
Tracy
Welcome back! I love how Torch could make the rocker board move AND play family feud all at the same time!
(Watermelon is the answer to the first question on the board, obvs).
Torch did a great job with the rocker board here! She seemed a little shocked at how easy it was LOL!! You can add in tugging so she smacks it around even when she is more excited. And if there is a noisier floor, you can see how she does with slamming it on the noisier surface.
Great job here!!!
Tracy
Hello and welcome back! I am glad to hear you got to a puppy seminar and also had him in a lesson with Jess! Very cool! Sounds like he is doing brilliantly 🙂 It is hard to find young dog seminars that are not all threadle -backside-threadle-backside-threadle-backside 🤣😂so I will keep you posted when I hear about good ones in your area!
>Anyway, he saw the chiro today and looked really good. I see more settling at home.>
Yay! How is his GI system feeling lately?
> Still stimulated by the windy days but seems to have a bit more control as you can see in the videos above.>
Yes, teenagers are definitely distracted by movement in the environment and looking at the jumping videos… I think he was getting bored by the end of each session and looking around more. It was the same thing over and over, even thought the distance/height was a little different. So to keep him from looking around or getting bored with the repetition, you can break any jump grid session in half. Do a rep or two, then go do something else, then come back for another grid rep or two. They don’t need to be done in a row. Also, there is a LOT of jumping in this class so you don’t need to do grid work every week.
He workde out the new height on the videos here really well and the stay looked good too. Super! Rather than add more height at this point, focus on adding more distance to jump 3. You can start with it 8 feet away for example, then go to 12 then 15. And then when you revisit it a week or two later, start at 12, and so on. That will build him up to 25 feet eventually and then it becomes relatively easy to work up to full height too.
On the rear cross video – he is definitely understanding the rear crosses!!!! For this exercise, hanging out at the wing longer til he has basically finished the wrap (like you did at :52 and 1:15 and the last rep) helped set up better RC info. You were trying to send him past you though, which meant you took a step or two to the straight line then started the RC info. That was causing him to look at you before doing the RC. So as he is exiting the wing wrap, you can accelerate directly to the center of the bar and let him drive past you 🙂 We have more RCs coming in this class will will probably feel smoother and less like you have to wait for him to pass you.
Great job! Have fun!
Tracy
Good morning! I think this is going well! One thing I see here is that she is tracking the location of the treat as part of the indication of where to go. That is why she was waiting and looking for treats a bit. No worries! We can help her know that it is about the prop (or ignoring the prop) with a small tweak:
You can take the treat out of the cue arm on both the get out and the go-straight reps. That way it is not in front of her and she can’t really lock onto it.
For the get out reps, the treat can be in the dog side arm because it is the outside arm cueing the behavior. Then when she gets to the prop, the dog side arm can toss the treat.
For the go straight reps, the dog side arm can be empty and you can be walking forward and looking at her – then when she comes to you, the opposite arm can toss a cookie ahead.
Nice work here! Have fun with the family!!
Tracy
Hi!
Working spots are unlimited! And it will be a small fun group because Fast Track was small – the Supersized class is a lot bigger. If you feel like you want more MaxPup 1 time without pressure to get things done, we can hop you into the Supersized class which gives you another 10 weeks to play games 🙂 Then there will be a Maxpup 2 class after that as well. Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Sorry to dump, I guess I just need some encouragement as this point.>
Dumping and venting is always welcome!!!
About the verbals:
> Therefore I minimize my verbals to over, easy (for collection), GO (to move ahead), tunnel, walk it, teeter, turn (for rears), dig dig for wraps. I try to use my body language more so that I don’t screw them up with the wrong word. >
I think these are perfect!! And if you find that as his career progresses you need more… simple! We add another one. That way you won’t feel like you need to train 20 verbals all at once. You might consider a ‘jump’ verbal which is as simple as it sounds: take the jump 🙂 It has become important because there are so many jump-tunnel discriminations nowadays.
>Also this new puppy is not very high drive so I think that I’ll be able to help him more by being closer.>
I think he is a normal boy dog: he is in his Thinking Era so you aren’t seeing any insane levels of motion towards the obstacles. He is regulating his arousal really well and he is processing the info as he learns. But once he understands something, the speed comes naturally.
This is what happens with most of my boy dogs and I LOVE it so much – they start off their early training as thoughtful and not that fast… I always get worried that they might be slow or have low drive. But then as they grow up, the learning locks in and they add the speed without losing their ability to think on course. So the end result is a fast dog who also listens and doesn’t get over-aroused. It is LOVELY and makes agility so much easier for us both. I think Mojo is just like that! Fun times ahead!!
>That being said, I do need help with him reading me more without verbals. Do you have any suggestions for me with this issue?>
With or without verbals, connection is absolutely key to handling: looking at his eyes pretty directly and not pointing at obstacles or looking ahead of him. So try to emphasize your connection and play the handling games that are fast and fun like the tunnel rocking horses 🙂 You can challenge yourself to run silently (ok, a tunnel verbal is fine 🙂 ) and emphasize your connection and position. And if he gives feedback by looking at you too much or missing an obstacle, it means he needs more connection as you move to the obstacle.
In general, if we are properly connected by looking at the pup as we move, they read the line really well and commit nicely! If we are *not* looking at them or connected enough, the dogs tend to look at us for more info.
>I’ve had a lot going on recently and have to admit that I’m pretty burned out. All of my dogs have been retired early due to injuries and my last young dog who is now go on four had to be rehomed last summer due to serious aggression and fighting with my other dogs, which was completely heartbreaking! >
Oh no, I can totally see why you are burned out and tired! That really sucks 🙁 Totally understandable to feel that way.
>Also my puppy, Mojo, has been diagnosed with moderate laxity in his joint capsules, so we don’t know if or when he will develop hip dysplasia. >
UGH! That is news you certainly didn’t want or need. He is coming up on a year old, yes? I am hoping if there is laxity now but no dysplasia, then the PT work will help avoid any dysplasia. We would likely already see dysplasia at this stage if it was going to be severe or career-limiting so I am glad you are doing the exercises!
And I am guessing the PT people said you can continue training for agility as long as we keep it to age-appropriate stuff which we are doing anyway. I am sending vibes for great outcomes here and you are totally on the right track.
>I’m working with a top canine physical therapist and have to do his exercises 2-3 times per week in addition to his training.>
That can feel overwhelming! There might be PT stuff that matches what we are doing so you can feel like you are doing all the training without actually needing separate sessions 🙂 Let me know and we can sort it out so you can do plenty without feeling overwhelmed or burned out by it all.
Keep me posted!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Resilience games at the trial went better than I expected. >
Yay! Thank you for the update, I was thinking of you this weekend!!
>We started with the very basic start of the game out in the parking area (smells, but not many dogs or people), then progressed through multiple mini-sessions through the weekend until we were just outside the barn where people and dogs were regularly walking in sight. For the most part she would observe, then check right back in to continue the game. >
Excellent job! You really set her up for success!!!
>She only had two moments in which I couldn’t get her attention while she reacted and both times were in response to a reactive dog barking and scaring her (we were VERY far away, so I’m not sure what I could have done to prevent it). >
I can see why she would have had big emotions about that! That is not unusual for a teenage dog 🙂 2 ideas for you:
– from the training perspective, you can introduce her to the challenging trigger of reactive dog barking by finding some barking videos on YouTube (there are a million of them if you search for ‘barking dogs’). It the volume goes from 1 to 10, put the video volume on 2 then play pattern games on the other side of the room. If that is too hard, try it in a different room! As she gets better and better, you can turn up the volume and also use different videos.
– in the moment, the best thing to do is get her outta there if there is a big explosive trigger. You can simply turn and go the other way or leave the building, taking her with you. Then when you are much further away, throw a bunch of treats on the ground for her to sniff around for – that can help reset her and calm her down after a big upsetting moment.
>I will still absolutely consider this weekend a win for her.>
Totally yes! Happy dance!
The shpile game was very easy for her! She seemed to have no trouble at all transitioning back to offering behavior on the objects even when she was more excited from the tugging. That means you can make it harder! You can add more challenge by stacking the various stuff up on top of each other more so there is more movement. That will really challenge her balance and gets her having to think about where to put her feet even more.
The get out game was also really good! She had no questions about moving to the prop, good girl!! She was hitting it a bit better on the first side (when she was on your left) but that might have been more about you adding movement. You can make the cue bigger and more obvious by giving very direct eye contact as you show her the hand cue too – that gets your shoulders showing the line really well.
You can add in balance reps where you have her move with you without giving her the ‘out’ cue – can she ignore the prop until it is cued?
I think the hardest part on both sessions was getting her to play with the toy after a bunch of treats, so you can make the toy wilder: drag it, squiggle it around, get it really active so she can’t resist it 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Air conditioning for the win! We finally did a session of Turn & Burn in the house and he was WILD!>
Yes! He was very engaged and those were really high quality reps! Yay!
My only suggestion on those is to line him up and connect before the send even when he is wild – getting him to your side will help you make that eye contact. This is important on the right side in particular when he wanted to face you then self-barreled 😂 😆 You can even try a boring cookie to help with the lining up
>Then we switched to food in my hands and it was clearly less fun than the toy.I agree, the food reps were good but not as spicy as toy reps – were they right after the toy session? You might get more excitement with food if you use it first or in completely different sessions (different times of day, or different days).
For indoor a/c sessions, you can do multiple reps with the toy – 5 or 6 reps will be plenty! For outdoors, even if it doesn’t feel hot… it is hot. So maybe go for 1 toy rep then switch to cold food for a few more reps. His heat tolerance will build more but so will the heat, so we will be careful when training outside. I think the humidity also plays a role, so that might be part of why he gets hot even when the temperature don’t seem hot.
>Should I do a session of the handling combos inside next?>
Yes – FUN! And rocking horses (see below).
For the stays:
He is making very good progress with the stays here! And he seemed very happy to offer sits and stays 🙂To keep getting more duration, you can click later – move away a couple more steps, then click and throw the cookie. You can also replace. The click with the ‘catch’ word – they basically serve the same function except that ‘catch’ is more specific about where the cookie will be.
>to say catch before I throw the treat.>
Yes – you can say it at any point as you move away then toss the cookie.
>I feel like I need to do more of week 4. What do you think?>
You can mix things up a bit – since turn and burn is going really well, yo can look at the rocking horses in week 6. And all the handling games and prop games build on each other, so you can pick and choose based on what feels like fun 🙂 He is doing well with everything!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Is there a shortcut to get to the end of the videos when posting the most recent one? Needless to say, each time it takes longer to scroll through all of the ones I have posted.>
The number of videos do make it a little longer to load – I will ask the tech folks if there is a way to reverse the order. The other option is to create a new “Rusty Part 2” thread for the 2nd half of the class 🙂
Excellent job with the get out game!
On the 2nd side (starting dog on left) you held the cue longer, keeping the arm in position and maintaining the eye contact. He was very confident with his responses on those reps! When you had him on your right for the first part of the session, you gave the cue then lowered the get out arm – on those reps, he went near the prop but didn’t interact with it as well and was looking at you more. So the arm cue staying visible longer really helped.
One suggestion: Since he did well with the ‘stay with me’ reps at the end, you can mix in a lot more of these balance reps throughout the session. That will challenge him to really watch and listen for the cues.
For the next steps:
>I think I need to take it into the garage where I can get more lateral distance and where my thrown treats don’t end up under stuff at the edge of the room like they were doing in my bigger room which is why I moved here.>
Yes – a bigger space will give you more room, and if the weather is cooperating you can take it outside. Adding more room makes thrown treats harder to see, so that is where you can use a lotus ball to deliver the thrown treats. It will add a little more time between reps but that is fine because the easy reward delivery will make up for it.
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning!
The ‘out’ game went really well! He responded brilliantly to the difference between the out and the not-out 🙂
Only one suggestion:
When you cue the out, look very directly at this eyes: the super direct eye contact will turn your shoulders to the line which ends up being a powerful and natural cue. Looking at the prop is not quite as strong as looking at him.He also did well with the serps! And the toy play added a nice element of fun and challenge – he had to ignore the to in order to get it 🙂 Super!
One suggestion: Try to get the serp hand in position separately from the release – you can extend it then quietly praise or wait a few heartbeats, then use your release verbal. I think you were saying ‘go’ but your normal release word will be more effective because ‘go’ means to go straight and we are turning him here.
For the next step, you can put the toy on the ground right below the reward hand – he will have to come in to the serp hand then go back out to the toy on the ground when you say ‘get it’. If the toy on the ground is really hard, you can start just by dangling it 🙂
>I was going to try removing the hand target when I realized how long we went. >
Good call, he was a little tired by the end. You will see the target fade itself out when the reward goes on the ground. He will start to side swipe the target as he does the serp in-then-out motion and that is GREAT! It is exactly what we will want as we start adding more motion.
>I know the toy play adds time and does make it longer but need to make sure I don’t over do it with him.>
If you are not recording, you can put on a pop song that you like and end the session when the song ends. Most pop songs are 3 minutes so it is perfect! It is hard to record with a song though because YouTube strips the sound out. Boooo! But that is when I set a timer on my phone.
>Question for retrieving. Dublin loves to retrieve his tugs but the harder items all of a sudden he is having trouble. I question if it is his teeth since he is losing more. Is it common for the to retrieve one type of toy but not others. Might be something I am doing.>
Yes, it is normal for dogs his age to retrieve certain objects and not others. I think you are seeing him in a sensitive stage where his mouth is ouchy. So you can skip the harder objects for now and come back to them later. If we put too much pressure on him now, he might lose his love for the harder objects which we definitely don’t want to do 🙂
Great job here!
Tracy
Yes – even one new place a week is good! And when his arousal level was higher, it was higher in a good way. His engagement and focus were sharpened! He didn’t look worried about the environment at all 🙂
Have fun!
Tracy
Welcome back! It was fun seeing you on Sunday!!!
I think Sól REALLY liked this course!! Wow! She is locking onto the lines brilliantly! When you tackle the lazy game, feel free to spread the distances out more and more 🙂 I am excited to see more!Tracy
Hello and welcome! It is really fun to see Copper playing these games!
Lazy game 2 and 3: He is finding the jumps indeed! Yay! Note how he is looking at you here, so we want to get him looking forward at the jumps and using only peripheral vision to watch you – ideally, he never turns his turn to look at you. When the dogs look forward at the jumps, they are faster, jump better, turn better, and don’t get mad at us LOL!!
So to do that, you can reward sooner: when he is committing to any part of the line, throw the cookie while he is looking forward and before he even gets to the jump, Spread out when you throw the cookie: sometimes for the last part of the line, sometimes for the beginning, sometimes the middle, etc – always trying for when he is looking forward.
And it is worth re-visiting the Part 1 game, to get him looking forward there too. That is a great setup to reward early so he is looking forward for all of it.
He seemed to really like the lazy game adding the tunnel! Fun!! We can get him looking at you less here too and barking less -the barking is generally a signal from the dogs that they are mad about something. I think he was saying that the connection was not clear enough here. So while he did stay on the line, he was also giving feedback, good boy!
A couple of examples where you can increase connection by looking at him more:
– on the sequence from :22 -:25, you were looking forward and pointing at the line but not looking at him. He was barking and he also hit the wing of the middle jump.
– At :35 he exited the tunnel and stopped for a heartbeat to look at you before proceeding (you were looking ahead and pointing ahead) He got the line but was watching you instead of the line.So with this lazy game setup, try moving along the line (rather than sending) and don’t say anything or point at anything… just look at his eyes. It will feel weird and you will be cursing me hahaha If you are connected to his eyes and moving, he will actually look at the jumps better (and you can throw the reward while he is looking ahead). And I bet he barks less!
The contact setup looks good! He was doing a 2o2o here on the dog walk… but looking at you 🙂 That is going to be a big Copper goal: getting him to understand things so independently that he doesn’t need to look at you (and it will be built into Bandit’s training :))
Since he was doing the 2o2o here – have you decided on a 2o2o on the dog walk? Or do you want to do the running dog walk?
The 2o2o on the dog walk is easier to train and easier on their body. But the running dog walk is a thrill, for human and canine! And we can set up the training so it is not hard on him (only hard on the humans LOL!) And it is definitely possible to have a running a-frame and a 2o2o on the dog walk and teeter. Let me know and we will be ready to start!Great job here!
Tracy
